Down The Toobz

Iraqis honor George Bush

2009-01-30T16:44:00.002-04:00

Bush finally got his statue in Iraq. Who says Muslims don't have a sense of humor?

Lessons in capitalism

2009-01-25T14:42:00.004-04:00

So I guess this is how trickle-down economics is supposed to work.

In early 2008, just as Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was preparing to slash expenses, cut thousands of jobs and exit businesses to fix the ailing securities firm, he was also spending company money on himself, senior people at the firm say.

According to documents reviewed by The Daily Beast, Thain spent $1.22 million of company money to refurbish his office at Merrill Lynch headquarters in lower Manhattan.

Asshole.

Viral e-mail rant

2009-01-22T13:14:00.009-04:00

I was reading through my e-mails this morning when I came across one from an acquaintance with a subject line that ominously read, "Cell Phone Numbers Go Public Next Week". Curiosity got the best of me, so I opened it up and saw this:

Cell phone numbers will be released to telemarketing companies next month! Get on the "Do Not Call" list.

Cell Phone "Do Not Call" list REMINDER.... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls.

.... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222 ..
It is the National DO NOT CALL list . It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number.

HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

My very first thought was, "this sounds like complete bullshit." So I spent all of 30 seconds looking it up on "The Google" and discovered that this e-mail has been circulating the Internets in various forms since 2004.

It really amazes me that otherwise intelligent people still fall for this kind of crap. Ok, I admit that I did fall for one of these once years ago when I received an e-mail from a friend that stated confidently that all e-mails would be taxed starting next month because the USPS had to make up for lost revenue because the Internet was taking their business and everyone needed to call/write their congressperson to complain, and then forward the message to everyone they knew. So naturally, I contacted my congressman, who replied within minutes with a form letter that stated,

You know that saying about a sucker being born every minute? Go take a look in the mirror. SUCKER!! It's no wonder that schmucks like me can keep getting elected to do the bidding of corporate and foreign interests at your expense. You'll believe anything! I'll bet you're still waiting for that check from Bill Gates and think that Nostrodamus predicted 9/11.

Ok, I am taking some license with the response, but that was the gist.

Any of you who have been forced -- through threat of termination -- to take an online computer security course by your employer will immediately suspect this to be an instance of social engineering. In this particular case, you would be right.

The originator creates a plausible-sounding story and sends it to his friends, counting on the fact that recipients will see that it is from a friend and think, "well this is from so-and-so and s/he would nevah evah lie 2 me, so it must be legit. OH NOES!!!1!ELEVEN!!! These telemarketing bastiges will be calling me all the time now, even when I'm trying to have teh sexOrz!! And I'm going to get charged for it!! I'd better do what it says and then send this to all my bestest friends and relatives so they can be prepared, too, ZOMG!!!!"

Please, the next time you get an e-mail that makes some outlandish claim and ends with a request that you forward it to your friends, take a few seconds to verify it. Just Google the subject line. You'll save yourself from feeling like an idiot after you've sent it to 100 people if it turns out to be a hoax.

8 years of Bush in 8 minutes

2009-01-17T12:11:00.004-04:00

Keith Olbermann sums up some of the most egregious acts in American history perpetrated upon the world by George Bush and the Republican party (a.k.a. - The Party that Wrecked America™). For those who only watch Fox News, all of this will no doubt be new to you. If you have actually been paying attention for the past eight years, then this just serves as a trip down memory lane.

Here's the full transcript in case the video is disappeared:

George Walker Bush.
43rd president of the United States.
first ever with a criminal record.
our third story tonight,
his presidency: eight years in eight minutes.
early in 2001 the U.S. fingered Al Qaeda
for the bombing of the USS Cole
Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke
had a plan to take down Al Qaeda.
instead by February the NSC
had already discussed invading Iraq,
and had a plan for post-Saddam Iraq.

by March 5 Bush had a map ready for Iraqi oil exploration
and a list of companies.
Al Qaeda?
Rice told Clarke not to give Bush a lot of long memos.
not a big reader.

August 6, 2001
a CIA analyst briefs Bush on vacation:
"Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."
Bush takes no action tells the briefer—quote
all right, you've covered your ass now.

next month Clarke requests
using new predator drones to kill Bin Laden
the Pentagon and CIA
say no.

September 11th
Bush remains seated for several minutes
to avoid scaring school children
by getting up and leaving.
he then flies around the country
and promises quote a full scale investigation to find
those folks who did it

Rumsfeld says Afghanistan does not have enough targets
we've got to do Iraq.
when the CIA traps Bin Laden at Tora Bora
it asks for 800 rangers to cut off his escape
Bush outsources the job to Pakistanis
sympathetic to the Taliban
Bin Laden
gets away

in February General Tommy Franks tells a visiting Senator
Bush is moving equipment out of Afghanistan
so he can invade Iraq.
one of the men who prepped Rice for her testimony
that Bush did not ignore pre 9-11 warnings
later explains quote we cherry picked things
to make it look like the president
had been actually concerned about Al Qaeda
they didn't give a bleep about Al Qaeda

July and Britain's intel chief says Bush is
fixing intelligence and facts around the policy to take out Saddam
January 03
Bush and Blair agree to invade in March
Mr. Bush still telling us he has not decided
telling Blair they should paint an airplane in UN colors
fly it over Iraq and provoke a response
a pretext for invasion

the man who said it would take several hundred thousand troops
fired
the man who said it would cost more than a hundred billion
fired
the man who revealed Bush's yellowcake lie
smeared
his wife's covert status
exposed
the White House liars who did it
and covered it up
not fired
one convicted
Bush commutes his sentence

then in Iraq, stuff happens:
Iraq's army, disbanded
the government de-Baathified
200,000 weapons, billions of dollars just
lost
foreign mercenaries immunized from justice
political hacks run the Green Zone
religious cleansing forcing one out of six Iraqis from their homes
Abu Ghraib
the insurgency
Al Qaeda in Iraq

other stuff does not happen:
WMD
post-war planning
body armor
vehicular armor

the payoff?
oil
and billions for Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies
while Mr. Bush denies VA healthcare to 450,000 veterans
tries to raise their healthcare fees
blocks the new G.I. Bill
and increases his own power with the USA PATRIOT Act
with the Military Commissions Act
public orders exempting himself from a thousand laws
and secretly from the Presidential Records Act
The Geneva Conventions
FISA
sparking a mass rebellion at the Justice Department

secret star chambers for terrorism suspects,
overturned by Hamdan v Rumsfeld.
denying habeas corpus,
overturned by Boumediene v Bush.
200 renditionings
sleep deprivation
abuse

Rumsfeld warned in 2002 that he was torturing
that it would jeopardize convictions
out of 550 at Gitmo
hundreds ultimately go free with no charges
dozens are tortured
eight fatally
three are convicted

on U.S. soil twelve hundred immigrants rounded up
without due process
without bail
without court dates
without a single charge of terrorism

it wasn't just Mr. Bush no longer subject to the rule of law
he slashed regulations on everyone from banks to mining companies
appointed 98 lobbyists to oversee their own industries
weakening emission standards for mercury
and 650 different toxic chemicals
regulators shared drugs
and their beds
with industry reps
the Crandall Canyon mine owner told inspectors to back up
because his buddy, Republican Mitch McConnell
was sleeping with their boss
McConnell's wife is Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
her agency overruled engineer concerns about Crandall Canyon
and was found negligent
after nine miners died in the collapse there

Mr. Bush's hands off
as Enron blacks out California
doubling electric bills
after months of rejecting price caps Mr. Bush bows to pressure

the blackouts end

Mr. Bush further deregulates commodity futures
midwifing the birth of unregulated oil markets
which just like Enron jack up prices to an all time high
until Congress and both presidential candidates call for regulations

and the prices fall

deregulating financial services and lax enforcement of remaining rules
created a housing bubble
creating the mortgage crisis
creating then a credit crisis
devastating industries that rely on credit
from student loans to car dealers

firms that had survived the Great Depression could not survive Bush
those that did got
seven hundred billion dollars
no strings, no transparency
no idea whether it worked

unlike the auto bailout
which cut workers' salaries.
a GOP memo called it
a chance to punish unions

but Bush failed even when his party and his patrons
did not stand to profit
investigators blamed management cost cutting communication
for missed warnings about Columbia
Bush administration convicts include
sex offenders at Homeland Security
convicted liars
every kind of thief in the calendar
and if you count things that were not prosecuted
the vice president of the United States actually
shot a man in the face

the man apologized.

Mr. Bush faked the truth
with paid propaganda in Iraq
on his education policy

tried to silence the truth about global warming
rocket fuel in our water
industry influence on energy policy

politicized the truth of science at NASA, the EPA,
the National Cancer Institute, Fish and Wildlife
and the FDA

his lies
exposed by whistleblowers from the cabinet down
"complete BS" the treasury secretary said
of Mr. Bush on his tax cuts.

Rice's mushroom cloud
Powell's mobile labs
Iraq and 9-11
Jack Abramoff
Jessica Lynch

Pat Tillman
Pat Tillman again
Pat Tillman, again.

the air at Ground Zero
most responders still suffering respiratory problems.

global warming
carbon emissions
a Clear Skies initiative lowering air quality standards
the Healthy Forests initiative increasing logging
faith based initiatives
the cost of medicare reform
fired US attorneys
politically synchronized terror alerts

the surge causing insurgents to switch sides
that abortion causes breast cancer
that his first recession began under Clinton
that he did not wiretap without warrants
that we do not torture.

that American citizen John Walker Lindh's rights
were not violated
that he refused the right to counsel

heckuva job Brownie
some survivors still in trailers
New Orleans still at just two-thirds its usual population

the lie that no one could have predicted the economic crisis
except
the economists who did
no one could have predicted 9-11 except
one ass-covering CIA analyst
or thirty
no one could have predicted the levee breach
except literally
Mr. Bill
in a PSA that aired on TV a year before Katrina

Bush actually admitted that he lied about not firing Rumsfeld
because he did not want to tell the truth.
look it up.

all of it
all of it and more leaving us with
ten trillion in debt
to pay for 31% more in discretionary spending
the Iraq War
a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut

median income down two thousand dollars
three-quarters of all income gains under Bush
going to the richest one percent
unemployment up from 4.2 to 7.2 percent

the Dow, down from ten thousand five hundred eighty seven
to eighty two hundred seventy seven
six million now more in poverty
seven million more now without health care

buying toxic goods from China
deadly cribs
outsourcing security to Dubai
still unsecure in our ports
and at our nuclear plants
more dependent on foreign oil
out of the international criminal court
off the anti ballistic missle treaty
military readiness and standards down

with two unfinished wars
a nuclear North Korea
disengaged from the Palestinian problem
destabilizing eastern european diplomacy with
anti missile plans
and unable to keep Russia out of Georgia

2000 miles of Appalachian streams
destroyed by rubble from mountaintop mining
at his last G-8 summit,
he actually bid farewell to other world leaders
saying quote—goodbye from the world's greatest polluter

consistently undermining historic American reverence
for the institutions that empower us
education, now "academic elites"
and the law, "activist judges"
capping jury awards

and Bin Laden?
living today unmolested in a Pakistani safe haven
created by a truce endorsed and defended by George W. Bush

and among all the gifts he gave to Bin Laden
the most awful, the most damaging not just to America
but to the American ideal
was to further Bin Laden's goal
by making us act out of fear rather than fortitude

leaving us with precious little to cling to tonight
save the one thing that might yet suffice:

hope.

Is it live, or is it Memorex?

2008-09-28T09:00:00.005-04:00

Here are excerpts from Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric. Which ones are real, and which one is the Saturday Night Live spoof? Sadly, it's difficult to tell in some places.

McCain Wins Debate!!

2008-09-26T14:36:00.005-04:00

Aw dang, those pesky Republicans went and spoiled the ending. Now what I am supposed to do tonight?

What is the bailout really about?

2008-09-26T10:21:00.007-04:00

Something that's been noticeably absent from all of the fear-inducing rants about the absolute need to ram through Congress a bill to throw $700,000,000,000 at Wall Street to save them from themselves is any substantive discussion of why that specific amount of money? What will it be used for? What will we, the taxpayers, get in return for mortgaging our grandchildrens' futures? Treasury has already told us that that number was "not based on any particular data point" and that they "just wanted to choose a really large number" (how very like the Bush administration to use their "gut" in place of real analysis), which should be enough to set the "terrist threat level" to "severe with sprinkles on top".

Devilstower and Hunter over at DailyKos have been asking these questions and the conclusions they reached are very disturbing. Here's Devilstower's take:

"This crisis was brought to you by subprime mortgages. We know that because we're told it many, many times each day. So how big is the problem?

The total value of all home mortgages has risen steeply over the last few years as the housing bubble drove home prices up and lax lending rules roped more people into the pool. Home mortgages were valued at $7 trillion in 2003 but were up to $11.1 trillion by last year.

How many of those were "subprime?" It depends on how you define it. Funny thing: the initial definition was loans that didn't meet Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac qualifications, meaning that those institutions shouldn't be holding any subprime loans. But as a term, subprime is now more often applied to any loan where either the applicant's credit fell below the mid-range of "good" or where the lender did an abbreviated credit check. That kind of loan really came and went rather quickly. They were 8% of loans in 2003, topped out at 20% of loans in 2005 and 2006, and were back to 3% of loans in 2007. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, $139 billion of subprime loans were handed out in the last quarter of 2006, but this was down to $14 billion in the matching quarter of 2007

Now the real question: how many of those loans are in trouble?

Foreclosures were up a steep 79% in 2007, reaching just over 1% of mortgages. The numbers are up again so far in 2008 (though not as steeply). We could top 2% in default this year or next. There are some expectations that foreclosures could triple from today's historically high levels, meaning ultimately 3% of mortgages could be in trouble.

And that's where we get that math problem. 1% of all mortgages -- the amount now in default -- comes out to $111 billion. Triple that, and you've got $333 billion. Let's round that up to $350 billion. So even if we reach the point where three percent of all mortgages are in foreclosure, the total dollars to flat out buy all those mortgages would be half of what the Bush-Paulson-McCain plan calls for.

Then we need to factor in that a purchased mortgage isn't worth zero. After all, these documents come with property attached. Even with home prices falling and some of the homes lying around unsold, it's safe to assume that some portion of these values could be recovered. In the S&L crisis, about 70% of asset value was recovered, but let's say we don't do that well. Let's say we hit 50%. Then the real outlay for taxpayers would be around $175 billion.

Which, frankly, is a number that Wall Street should be able to handle without our help. After all, the top firms on Wall Steet payed out $120 billion in bonuses alone between 2000 and 2006. If they've got that kind of mad money, why do they need us to step in now? And why do they need twice as much as all the mortgages that are even likely to implode?"

So there's a little problem with the math. Would that mean that this really isn't about the subprime collapse? Hunter explains.

"...despite what we've been told, then, we can only presume that the problem is in fact not all the bad, scary subprime mortgages. And it's not. Yes, a lot of people are finding themselves upside-down on their houses right now, but Paulson isn't proposing we do squat to solve that -- and even the "controversial" Democratic counterproposal, that we actually do at least a little something to help those people, after they've already gone bankrupt, is pathetically weak.
Instead, we're getting a Wall Street bailout not of the mortgages, but of the absurd, speculative, economy-wrecking derivatives based on those mortgages, derivatives that investors and banks ravenously sold each other at unsupportable and quite-probably-crooked prices. Those derivatives, generally speaking, are "bets" on the state of the underlying mortgages. And they didn't just bet wrong -- they bet irrationally, based on presumptions of near-zero risks to those underlying mortgages. And worse, the big banks even -- bafflingly -- got special permission to overleverage themselves 40 to 1, all but assuring collapse if those derivatives went south. Which they did.

Fine, then, but how is that self-induced bubble an unweatherable economic crisis for the rest of us? Yes, those banks may fail -- as they should. It'd be a crime if they didn't, given their mismanagement of their accounts. But the real problem is that those banks are, literally, too big to be allowed to fail. Their failure would present a liquidity problem for the rest of the market. They can do anything -- they could even burn money on the street -- and the strong preference of government would be to bail them out for it, because the alternative is financial chaos.

The subprime mortgages aren't the problem. And the overleveraged firms shouldn't be a problem. The problem is keeping the rest of the economy afloat no matter what happens to the firms in trouble."

So we're being lied to. This bailout has nothing to do with the subprime market as we're being led to believe. This is about the smoke-and-mirrors derivatives market. It was an elaborate Ponzi scheme that allowed the same assets to be used as collateral for different investments many times over. So where do we go from here?

False dichotomy

2008-09-25T09:47:00.008-04:00

So Dubya was all over teh teevee last night mongering fear. Again. The sky is falling (even though the economy was strong just last month) and something drastic must be done. Everyone knows the story by now: we absolutely must give $700 billion to Henry Paulson immediately so he can save us all from imminent disaster, nevermind that he helped create this whole mess in the first place, both as CEO of Goldman Sachs and as Secretary of the Treasury. It's the way Republicans do government: they allow the people who create problems, due to either gross incompetence or willful action, to determine and implement the solutions to the problems they themselves created. If Paulson gets his way, what he will do with this money will be left to his sole discretion, and Congress won't even be allowed to ask because we're told that doing so would hinder the recovery process. Or something.

The choices are clear, Bush and his merry band of thieves are telling us: we must either give a huge pile of American taxpayer dollars to Wall Street -- even to the banks and investment houses that have been successful, and to foreign banks -- so they can continue the party, or they will wage a scorched earth campaign on the economy. This is a false dilemma. We are going to have a major recession as a result of their planned meltdown and there's nothing we can do about it. Giving $700 billion to Wall Street won't prevent that. This raid on the treasury is just Dubya's parting gift to the ultra wealthy. It will also have the effect of preventing the next president from pursuing his agenda since there simply won't be any money left because the "fiscal conservatives" have bankrupted the entire country. By the way, that $700 billion figure, by Treasury's own admission, was pulled out of someone's ass because they just wanted to choose a really large number.

I say don't give them a damn penny. It's their mess, let them clean it up. The fact is, Wall Street neither needs nor deserves a bail out. Many smart financial experts, including Warren Buffet, warned years ago that derivatives were "financial weapons of mass destruction", but their words were ignored because they were immensely profitable. Wall Street is trying to use this crisis (and it really is a crisis) to further increase their already massive wealth when we pay for the clean up. These people are flush with cash.

Just last year, Wall Street’s top five financial firms — including names such as Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns — awarded $39 billion in bonuses at a time when stockholder value in those companies fell by $74 billion.

Read that again: $39 billion in bonuses were paid to Wall Street's top five financial firms last year. And now they say they need a bailout? I don't think so. They're just holding a gun to our collective heads. This is nothing but extortion, plain and simple.

A recession is coming. Giving more money to Wall Street will do nothing but prevent those of us most affected by their greed from weathering the coming storm.

Did Palin have affair with husband's business partner?

2008-09-24T16:16:00.003-04:00

I've never bought a copy of The National Enquirer in my life because they are just not a reliable news source. However, they did nail John Edwards' affair. Could they have another scoop?

No less than three members of the man’s family including one by sworn affidavit have claimed that Sarah Palin engaged in an extramarital affair with husband Todd’s former business partner, Brad Hanson.

I report. You decide.

MOAB

2008-09-23T16:49:00.003-04:00

Dear Congress:

I ran up $5,000 on my credit card betting at the dog track. Can I have $700 billion too?

McCain is every neocon's wet dream

2008-09-20T11:14:00.005-04:00

Gabriel Nathan Schwartz was a delegate to the Republican party national convention. This means he is your typical wingnut. He's not just any wingnut, however, he's a neocon. He's the kind of wingnut who thinks George Bush is a misunderstood genius. And Schwartz loves him some John McCain. He has masturbatory fantasies about a McCain presidency that go something like this:

In an interview filmed the afternoon of Sept. 3 and posted on the Web site LinkTV.org, Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency.

"Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should "bomb the hell" out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.

Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources.

"We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement."

So there you have it. McCain means more bombs, more killing, more American imperialism. Our economy, which took a huge interest in the "homeland defense" industry under Bush, will turn into an all-out war economy under McCain. And his base drools as the prospect.

Palin busted lying by ABC

2008-09-19T21:48:00.002-04:00

OMG Sarah Barracuda got so PWNED!!!!!!1!ELEVEN!

An internal government document obtained by ABC News appears to contradict Sarah Palin's most recent explanation for why she fired her public safety chief, the move which prompted the now-contested state probe into "Troopergate."
Fighting back against allegations she may have fired her then-Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, for refusing to go along with a personal vendetta, Palin on Monday argued in a legal filing that she fired Monegan because he had a "rogue mentality" and was bucking her administration's directives.
"The last straw," her lawyer argued, came when he planned a trip to Washington, D.C., to seek federal funds for an aggressive anti-sexual-violence program. The project, expected to cost from $10 million to $20 million a year for five years, would have been the first of its kind in Alaska, which leads the nation in reported forcible rape.
The McCain-Palin campaign echoed the charge in a press release it distributed Monday, concurrent with Palin's legal filing. "Mr. Monegan persisted in planning to make the unauthorized lobbying trip to D.C.," the release stated.
But the governor's staff authorized the trip, according to an internal travel document from the Department of Public Safety, released Friday in response to an open records request.
The document, a state travel authorization form, shows that Palin's chief of staff, Mike Nizich, approved Monegan's trip to Washington D.C. "to attend meeting with Senator Murkowski." The date next to Nizich's signature reads June 18.
Last week a legislative panel approved a subpoena for Nizich to be interviewed by Stephen Branchflower, the prosecutor hired to conduct the Alaska Legislature's inquiry into Troopergate. The Attorney General informed the Legislature earlier this week that Nizich and other state employees subpoenaed in the matter would not submit to interviews.
Nizich did not respond to a message left Friday afternoon.
In Palin's court filing Monday to stop an investigation by her state Personnel Board she earlier had requested her lawyer, Thomas V. Van Flein, included numerous emails from her staff expressing confusion and incredulity over Monegan's planned D.C. trip. None of those emails were sent by or to Nizich, although he was cc'd on several.
Contacted Friday, Monegan confirmed the travel authorization was to pursue funding for the anti-sexual-violence program. He said the travel authorization form was completed in a fashion consistent with practice, even though it showed no expenditures. The signed form approved the travel, he said, and authorized him to use a government credit card or seek reimbursement for expenses he incurred during the trip.
Monegan said he didn't know why Palin's chief of staff approved a trip that confounded her other aides. "It sounds like it's a breakdown of communication internal to the governor's staff," he said.
The McCain-Palin campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Now we're socialists?

2008-09-19T15:52:00.003-04:00

After years of Republicans telling us how bad government is, that regulation stiffles the market, and that everything needs to be privatized, the market has destroyed itself. So the Bush administrations answer is, naturally, for the government to buy up the corporations whose greed had caused them to collapse, and to pay billions more for them than they are worth.
This is a pivotal moment for America’s economy. Problems that originated in the credit markets — and first showed up in the area of subprime mortgages — have spread throughout our financial system. This has led to an erosion of confidence that has frozen many financial transactions, including loans to consumers and to businesses seeking to expand and create jobs. As a result, we must act now to protect our nation’s economic health from serious risk.

Bullshit. These problems just didn't happen out of nowhere and they could have been, and were, predicted. Milton Friedman must be laughing hysterically right now. This is nothing more than a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy. You and I are paying for this shit. The people who caused it are leaving with golden, multimillion dollar parachutes. The same people who caused this problem are still viewed as the wise and serious people who will save us from their crimes. Why is the federal government in the commercial banking, investment, and insurance businesses now? Does this mean that once these companies recover, they'll be "sold" at bargain prices to corporate interests?

Why is Texas being ignored?

2008-09-17T21:43:00.002-04:00

In case people aren't aware, Hurricane Ike left devastation in its path that is not being covered due to a media blackout ordered by the Bush administration. There is absolutely no excuse for this situation. These people are in trouble and need help from their country. There is no power or water, and little gas and food. This needs much more national attention.

Before:

After:

Republicans: the party that wrecked America

2008-09-15T12:56:00.005-04:00

They need to be branded with this every day between now and the election. Republicans: the party that wrecked America.

It turns out the real hurricane blew through Wall Street last week, not Galveston. This morning, Manhattan is strewn chest-deep with the debris of banking and at this hour (seven a.m.) nobody knows how far, deep, and wide the damage will spread. The fear, of course, is that we are witnessing a classic "house-of-cards" or "dominos-in-a-row," situation, and that the death of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch will cascade into a generalized collapse of the entire consensus of value that supports mediums of exchange.

At least one thing ought to be clear: this has happened due to the negligence and misfeasance of the regulating authorities, namely the Republican Party, and that now all the hoopla surrounding Sarah Palin can be swept away revealing that group to be what they actually are: the party that wrecked America.

[...]

Some group of somebodies will have to clean up this mess. Moving toward a major election, it is hard to imagine the American people giving the clean-up task to the very group that created the mess -- no matter how many cute little faces Sarah Palin can make on TV. Both parties have so far managed to ignore the gathering crisis of banking and money, but they can't ignore the sequoia trees crashing down around their ankles and shaking the earth they stand on.

At issue now will be the question of legitimacy in all its human social dimensions. Is our money legitimate? Is the authority of our elected officials legitimate? Are our values and ideas legitimate? These are the things that will determine what kind of future we find ourselves in.

John McCain wants us to believe that he will fix the problem:

"We will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. This is a failure."

However, let's remember who enabled this and how it was done.

If McCain wants to hold someone accountable for the failure in transparency and accountability that led to the current calamity, he should turn to his good friend and adviser, Phil Gramm.

As Mother Jones reported in June, eight years ago, Gramm, then a Republican senator chairing the Senate banking committee, slipped a 262-page bill into a gargantuan, must-pass spending measure. Gramm's legislation, written with the help of financial industry lobbyists, essentially removed newfangled financial products called swaps from any regulation. Credit default swaps are basically insurance policies that cover the losses on investments, and they have been at the heart of the subprime meltdown because they have enabled large financial institutions to turn risky loans into risky securities that could be packaged and sold to other institutions.

Lehman's collapse threatens the financial markets because of swaps. From Bloomberg:

Bond-default risk soared worldwide as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. sparked concern than the $62 trillion credit-derivatives market will unravel....

Lehman, the fourth-largest securities firm until last week, has been one of the 10 largest counterparties in the market for credit-default swaps, according to a 2007 report by Fitch Ratings. The market, which is unregulated and has no central exchange where prices are disclosed, has been the fastest-growing type of so-called over-the-counter derivative, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

"The immediate problem is the derivative default swaps market, in which a plethora of institutional accounts and dealer accounts are at risk,'' Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California, said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio yesterday. "It induces a tremendous amount of volatility and uncertainty.''

Barclays Capital analysts have estimated that if a financial institution with $2 trillion in credit-default swap trades were to fail, it might trigger between $36 billion and $47 billion in losses for institutions that traded with the firm. So the Lehman fiasco--caused in part by the use of unregulated swaps--could lead to ruin elsewhere in the economy.
Gramm is responsible for the rise of the wild and woolly $62 trillion swaps market. And he was chairman of the McCain campaign and a top economic adviser for McCain--until he dismissed Americans worried about the economy as "whiners." After that comment, McCain dumped Gramm. But was Gramm truly excommunicated from McCain land? Last month, he attended a meeting of McCain's top supporters in Aspen, Colorado. And at a dinner that day, McCain singled out Gramm for praise. Last week, failed Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul revealed that Gramm, now an exec for Swiss banking giant UBS (which also lost billions of dollars due to subprime loans and swaps), had recently called him as part of a McCain effort to win Paul's endorsement. Paul turned Gramm down.

Given that today John McCain once again said that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong," I think it's clear that he doesn't even recognize that there is a problem. His campaign is being run by lobbyists, but he wants us to believe that he'll be a reformer? I simply cannot understand why anyone who isn't filthy rich supports this guy. Given what happened today, I can't see why even wealthy people support him.

Quote of the day

2008-04-09T16:38:00.002-04:00

From Jon Stewart. This would be funny if it weren't so serious.

It’s all sort of ironic, when you think about it. When you fly, you are inspected quite thoroughly. Whereas the plane itself is perhaps occasionally vacuumed. See, with this administration, if a passenger blows up a plane, it’s a failure in the War on Terror. But if a plane just blows up on its own, eh, that’s the market self-regulating.

I want my country back.

The Bush decision making process

2008-03-15T12:28:00.004-04:00

I about popped a blood vessel in my head after reading this today:

President Bush said Thursday the country is not recession-bound and, despite expressing concern about slowing economic growth, rejected for now any additional stimulus efforts. "We acted robustly," he said.
"We'll see the effects of this pro-growth package," Bush told reporters at a White House news conference, acknowledging that some lawmakers already are talking about a second stimulus package. "Why don't we let stimulus package 1, which seemed like a good idea at the time, have a chance to kick in?"

It "seemed like a good idea at the time"? WTF? This paints a very disturbing mental picture. A bunch of Bush cronies (none of whom have a background in economics) sitting around a conference room with him tossing out random ideas on how to fix the economy. Someone chimes in with "Hey, why don't we give everyone an advance on next year's tax refund. People will just go out and spend it on big screen TVs, which will pump up the economy." Bush ponders for a few seconds. "That's genius. By the time the Amurican public figgers out they have to pay it back next year, the Dems will be in charge and we can blame it on them!"

But when the highly anticipated turnaround doesn't materialize on his watch, Bush retorts, "It seemed like a good idea at the time." Jesus Tap Dancing Christ. How will we ever recover from the past eight years of this man?

How projecting toughness at all costs is costing us everything

2008-03-06T17:08:00.002-04:00

Why can't more people understand this:

The NYT’s Bob Herbert had an important column on a recent congressional hearing that barely generated any attention at all. The focus was on the cost of the war in Iraq, which is likely to reach $2 trillion, if not more.

On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.

Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”

Mr. Hormats mentioned Social Security and Medicare, saying that both could have been put “on a more sustainable basis.” And he cited the committee’s own calculations from last fall that showed that the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers.

What we’re getting instead is the stuff of nightmares.

Noting this, Matt Yglesias added, “Few people seem to appreciate it, but it’s quite literally true that al-Qaeda’s strategy is to cripple the U.S. economy by dragging us into quagmires abroad. Osama bin Laden himself has said this, and it’s the only strategy that makes sense. A smallish number of people with no base of resources can’t possibly defeat us unless we shoot ourselves in the foot repeatedly as Bush and McCain propose.”

All Al Qaeda has to do is question George Bush's masculinity and he'll bankrupt the entire country to prove them wrong. It's so goddamned childish. I don't know what's worse: the fact that the neocons have used "terrorism" for such blatantly and transparently political purposes that are ruining the country, or the fact that so many American citizens are too stupid to get that they're being punked.

Florida Republicans honor their heritage

2008-02-27T08:57:00.007-04:00

A Republican lawmaker in Florida introduced a bill last week to honor its history with "Confederate Heritage" license plates.

With the elections coming up, Republicans are desperate for attention and are no doubt hoping for a public outcry to help solidify their base. Or something. Princess Sparkle Pony liked the design so much that she's submitted some of her own for consideration.

Quote of the day

2008-02-24T11:04:00.000-04:00

"I can't wait until it's Obama vs. McCain.
It's gonna be Youtube vs. Feeding Tube!"
- Bill Maher

Republicans and Values

2008-02-21T10:47:00.004-04:00

Uh oh. Saint McCain might have a little problem. Hopefully this story will have legs and will be another nail in McCain's political coffin.

And Republican operative Bay Buchanan is fall-on-the-floor-laugh-out-loud funny:

Buchanan: This is not the Democratic Party, this is a party of values. We assume our candidates have been loyal to their family.

The Party of Values. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Please stop! My side hurts!

Republicans sure seem to have a lot of memory problems. Maybe that's because the GOP is the party of Old White People. No worries, though. The Internets have a very long memory:

Republican presidential campaign official Matthew Joseph Elliott was convicted of sexual exploitation of a child.
Republican Party Chairman Donald Fleischman was charged with two counts of child enticement, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a child and a single charge of exposing himself to a child.
Republican prosecutor John David Roy Atchison was arrested for soliciting sex from a 5-year old girl, then killed himself three weeks later. At the time of his arrest, Atchison was an “assistant U.S. attorney” appointed by President Bush’s attorney general.
Republican city councilman John Bryan killed himself after police began investigating allegations that he had molested three girls, including two of his adopted daughters, ages 12 and 15.
Republican legislator Ted Klaudt was charged with raping girls under the age of 16.
Republican city councilman Joseph Monteleone Jr. was found guilty of fondling underage girls.
Republican congressional aide Jeffrey Nielsen was arrested for having sex with a 14-year old boy.
Republican County Commissioner Patrick Lee McGuire surrendered to police after allegedly molesting girls between the ages of 8 and 13.
Republican prosecutor Larry Corrigan was arrested for soliciting sex from 13-year old girls.
Republican Mayor Jeffrey Kyle Randall was sentenced to 275 days in jail for molesting two boys — ages ten and 12 — during a six-year period.
Republican County Board Candidate Brent Schepp was charged with molesting a 14-year old girl and killed himself three days later.
Republican Congressman Mark Foley abruptly resigned from Congress after “sexually explicit” emails surfaced showing him flirting with a 16-year old boy.
Republican executive Randall Casseday of the conservative Washington Times newspaper pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a 13-year old girl on the internet.
Republican chairman of the Oregon Christian Coalition Lou Beres confessed to molesting a 13-year old girl.
Republican County Constable Larry Dale Floyd pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting sex from an 8-year old girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County, Texas, constable.
Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy.
Republican petition drive manager Tom Randall pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 14, one of them the daughter of an associate in the petition business.
Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano pleaded guilty to fondling a 14-year-old girl.
Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls.
Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.
Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.
Republican Mayor Tom Adams was arrested for distributing child pornography over the internet.
Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls.
Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.
Republican Committeeman John R. Curtin was convicted of molesting an underage teenage boy and sentenced to serve six to 18 months in prison.
Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.
Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered.
Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.
Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.
Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.
Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.
Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.
Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer was sentenced to six years in prison for molesting two 8-year old girls, one of whom appeared in an anti-Gore television commercial.
Republican fundraiser Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
Republican Congressman Donald “Buz” Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.
Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.
Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.
Republican campaign chairman Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child and was arrested again five years later on the same charge.
Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.
Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.
Republican Judge Ronald C. Kline pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer.
Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.
Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. “Republican Marty”), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.
Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced prison after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
Republican anti-gay activist Earl “Butch” Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.
Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.
Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.
Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.
Republican legislator Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).
Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was found guilty of molesting a 15-year old girl.
Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.
Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.
Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.
Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.
Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.
Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.
Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.
Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.
Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.
Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a “good military man” and “church goer,” was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.
Republican campaign worker, police officer and self-proclaimed reverend Steve Aiken was convicted of having sex with two underage girls.
Republican director of the “Young Republican Federation” Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Republican president of the New York City Housing Development Corp.
Russell Harding pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer.
Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.
Republican Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the rape of children in Iraqi prisons in order to humiliate their parents into providing information about the anti-American insurgency.

And let's not forget David Vitter, Larry "Wide Stance" Craig, and Ted Haggard. Family values, indeed. I must have missed Sunday school the day they taught that Jesus approved of pedophilia.

Democrats need to hammer the Republicans on this whole "family values" meme until November because it's a lie and we all know that Republican operatives are going to be smearing whoever ends up being the Democratic nominee (e.g. - Obama is a Muslim who will only take his oath of office on the Koran). The difference is that the Republican scandals are actually true!

Oh, and here's a note for some clueless journalists: most of us voting Democratic aren't excited about electing the first woman or the first black man as president. Polls clearly indicate that we'll enthusiastically support either Obama and Hillary. We don't care about the color of our candidates' skin or whether or not they have breasts. That's how conservatives view the world.

Bush dogs served notice

2008-02-14T10:16:00.003-04:00

Donna Edwards' primary win in Maryland's 4th District over incumbent Al Wynn should serve as a wake up call to the Blue Dog Democrats. You are not safe. Your support for George Bush and all of his corporation-loving, warmongering, trample-the-constitution, shit-on-working-Americans policies might cost you your political lives. Even with the support of Democratic heavyweights Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, Al got pwned. And Nancy, you'd better watch your ass, too. We'll remember that you put politics ahead of the constitution. You can be ousted just like Al Wynn.

George W. Bush Countdown Calendar - February 2

2008-02-06T15:32:00.000-04:00

If you aren't outraged by what's going on, you're not paying attention.

Presidential Tax Cuts

For 2005, George W. and Laura Bush reported income of $738,880, paying $187,854 in taxes - about $26,000 less than they would have paid before the tax cuts he initiated. That same year, Dick and Lynne Cheney reported income of $9,120,960, paying taxes of $517,287, saving about $1,100,000 because of the tax cuts. Part of this savings was from charitable contributions he made that, due a law designed to benefit Katrina victims, qualified for deduction from his income. None of his contributions went to hurricane victims.

For Dick, that works out to a tax rate of 5.6%. And he thinks he's paying too much and needs more tax breaks. Life is tough for the rich in this country. I just don't know how they survive.

George W. Bush Countdown Calendar - January 26

2008-01-28T10:52:00.000-04:00

"Who Needs Scientists When You've Got Lobbyists?

In a radical change of policy, the EPA decided at the end of 2006 to effectively eliminate input from its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee in setting standards for dangerous pollutants like lead, ozone, and soot. The independent panel, which until then had provided key scientific recommendations early on in the standards review process, will now be allowed only to comment on proposed regulations after the public has been notified of them, in effect putting the scientific board on the same footing as industrial lobbyists and other special interest groups."

Soldiers love teh shootin' and killin', according to McCain

2008-01-27T11:15:00.000-04:00

This is just too good to pass up.

John McCain accused Mitt Romney of wanting to withdraw troops from Iraq, drawing immediate protest from his Republican presidential rival who said: "That’s simply wrong and it's dishonest, and he should apologize."

[...]

Asked about the comment in Land O' Lakes, Romney balked. "That's dishonest, to say that I have a specific date. That's simply wrong," he said. "That is not the case. I've never said that."

"I know he's trying desperately to change the topic from the economy and trying to get back to Iraq, but to say something that's not accurate is simply wrong — and he knows better," the former Massachusetts governor said.

Campaigning later in Sun City, McCain took note of Romney's demand for an apology and said it is his GOP rival who should apologize to U.S. troops in Iraq "who are serving this nation in hard times and good" for his position.

McCain and Romney are arguing over who can keep our occupation of Iraq going the longest. But it's even better than that. McCain thinks our soldiers like being in Iraq and Romney should apologize to them for trying to ruin all their fun by bringing them home (even though Romney wants them there forever, just like McCain). It sounds like John McCain really enjoyed all that time he spent as a POW in Vietnam. The fact that Ron Paul, who wants the troops out of Iraq immediately, has received more campaign contributions from active military personnel than any other Republican is lost on these guys.

Republicans ecstatic that Americans must work 2 jobs

2008-01-17T15:54:00.000-04:00

From ThinkProgress today:

Topping Congress’s agenda as it returns this week is a plan to “jump-start the economy and try to shorten the slowdown that many economists say has already begun to take hold.”
Today, Rep. Eric Cantor (VA), the chief deputy Republican whip in the House, unveiled his proposal to stimulate the economy. His legislation — the so-called Middle Class Job Protection Act — does nothing for the middle class. Instead, it reduces the corporate tax rate by 28 percent.

At a press conference today unveiling the stimulus proposal, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) justified the conservative plan to give tax breaks to corporations — instead of working Americans — by arguing that people actually like working long hours:

I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs.

Bachmann’s version of the American Dream is apparently working two full-time jobs and struggling to get by.
[...]
Bachmann may be taking her cues from her bosom buddy President Bush, who on Feb. 4, 2005, told a divorced mother of three: “You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.”

How to stick it to Bush

2007-12-19T00:49:00.000-04:00

The American public spoke loudly and clearly when we sent a bunch of useless Republicans packing last year in the mid-term elections. It seems that many Democrats in Congress still didn't get the message, though. Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) didn't get it, and still doesn't even after Cenk Uygur laid it out for him. Democrats have been bending over backwards to give Mr. 29% everything he asks for, then they wonder why we're all pissed at them. Here's a clue for Congress: do your damn jobs. We're sick and tired of your capitulation whenever Bush and his cronies throw tantrums when any of you propose bills he doesn't like. Make the Republicans filibuster in the Senate. Make Bush veto popular bills. Ted Kennedy gets it.

The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.

Let him veto FISA. Let him show the world who he really works for. Americans aren't all complete idiots. Those of us paying attention understand what's happening. We expect you to protect our rights. We expect you to uphold your oath of office to preserve and protect the Constitution. If you don't, we'll find someone else who will.

Is the human race doomed?

2007-12-12T08:48:00.000-04:00

James Lovelock, the scientist who first detected the widespread presence of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere, sat down with RollingStone magazine a couple of months ago to discuss global warming:

At the age of eighty-eight, after four children and a long and respected career as one of the twentieth century's most influential scientists, James Lovelock has come to an unsettling conclusion: The human race is doomed. "I wish I could be more hopeful," he tells me one sunny morning as we walk through a park in Oslo, where he is giving a talk at a university. Lovelock is a small man, unfailingly polite, with white hair and round, owlish glasses. His step is jaunty, his mind lively, his manner anything but gloomy. In fact, the coming of the Four Horsemen -- war, famine, pestilence and death -- seems to perk him up. "It will be a dark time," Lovelock admits. "But for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting."

In Lovelock's view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. Atlanta will end up a kudzu jungle. Phoenix will become uninhabitable, as will parts of Beijing (desert), Miami (rising seas) and London (floods). Food shortages will drive millions of people north, raising political tensions. "The Chinese have nowhere to go but up into Siberia," Lovelock says. "How will the Russians feel about that? I fear that war between Russia and China is probably inevitable." With hardship and mass migrations will come epidemics, which are likely to kill millions. By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes -- Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.

By the end of the century, according to Lovelock, global warming will cause temperate zones like North America and Europe to heat up by fourteen degrees Fahrenheit, nearly double the likeliest predictions of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations-sanctioned body that includes the world's top scientists. "Our future," Lovelock writes, "is like that of the passengers on a small pleasure boat sailing quietly above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail." And switching to energy-efficient light bulbs won't save us. To Lovelock, cutting greenhouse-gas pollution won't make much difference at this point, and much of what passes for sustainable development is little more than a scam to profit off disaster. "Green," he tells me, only half-joking, "is the color of mold and corruption."

The man is a ray of sunshine.

Conventional wisdom

2007-12-10T20:35:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder why you don't hear anything but standard talking points on the regular news shows? This video may explain a lot.

Arthur Silber is right again

2007-12-10T08:25:00.000-04:00

Given the recent revelations that many Democrats were made aware that waterboarding was being employed by the CIA back in 2002, Americans should be raising holy hell. This is beyond outrageous. As usual, Glenn Greenwald is all over it.

This story was obviously leaked by Republican operatives to damage the Democratic leadership, and it has had the desired effect. Rightfully so. Senator Biden is right about what should happen next: a special counsel must be appointed to conduct a criminal investigation. Every member of Congress who knew about this, Democrat or Republican, must be held accountable. If Jay Rockefeller had any integrity, he would resign from the chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee immediately. His inaction is inexcusable. The whole purpose of his committee is to provide oversight of government intelligence activities and ensure conformity with the laws and Constitution of the United States. They have failed miserably.

What happened to the very explicit statement by George Bush that "this government does not torture people?" After World War II, the United States prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American soldiers because it was considered torture. What happened between then and now to make it not qualify as torture any more? Is 9/11 going to be our perpetual excuse for every evil act committed by our government that we ignore?

Several months ago, Arthur Silber said,

But for the reasons set forth above (and a full case would fill many volumes), the Democrats are not going to impeach any of these criminals, barring events entirely unforeseeable at present. And they will not for one overwhelmingly significant and determinative reason: always with regard to the underlying principles, and frequently with regard to the specifics, the Democrats are implicated in every single crime with which they would charge the members of the administration. The Republicans' crimes are their crimes.

Anyone want to take any bets on what becomes of this affair? I predict it will get swept under the rug, like all the other illegal activities perpetrated by the current administration, for precisely the reasons Arthur put forth. Democrats won't do anything about Republican lawbreaking because they are just as guilty. Despite their protestations to the contrary, Democrats have demonstrated that they are not actually opposed to the "corporatist, authoritarian, warfare state" that is the United States government. Unlike their Republican counterparts, however, Democrats are just too wimpy to come right out and say it. Their base wouldn't stand for it and there would be little left to differentiate the two parties. The Democratic strategy is to express phony outrage and publicly condemn the actions of the administration, but not actually do anything about it because they will find it useful if they win the presidency next year as they anticipate. The real battle is not between Democrats and Republicans; it's between the have and the have nots. All of us in the latter category just don't realize it.

Another Bush cheerleader has a change of heart

2007-12-10T07:09:00.000-04:00

Former Bush speechwriter, Mathew Dowd, was once a part of the 2004 Bush Campaign's all-star team responsible for smearing John Kerry when he called for withdrawal from Iraq. Dowd's 22-year-old son is now getting ready to be deployed to Iraq and he's suddenly changed his mind about the war. Funny how that happens, isn't it? Kind of like how the brave souls of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders talk all tough, but refuse to put their money where their mouths are despite being of prime military recruitment age.

Iraqi Christians gone or dead

2007-12-03T15:19:00.000-04:00

Oh, the irony.

From the time of Jesus, there have been Christians in what is now Iraq. The Christian community took root there after the Apostle Thomas headed east.

But now, after nearly 2,000 years, Iraqi Christians are being hunted, murdered and forced to flee -- persecuted on a biblical scale in Iraq's religious civil war. You'd have to be mad to hold a Christian service in Iraq today.

[...]

"You were here during Saddam’s reign. And now after. Which was better? Which was worse?" Pelley asked.

"The situation now is clearly worse" than under Saddam, White replied.

"There’s no comparison between Iraq now and then," he told Pelley. "Things are the most difficult they have ever been for Christians. Probably ever in history. They’ve never known it like now."

"Wait a minute, Christians have been here for 2,000 years," Pelley remarked.

"Yes," White said.

"And it’s now the worst it has ever been," Pelley replied.

To understand the history of Iraqi Christianity, start with the Last Supper. One saint to the right of Jesus is the Apostle Thomas, who took the gospel and headed east after the death of Christ.

In modern times, under Saddam, Christians were treated much the same as Muslims; Saddam's right hand man, Tariq Aziz, was Christian.

Before the war, it's estimated there were about a million Christians in Iraq. They were a small minority, but free to worship, free to build churches, and free to speak the ancient language of Jesus, Aramaic. But, after the invasion, Muslim militants launched a war on each other and the cross.

On Sunday, Aug. 1, 2004, five churches were bombed. The Iraqi Christian community, which had survived invasions by Mongols and Turks, was driven out under American occupation. No one can be sure, but Canon White estimates most of Iraq's Christians have fled or been killed. Those still here are too old, too ill or too poor to run.

Ahh, torture -- can you smell the testosterone?

2007-12-01T11:53:00.000-04:00

As has been noted in the past, conservative Republicans, especially Catholic ones, love the idea of torturing people. It must make them feel manly to think about going all Old Testament on people who aren't white conservative Christians. This was once again in evidence during the last Republican debate when a focus group of undecided Republicans registered their responses to answers by each of the candidates electronically.

When John McCain started talking about torture--specifically, about waterboarding--the dials plummeted again. Lower even than for the illegal Children of God. Down to the low 20s, which, given the natural averaging of a focus group, is about as low as you can go. Afterwards, Luntz asked the group why they seemed to be in favor of torture. "I don't have any problem pouring water on the face of a man who killed 3000 Americans on 9/11," said John Shevlin, a retired federal law enforcement officer. The group applauded, appallingly.

Fox's "24" certainly appears to have had the desired effect. Naturally, these same Republicans who sport wood and drool uncontrollably at the thought of crushing a man's testicles in a vice believe that us dirty libruls who oppose torture are a bunch of pussies and terrorist lovers.

Americans are supposed to be better than this. In a previous era, enemy soldiers tried to find Americans when they wanted to surrender because they knew they would be treated humanely. Given that the military now regularly recruits white supremacists and individuals with criminal records so they can meet their recruitment goals because nobody with a conscience (or a functioning brain) is signing up to be IED fodder for the Bush war machine these days, we now have some soldiers who actively seek to torture and kill innocent civilians. Granted they are a very small minority, but it's still happening. And they're doing it in our name.

It's sad and shocking, though not surprising, to see the effect that some of our knuckle-dragging leaders have had on the populace. It's past high time for people of character to take charge again and call these Neanderthals out on their disgusting beliefs.

Roy Blunt is an idiot

2007-11-30T18:11:00.000-04:00

My three-year-old can see through this argument.

"With one of the Democrats' leading war critics now saying the surge in Iraq is working, it's difficult to understand why the majority continues to push an irresponsible withdrawal plan that jeopardizes critical support funding for our troops," House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, said.

Tell us, Roy, how would withdrawing troops from Iraq to the safety of the United States jeopardize critical support funding for the troops? The House already passed a bill giving Dubya another $50 billion to play army, but Senate Republicans voted against it. And it's about time a Democrat of standing finally said this:

"We have provided every penny that is currently necessary to fund Defense Department operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world," Pelosi said. "It is President Bush and his Republican allies in the Senate who are preventing extra funds from reaching our troops."

Democrats need to wrap this war around the neck of every Republican who has supported it since day one.

Religious lunacy

2007-11-30T10:32:00.000-04:00

Two stories this morning highlighting the idiocy and narrow-mindedness of religious fundamentalists:

In Sudan, protesters are calling for the execution of the British teacher, who allowed her Muslim students to name their class mascot, a teddy bear, "Muhammed". And Muslims swear that Islam is a religion of peace. Yeah, right.

Not to be outdone, in the great state of Texas, the director of the state's science curriculum has resigned "after being accused of creating the appearance of bias against teaching intelligent design." Let me get this straight. The director of the science curriculum shouldn't be biased in favor of teaching actual science in science classes? Applying that logic consistently, astrology and alchemy should be legitimate topics for science class too. The moral of the story: check the background of the people you vote for. Too many of these morons are getting elected to positions of power.

Why is it that so many religious people think that the 10th century was the golden age of man?

Are you on the list?

2007-10-26T07:35:00.000-04:00

The "terror watch list" has grown to more than 755,000 names. Are you on it? While a large number of people who are on "the list" are undoubtedly actual terrorists or suspected terrorists, how many people are on it simply because they've voiced discontent for the actions of the Bush administration? Author and activist Naomi Wolf is on it. I wonder how many people who will be marching in the upcoming "Constitution Days" rallies will be added to the list? Maybe those events will drive it past the 1 million mark.

Democrat quickly loses newfound spine

2007-10-23T14:58:00.000-04:00

(Updated below)

Democratic Congressman Pete Stark from California surprised and excited Democrats everywhere last week when he provided indications of being a vertebrate during the S-CHIP debate in Congress when he said,

"You don't have money to fund the war or children, but you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Smelling salts were subsequently disbursed to revive fallen Republican Congressmen from their fainting couches after bearing witness to Stark's harsh, untoward, and ungentlemanly language. When pressed by dismayed Republicans for an apology, Stark went on to say,

"I have nothing but respect for our brave men and women in uniform and wish them the very best, but I respect neither the commander in chief who keeps them in harm's way nor the chickenhawks in Congress who vote to deny children healthcare."

Coming as it did on the heels of last month's irresponsible and ghastly criticism by MoveOn.org of General David Petraeus, otherwise known as The Man Whose Opinion Cannot Be Questioned, Republicans saw this as an opportunity to divert public attention away from both their opposition to the popular S-CHIP program and the president's failed occupation of Iraq by introducing a resolution to censure Rep. Stark. Though the censure resolution ultimately failed, Rep. Stark's newfound spine melted into a puddle of gelatinous goo at the threat, and he groveled before Congress and President Bush, begging to be allowed to return to the dark pit of irrelevance from whence he came. Another "Mission Accomplished" for our brave Republican Congressmen.

So to summarize, a Democrat spoke the truth, but was later "forced" to apologize for offending the delicate sensibilities of Congressional Republicans.

How rich. We're talking about the Republican Party here. These are the same people whose champions are Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Ann Coulter. This is the party of "Mean" Jean Schmidt, who had the nerve to call true life war hero John Murtha a coward. This is the party of George W. Bush, who won reelection by employing phony "values" and fear mongering, and by trashing the military service of another actual war hero, John Kerry. And they have the unmitigated gall to complain when someone points out their hypocrisy? Boo frickin' hoo, cry me a river. For some reason, though, Democrats tremble in fear at this phony sanctimony and keep allowing themselves to get punked.

The LA Times article linked above goes on to state:

The move to censure Stark marked the second time Republicans have taken to the House floor to chastise Democrats for statements the GOP deemed offensive to the U.S. military.

Someone please explain to me how Stark's words were offensive to the military? What should be offensive to the military is that their commander in chief used his daddy's political connections so he could avoid combat during the Vietnam war by getting a cushy assignment to the Texas Air National Guard from which he went AWOL to advance his political career so he can now pretend to be Winston Churchill.

Here's another question: Why do Democrats always feel the need to preface anything having to do with the occupation of Iraq with some statement espousing their everlasting love for the military? Disparaging the president in no way insults the military especially since the president had every opportunity to serve his country in a time of war, yet chose to weasel out of it. Republicans are the ones who have been screwing our soldiers every chance they get, from extending their tours of duty, to not providing them adequate equipment and training, to providing substandard care when they are wounded in action. Republicans and their minions are the ones who attack soldiers whenever they criticize the president's Glorious War on Islam. Yet Democrats are the ones who sound apologetic every single time they talk about any subject that involves the military! What gives?

What will it take for the Democrats to understand that their low approval ratings are entirely due to not living up to their promises to stand up to the president? We're sick and tired of being represented by wimps, Republican lites, and proxies for corporate interests. The hole they have helped President Bush dig this country into can only get so deep before we will be unable to get ourselves out.

Update: Digby wrote about this same issue in a post titled, The Art of the Hissy Fit. Give it a read.

Haven't we heard this song before?

2007-10-22T18:20:00.000-04:00

From CNN:

The Bush administration on Monday asked for an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the 2008 request for total war funding to $189.3 billion.

The request comes on top of $147 billion already sought for in the wars. Most of the money goes to Iraq, which is costing the Pentagon an estimated $2 billion a week.

"Parts of this war are complicated, but one part is not -- and that is that America should do what it takes to support our troops and protect our people," President Bush said in an appearance with members of veterans groups at the White House.

[...]

Minutes after Bush spoke, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, warned the president not to expect Congress to "rubber-stamp" the latest request.

"In the coming weeks, we will hold it up to the light of day and fight for the change of strategy and redeployment of troops that is long overdue," Reid said.

He said the new request means the overall cost of the widely unpopular war now approaches $650 billion since the March 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"The entire war in Iraq is being paid for with borrowed money," Reid said.

Blah, blah, blah...no blank check...blah, blah, blah...change course in Iraq...blah, blah, blah. Where have we heard this before? Oh, yeah. Nancy Pelosi said it when she took over as Speaker of the House back in January, and Harry Reid repeated it this past April. And what did they do? They wrote Bush another blank check to stay the course in Iraq. So what's changed between then and now besides a lot more death and destruction, and the federal deficit growing by a few hundred billion dollars? Why should we think the outcome will be any different this time around? I mean, it's not like Congress is trying to pass bills to provide retroactive immunity to Big Telecoms for illegally assisting the Bush administration in its warrantless spying program or anything. And they spent all that time and effort to restore Habeas Corpus. No, wait...that's not right.

I'm sorry, but I've totally lost faith in the current Democratic party and will not believe anything they say until they show some actual results. Why the hell are they wasting time on a non-binding resolution to condemn something that happened in a foreign country almost 100 years ago while ignoring the huge problems we're facing today? The fact that Democrats can't pass popular legislation like S-CHIP despite overwhelming support from the people indicates a serious leadership problem. I will continue to vote for Democratic candidates until the Republican party is a footnote in the history books (or the United States is, whichever comes first), but the Democrats I will vote for will be the ones who stand up for the people.

The effectiveness of coercion and torture

2007-10-22T13:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I wrote what many of us have known for a long time: that torturing people to extract information does not make us more safe. This post by Steve Bergstein provides actual proof. Here is an extended excerpt from his post:

In addition to this blog, I also maintain a legal blog covering the civil rights decisions of the United States Court of Appeals in Manhattan. Last week, my eyes lit up when I checked the daily decisions and saw that one case involved a guy who claimed he was forced to confess to a crime that he did not commit. This scenario surfaces from time to time for murders and other crimes, but this case was different because it involved the crime of the century: the 9/11 hijackings which launched this country into a new era.
The long and the short of it was that an Egpytian national, Abdallah Higazy, was staying in a hotel in New York City on September 11 and the hotel emptied out when the planes hit the towers. The hotel later found in the closet of his room a device that allows you to communicate with airline pilots. Investigators thought this guy had something to do with 9/11 so they questioned him. According to Higazi, the investigators coerced him into confessing to a role in 9/11. Higazi first adamantly denied any involvement with 9/11 and could not believe what was happening to him. Then, he says, the investigator said his family would go through hell in Egypt, where they torture people like Saddam Hussein. Higazy then realized he had a choice: he could continue denying the radio was his and his family suffers ungodly torture in Egypt or he confesses and his family is spared. Of course, by confessing, Higazy's life is worth garbage at that point, but ... well, that's why coerced confessions are outlawed in the United States.

So Higazy "confesses" and he's processed by the criminal justice system. His future is quite bleak. Meanwhile, an airline pilot later shows up at the hotel and asks for his radio back. This is like something out of the movies. The radio belonged to the pilot, not Higazy, and Higazy was free to go, the victim of horrible timing. Higazi was innocent! He next sued the hotel and the FBI agent for coercing his confession. The bottom line in the Court of Appeals: Higazy has a case and may recover damages for this injustice.

As I read the opinion I realized it was a 44 page epic, too long for me to print out. I blogged about the opinion while I read it online and then posted the blog as I ate lunch. Then something strange happened: a few minutes after I posted the blog, the opinion vanished from the Court of Appeals website! I had never seen this before, and what made all the more strange was that it involved a coerced confession over 9/11. What the hell was going on?

I let some other legal bloggers know about this, particulary the How Appealing blog and Appellate Law and Practice. They both ran a commentary on the missing opinion. Then someone sent How Appealing a PDF of the decision (probably very few of them were floating around since the opinion was posted for a brief period of time) and How Appealing posted the decison.

Then things got even stranger. The Court of Appeals actually phoned How Appealing to request that he remove the opinion from his website since it contained classified information. The Court said that a revised opinion would come out the next day without the classified information. How Appealing actually refused to remove the opinion. Through it all, hundreds of people came to my legal blog to see my summary of the opinion. It was either my blog or printing out and reading a 44 page epic.

The next day, the Court of Appeals reissued the Higazy opinion. With a redaction. The court simply omitted from the revised decision facts about how the FBI agent extracted the false confession from Higazy. For some reason, this information is classified. Just as the opinion gets interesting, when we are about to learn how an FBI agent named Templeton squeezed the "truth" out of Higazy, the opinion reads at page 7: "This opinion has been redacted because portions of the record are under seal. For the purposes of the summary judgment motion, Templeton did not contest that Higazy's statements were coerced."

So the opinion, while interesting, is much less interesting because now we don't know how the FBI extracts false confessions from people. Looking at things from another angle, we don't know how the FBI gets suspected terrorists to tell the truth. Except that we do know this, because the opinion is still available from the How Appealing website. The horse is out of the barn, and the classified portion of the opinion is embedded in the Internet for all eternity. Not only is this decision not to remove the premature opinion now a subject of debate (people tend to think that How Appealing did the right thing in keeping the opinion available), but now we can see the part of the ruling that the Court redacted:

Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother “live in scrutiny” and would “make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell.” Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: “that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don’t advise people of their rights, they don’t – yeah, probably about torture, sure.”
Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn't prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family's in danger. If I say this device is mine, I'm screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine.”

Higazy explained why he feared for his family:

The Egyptian government has very little tolerance for anybody who is —they’re suspicious of being a terrorist. To give you an idea, Saddam’s security force—as they later on were called his henchmen—a lot of them learned their methods and techniques in Egypt; torture, rape, some stuff would be even too sick to . . . . My father is 67. My mother is 61. I have a brother who developed arthritis at 19. He still has it today. When the word ‘torture’ comes at least for my brother, I mean, all they have to do is really just press on one of these knuckles. I couldn’t imagine them doing anything to my sister.

And Higazy added:

[L]et’s just say a lot of people in Egypt would stay away from a family that they know or they believe or even rumored to have anything to do with terrorists and by the same token, some people who actually could be —might try to get to them and somebody might actually make a connection. I wasn’t going to risk that. I wasn’t going to risk that, so I thought to myself what could I say that he would believe. What could I say that’s convincing? And I said okay.

That's how they do it, folks. If a foreign national is suspected of terrorist activity, the FBI will threaten to have a brutal foreign government punish his family. And punishment in a place like Egypt is not like punishment here. Punishment here consists of solitary confinement and a very long prison term. Punishment over there is torture.

Now granted, physical torture was not applied in this case. The FBI did not go to work on Higazy with pliers and a blowtorch, but the results would have been the same if they had instead of just threatening to torture his family. What would you have done if you had been in this situation? Imagine if you were separated from your family and repeatedly told that your son was going to have his toenails ripped off, holes drilled through his hands with an electric drill, or his genitals crushed in a vice if you didn't say what your captors wanted to hear. What would you have confessed to? I know what I would've done.

Coercion and torture will make almost anyone confess to being the Easter Bunny. People will say and do anything to make the pain stop or to eliminate the threat. They will say whatever the "interrogator" wants to hear, whether it is the truth or not. Obviously, this does not help further our national interests on many levels. This is the lesson that our intelligence community should have learned from the Soviets and East Germans. Instead, they learned new and exciting techniques for applying pain.

So after the FBI went through all the effort to coerce Higazy into making a false confession, we find that they wasted a lot of time that could have been better spent tracking down real leads. I'll say it again for the hard of comprehending: torture does not make us safer. In the entire history of the world, the "ticking bomb" scenario that the wingnuts love to postulate has probably never happened. The assumption is that the person being tortured actually knows something pertinent, which we can see by the example above is patently false. Jack Bauer is a fictitious character in a television show and should not be used as a role model.

Tristero nail it

2007-10-21T18:15:00.000-04:00

Valerie Plame Wilson will be down at the Lake tomorrow to discuss her new book, "Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House". This undoubtedly has something to do with the timing of Tristero's newest post at Hullabaloo today.

There is a widely-held myth that liberals have no place in their worldview for serious consideration of national security issues. Two seconds of thought should be enough for anyone to realize that is an insane myth. Of course we care deeply about keeping our families and communities secure. Who wouldn't?

[...]

All of this is by way of introduction to the notorious Plame affair, notorious only because Novak and members of the Bush administration colluded in betraying their...No. Let's not talk about something as "abstract" as an entire country, where you see an ocean of faces, rather than individuals. Let's talk about that betrayal in the personal terms in which it should be discussed.

These unspeakable bastards - Novak, especially - betrayed your parents, your friends, and all your neighbors. Through their criminally irresponsible behavior, they quite literally made my daughter's life far more precarious than it had to be. And these scumbags are walking the streets, unpunished, unrepentant. And they dare to lecture me on my values, my patriotism, and my seriousness in protecting what I love.

This is something that the traditional media just can't seem to grasp. Suspending habeas corpus; kidnapping people and sending them to foreign countries to be tortured in secret prisons; illegally spying on citizens; starting preemptive wars based on lies against countries that pose no threat; and exposing critical top secret espionage operations for political payback do not make us more safe. How can 30 percent of the population not understand this?

We on the Angry Left are angry because we expect our elected officials to live up to their oath to defend and protect the Constitution. This is not tantamount to supporting terrorism by any definition. Each and every one of us Dirty F'in Libruls cares deeply about our country. This is why we are all so outraged to see the Bush administration doing everything in its power to turn it into the new Soviet Union.

Gonzales may be prosecuted?!?

2007-10-21T17:52:00.000-04:00

It looks like former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' little problem with the truth may be coming back to haunt him. According to the Spokesman Review,

The U.S. Inspector General may recommend criminal prosecution of departed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the conclusion of an investigation, possibly as early as next month, the fired former U.S. attorney for Western Washington, [John McKay], told a Spokane audience Friday.

[...]

Gonzales “lied about” reasons for the firings when questioned under oath in July by the Senate Judiciary Committee and now has hired a lawyer and is refusing to answer questions from the Inspector General, McKay said.
The White House said McKay was fired for poor performance ratings of his office, but the ex-U.S. attorney said he and his office got exemplary reviews just three months before he was fired.

“The chief law enforcement officer for the United States should not lie under oath,’’ McKay told the bar association.

It was reported last week that Gonzales has now retained a high-profile defense lawyer, and apparently is refusing to answer questions from the Inspector General, which could signify the investigation is nearly complete, McKay said.

“When it lands … it is going to be an extremely negative report on President Bush’s Justice Department,’’ McKay told the packed conference room, which included federal prosecutors and judges.

I was wondering if anything would ever come of the investigations into Gonzales. Most third graders are better liars than he is. Better stock up on popcorn, things could get interesting soon. Assuming that the fired US Attorneys are speaking the truth about the reasons they were fired, one has to wonder what the remaining 80+ did in order to keep their jobs.

Money well spent?

2007-10-18T13:23:00.000-04:00

I was introduced to a cool site today. OpenSecrets.org tracks political contributions. A little browsing yields some interesting results. Take a look at where some of your favorite politicians get their money.

The site provides different ways to slice and dice the data. One view allows you to see what some individual corporations have spent. For instance, AT&T "contributed" more than $38 million to political campaigns between 1990 and 2006. In the same period, Verizon "contributed" more than $15 million, and BellSouth more than $14 million. In total, Telephone utilities have contributed over $106 million to political campaigns between 1990 and 2006.

Look through some of the aggregations and notice how some industries, like tobacco and pharmaceutical manufacturing, contribute to mostly Republican candidates while others, like labor unions, contribute almost exclusively to Democrats. The amount of money given to political campaigns by special interests is simply staggering. Just what do you suppose all that money buys? (Yes, I know that's a rhetorical question.)

Peeling back the layers

2007-09-26T23:16:00.000-04:00

A couple of days ago, a colleague reminded me that I haven't posted anything in a long time. I do this more for my own personal satisfaction than to actually attract a following, and there are many excellent writers and thinkers out there who really deserve an audience, so I don't really feel all that compelled to write something every day since I usually just come across as a whining librul. I just write when I find something I feel passionate about or when I find something that isn't widely discussed. Ever since the Democrats wrote Dubya another huge check to allow him to continue to play army with real people and real weapons, I've been angry, frustrated, and feeling more than a bit betrayed. So I decided to lay off writing for a while and just listen to what some of the smarter and wiser voices have to say.

Along that vein, I was just reading Arthur Silber's latest post, "Cui Bono? -- and Bush's Monstrous, Deadly Dare" and realized that the more I read and learn about politics, the more I realize I know nothing about it. Arthur's post is long, but well worth the time and effort to read in its entirety. His central premise is that all of us who think that the Bushies are a bunch of idiots who can't tie their own shoes have been tooled. He is probably right:

The Bush administration has "turned the Defense Department over to private contractors" -- thus enriching certain huge and hugely influential nominally private companies in amounts of many billions of dollars. Not so coincidentally, the same private companies have numerous and intricate connections to many of those in government. The privatization of national defense also means that certain individuals in government have the ability to deploy not just one private army, but an entire series of private armies, to do their bidding, as may be required and for purposes those individuals will determine.

Turning our national debt over to foreign creditors may indeed be a cause for grave concern and an indicator of possible future economic collapse. But such eventualities hopefully lie some years in the future. Carpe diem, and all that. In the meantime, the top one or two percent of Americans -- including many of these same governmental players and their fellow gang members -- are amassing wealth in colossal amounts. All the rest of America, together with large parts of the world, may be going to hell. What's that to them?

In brief: the major actors in the Bush administration are achieving exactly what they want. They may well be about to launch the start of World War III, which will further enrich their corporate friends by many additional billions of dollars. As the favored few continue to amass vast wealth, the government continues to consolidate political power to an extent that makes a future dictatorship fully realizable. They are well on the road to the achievement of wealth and power on a scale rarely if ever equalled in the history of civilization.

To describe such an achievement as the result of "Monumental Stupidity" is, well, stupid. The problem is one of analysis and method, and it is very widespread. Most major commentators (and almost all bloggers) fall into the same error. The aims I have noted -- the amassing of wealth and power, and the drive to regional (and worldwide) hegemony -- are nothing remotely akin to a conspiracy, unless you view aims stated openly and repeatedly, and pursued over a period of decades in front of the entire world, as a "conspiracy."

The key to the nature of the error lies in this phrase: "while leading a party whose single most basic belief is supposed to be that individuals must take personal responsibility for their actions." Both commentators appear to have taken Republican marketing slogans seriously in the precise manner the Republicans hoped they would. And even though these commentators now view the slogans with suspicion and cynicism, it seems the dynamics involved -- and the vast gulf between marketing techniques and the reality of what is transpiring -- still escape them.

I return once again to these critically important observations from Robert Higgs:
As a general rule for understanding public policies, I insist that there are no persistent "failed" policies. Policies that do not achieve their desired outcomes for the actual powers-that-be are quickly changed. If you want to know why the U.S. policies have been what they have been for the past sixty years, you need only comply with that invaluable rule of inquiry in politics: follow the money.

When you do so, I believe you will find U.S. policies in the Middle East to have been wildly successful, so successful that the gains they have produced for the movers and shakers in the petrochemical, financial, and weapons industries (which is approximately to say, for those who have the greatest influence in determining U.S. foreign policies) must surely be counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

So U.S. soldiers get killed, so Palestinians get insulted, robbed, and confined to a set of squalid concentration areas, so the "peace process" never gets far from square one, etc., etc. – none of this makes the policies failures; these things are all surface froth, costs not borne by the policy makers themselves but by the cannon-fodder masses, the bovine taxpayers at large, and foreigners who count for nothing.

I would really like to believe that we're all not just pawns in some sick game of global domination, but after reading this, I think that's like believing in the Tooth Fairy. All of the issues that we care so deeply about just don't matter to the ruling class. They just use them as smoke screens so they can maintain their grip on the power levers. We're all just puppets on strings to them responding exactly as they want us to respond. I suddenly feel like Neo freshly awakened from the Matrix.

War czar considers draft

2007-08-11T12:09:00.000-04:00

Please, oh PLEASE reinstate the draft. The military can't get enough IED fodder for their ~~war to liberate Middle Eastern oil fields from brown people~~ Glorious War on Islam, so they must do something to boost their ranks. Please let it be reinstating the draft. Let's see how that plays with the 18-30 somethings who have been supporting the Iraqi occupation to this point. How will their parents feel when they realize that their kids could die for George Bush's ego? Republicans can have all the rope they want on this one. Let their be no doubt about their destiny in 2008.

Republican intolerance is alive and well

2007-08-10T09:46:00.000-04:00

Freshman congressman and Christianist nutjob Bill Sali from Idaho is incensed that a Hindu was invited to deliver the daily invocation in the Senate. His views are a little...no, make that completely, delusional. Here's what he said:

"We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes -- and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers," asserts Sali.

Sali says America was built on Christian principles that were derived from scripture. He also says the only way the United States has been allowed to exist in a world that is so hostile to Christian principles is through "the protective hand of God."

"You know, the Lord can cause the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike," says the Idaho Republican.

According to Congressman Sali, the only way the U.S. can continue to survive is under that protective hand of God. He states when a Hindu prayer is offered, "that's a different god" and that it "creates problems for the longevity of this country."

If one were a thinking person, one might wonder why Christians make up only about 25% of the world's population if Christianity were truly God's chosen religion as Bill Sali believes. What do they teach the kids in Idaho? God takes an active role in protecting the United States? God must be losing both his hearing and his eye sight then, because what the Republicans have done to the United States in the past 13 years would certainly not get two thumbs up from JC.

Get a good look at your Republican party, America. Do you really want these clowns writing and voting on the laws that will dictate how you live your life? Republicans love Hindus as long as they stay in their own countries. They love them so much that they write legislation to help American corporations give their technical jobs to them at the expense of highly skilled and (mostly) Christian American workers. Don't get me wrong, I don't care about the color of a person's skin or the book he reads (or doesn't read). But how can these Christian Republicans (an oxymoron if ever there was one) square their treatment of the less fortunate, their own constituents, and their fellow Christians with what they claim are their religious beliefs?

What will the future bring?

2007-08-07T17:01:00.000-04:00

It seem fairly obvious that the policies of the Bush administration will catch up with all of us at some point in the not-so-distant future, and the results will not be pretty. A nation cannot prosper if its working class lives in poverty, and that is becoming a more common occurrence every day in the United States even though the pundits all paint rosy pictures. These would be the same people who are already rich and make loads of money while the remaining 95% of us are getting screwed.

Just look around. Oil prices are through the roof and will in all likelihood continue to increase. The housing market is a mess thanks to the Fed. More and more of our jobs are being outsourced thereby allowing CEOs to pay themselves even more money. Our national debt is immense and growing, and nobody has any real answers about how it will ever get paid off while we hand out massive tax refunds to the richest Americans. We've created disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have no way to get out. New Orleans is still a national disaster. And the whole world hates us. Is there anything that isn't totally screwed up in this country?

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that our economy has nowhere to go but down. Blogger Mike Whitney interviews Elaine Supkis, who answers some burning questions about where the economy is headed.

Question: Will you explain how the inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve are causing the stock market to soar and what the potential dangers are for the global economic system?

Elaine Meinel Supkis: Oh, that is so simple! In 2003, interest rates were dropped to 1% despite inflation of +5%. Instantly, the value of all assets shot upwards as bankers moved money along as fast as possible since the Fed undercut their own interest rates! So mortgages were below the rate of inflation. But this didn't make enough money so banks and other entities offered loans to bad risks who had to pay a higher rate. As inflation rages, they need to give loans to worse and worse customers who pay over 11% interest!

Alas, the fly in this ointment is exactly that: risky customers can't pay back loans! They go bankrupt and everyone acts like a good little domino and over they fall, one after another. Right now,the crashing sound of dominoes falling is like the hissing of waves on a distant shore but it is rapidly approaching. We can certainly hear it coming.

Question: Last week, reports showed that US manufacturing unexpectedly rose in March. However, the Financial Times said that, “The rise in the ISM index is impossible to square with either the regional surveys released over the past few weeks or our medium-term yield-driven model. We think it is quite likely that in their next iterations the ISM will drop sharply.” Do you think the government is deliberately falsifying data on manufacturing to make the economy look stronger than it really is? Could they be doing this in areas as well, such as money supply, inflation, employment, and GDP?

Elaine Meinel Supkis: Do alligators bite? Of course, they lie all the time. Some things were sacred and they didn't lie about them. The M3 data that shows how much money the Fed prints as well as how much is in circulation, etc, just last year, they announced, 'No one is really interested in these numbers and they are too hard to compile.' Like a drunken, gambling spouse declaring there is no need to balance the check books or look into the bank accounts, so it is here. Many people yelled about the M3 numbers being suppressed but to no avail, of course.

Onwards! Since they are lying about basic bank accounting, they have to lie about everything else or people will figure out, something smells rotten in Denmark, DC.

They redrew the rules for figuring out inflation so it no longer tracks inflation. This is so they can cheat retirees and have fake interest rates and thus, steal from granny and gramps and starve school children while lining their own pockets.

Read the entire interview. It paints the most realistic portrait of the current economy that I have read in a long time.

Bridge collapse in Minnesota

2007-08-01T20:16:00.000-04:00

There's no excuse for this. Somebody didn't do their job. We need accountability. Someone needs to go to jail for a long time. Last month we had the explosion in Manhattan and now this? Our infrastructure is falling apart while the Republicans cut taxes for the wealthy and wage war against people who didn't even pose a threat to us. Our politicians seriously need to get their heads out of their collective ass. How can we be sure this won't happen to any of us on the way to work tomorrow?

The perfect storm

2007-07-28T15:32:00.000-04:00

This story should be getting some serious attention. It is the confluence of many different issues facing this country today: low paying jobs, no health care without insurance, hazardous products from China, and Walmart.

This woman claims that she bought a pair of Chinese-made flip-flops from Walmart, where she worked briefly until she figured out how bad they suck. She wore them a few days and had some kind of reaction to them. Click on the links at the bottom of the page on her site to see what happened to her feet.

Because this woman has no health insurance, she can't get decent medical treatment. When she went to report what happened to her to Walmart (fearing that other people might have the same problem), they treated her like dog shit and did absolutely nothing except blame the Chinese importer.

We all know that Walmart imports the cheapest products they can find. It's obvious from this story that they couldn't care less if they are actually safe for consumers. Product liability attorneys should be banging her door down.

Saturday Funnies

2007-07-28T14:33:00.000-04:00

Here is Bob Geiger's round-up of this week's best political comics.

More oil company profits

2007-07-26T12:43:00.000-04:00

Here's an idea: since the oil companies are raking in such wonderful profits for themselves and their investors thanks to the war in Iraq, why don't we ask them to fund it for a while?

Republicans for life

2007-07-21T13:57:00.000-04:00

Cliff Schecter exposes the Republican Party loyalty oath being administered to members in Kansas. This would explain why Republicans in Congress will never go against George Bush. According to this oath, they swear they will never leave "The Party". This part of the oath is great:

The Republican Party, both nationally and domestically, was founded on sound and principled ideals, that include but are not limited to, personal liberty, individual freedom, responsive and citizen-based Government, life-affirming values, economic growth, strong and cutting edge military, low taxes and a mutual respect for fellow Republicans.

So Republicans believe in "personal liberty" and "individual freedom" as long as you do what they tell you to do. This sounds more like something the Nazi Party would demand members sign. What's not to love about today's Republican Party?

Saturday Funnies

2007-07-21T13:47:00.000-04:00

Bob Geiger has 'em.

What will it take?

2007-07-20T08:36:00.000-04:00

The Bush administration openly claims that Bush has the powers of a king. When will this Congress finally understand that impeachment is their only option?

Responding to Senator Feingold

2007-07-16T23:11:00.000-04:00

Senator Russ Feingold wrote about the question of impeachment today on his Daily Kos blog and he invited comments from the public. Please hop over to Daily Kos and give the good Senator your opinion on the matter. Here is his statement:

Last week I came here to discuss how I plan to tighten my legislation to end the open-ended military mission in Iraq so the Administration would not be able to exploit it and keep tens of thousands of troops, if not more, stuck in the middle of an Iraqi civil war. I appreciated all of the responses and of course I noticed that many of you advocated for the impeachment of the President as well as the Vice President and the Attorney General. I’ve been hearing some of those same comments in Wisconsin.
It is clear that there are many people in this country, including myself, who demand accountability from this Administration for the terrible mess it made in Iraq and its egregious and even illegal power grabs throughout its six-plus years in power. I believe that the President and Vice President may well have committed impeachable offenses. But with so many important issues facing this country and so much work to be done, I am concerned about the great deal of time multiple impeachment trials would take away from the Congress working on the problems of the country. The time it would take for the House to consider articles of impeachment, and for the Senate to conduct multiple trials, would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for Congress to do what it was elected to do – end the war and address some of the other terrible mistakes this Administration has made over the past six and a half years.

While some have pointed to Republicans’ decision to impeach President Clinton, I am also concerned about the over-use of impeachment. And I am conscious of the fact that I would have a specific role to play as a sworn, impartial juror should an impeachment be tried in the Senate. If charges come to the Senate, I will approach them and the trial with the same seriousness that I had when I participated in the Clinton impeachment trial. I would not prejudge the case one way or the other should it come to this.

I fully respect the anger and frustration many Americans feel with this Administration. I share much of it. But on balance, I think Congress’s time is much better spent ending the war in Iraq, conducting the oversight that was absent for the last six years, and advancing progressive legislation.

UPDATE: I know that many of you disagree with my approach to this issue, but I thought it was important to make it clear where I’m coming from and explain why I am not calling for impeachment.

I certainly do believe in holding this Administration accountable and upholding the Constitution and the rule of law. That’s why last year I called for the President to be censured for his authorization of the illegal wiretapping program. I thought that was the appropriate course because it would have put the Senate on record in condemning the President’s wrongdoing. I still think that the censure resolution played an important role in focusing the public and the media’s attention on the issue. And I am working to make sure that Congress finally exercises its oversight responsibility by holding hearings and demanding information about the wiretapping program, the U.S. attorney firings and other abuses of power.

Many of you also wrote that if I recognize that the President and Vice President may have committed impeachable offenses, than it is our responsibility to impeach. As I pointed out, it is the role of the House to impeach, and it is the role of the Senate to try impeachments. But the Constitution left it up to the judgment of members of Congress whether or not moving forward with impeachment is best for the country.

Please keep the comments coming. I’ll do my best to read them all. I very much appreciate your honesty and directness. This exchange is very important to me.

I would love to respond to you, Senator Feingold. Thank you for providing the opportunity. I have tremendous respect for you, but I think you are wrong about impeachment. Before going any further, I want to make clear that I do not believe George Bush should be impeached because of his policies, destructive as they are. That is simply a matter of differences in political philosophy. He needs to be impeached because of his rampant disregard for the law. George Bush is not our king, he is our president and he must obey the laws just like the rest of us. As many people have been reminding us, we are a nation of laws, not of men.

There are, as you stated, many important issues facing this country that need to be resolved. It must be perfectly clear to you, however, that the Bush administration is responsible for either creating or exacerbating most of these issues in the first place. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he will fight any and all attempts to limit his power or to countermand his decisions (he is "the Decider," after all). To the detriment of everyone, Congress has been unable to accomplish much of anything this term to date because of Bush and his loyalists in Congress who consistently place loyalty to their party and president over loyalty to their country. While this in and of itself is not a reason for impeachment, it does illustrate quite clearly that very little can be accomplished as long as Bush and Cheney remain in office. Your argument that Congress needs to work on advancing progressive legislation is weak given what has transpired.

I also disagree with your assertion that the time it would take to conduct impeachment proceedings would prevent Congress from doing what it was elected to do (i.e. - end the Iraq War). The fact that one of Nancy Pelosi's first statements after becoming Speaker of the House was that impeachment is "off the table" indicates that she recognized that one of the reasons Democrats were thrust into power by the electorate was to investigate and prosecute Bush administration criminal activities up to and including impeachment.

Charlie Savage penned a timely article for today's Boston Globe that examines how effective Congress has been throughout history at stopping wars without cooperation from the President. His conclusion is not encouraging. When a president is determined to wage war, history reveals that Congress can do little to stop him. Firedoglake.com takes a look at this article as well. I put it to you that the only way to stop the war in Iraq is to remove from power the men responsible for starting it. Once the main impediments to ending the war are removed, then Congress can worry about fixing the countless other problems facing our nation.

While I understand your concern about the "over-use of impeachment" from a purely academic perspective, I don't think it makes much sense given the reality of the situation we now face. Impeachment is the only tool our founding fathers provided for dealing with an out of control executive like we have had for the past six years. Trying to work with Bush and Cheney like they are respectable, responsible statesmen simply will not work as the record clearly documents. What you are advocating is akin to saying that we are prosecuting too many people for murder, therefore we must be careful about how frequently we prosecute for murder in the future. If the next president is a Democrat who acts in a similar manner to Bush, I would expect Congress to impeach that President as well. This is not a partisan issue. Despite the unprecedented use of secrecy by this administration, there is a mountain of evidence to suggest massive criminal activity. Every time light is shown in previously dark places, suspicious if not downright illegal conduct is exposed. Bush has even demonstrated that he is willing to abuse his pardon authority to prevent investigation into his administration's activities. James Madison recognized the potential for abuse of the pardon power for this specific reason more than 200 years ago.

Your call to censure the President for his authorization of illegal wiretapping was a good idea at the time when Republicans still controlled both houses of Congress and many Americans were on the fence on the issue. Since that time, there has been a major change in public opinion. Polls now show that a plurality want Bush impeached and a majority want Cheney impeached. This is true despite the fact that commercial news organizations (i.e. - the liberal press) such as Fox News, the Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal editorial pages attempt to poison the minds of millions of Americans with their blatant lies, half-truths, and propaganda. Since that time we have also seen that censure would do nothing to stop Bush from continuing to pursue his disastrous policies.

It's relatively easy to construct a case for impeachment. The illegal activities we have heard about are likely dwarfed by the quantity and seriousness of the illegal activities we don't know about. What is not often examined by those of us demanding it is the consequences of impeachment. It's easy to overlook the fact that Nancy Pelosi has a conflict of interest in that she would become President if both George Bush and Dick Cheney were impeached. However, this does not diminish her responsibility to fulfill her oath to uphold the Constitution. The American people are well aware of what has transpired over the past six years. With the exception of the contingency of right-wing authoritarians who want to make George Bush king for life, we recognize the threat and we are demanding action. We are demanding equal justice under the law. We are demanding our country back.

Why would any minority ever vote for a Republican?

2007-07-13T16:01:00.000-04:00

The NAACP sponsored a GOP presidential debate yesterday. Out of the 9 Republican candidates invited, only one, Tom Tancredo, showed up. What more evidence is needed to show how little today's Republican party cares about anyone who isn't a white male? Twenty years ago, this picture would have made the front page of every major newspaper. The press must have been at whatever cocktail weenie party the other candidates were at.

The "I" word is gaining momentum

2007-07-12T21:28:00.000-04:00

Senator Barbara Boxer from California just said what many of us having been yearning to hear:

I’ve always said that you need to keep [impeachment] on the table, and you need to look at these things, because now people are dying because of this administration. That’s the truth. And they won’t change course. They are ignoring the Congress. They keep signing these signing statements which mean that he’s decided not to enforce the law. This is as close as we’ve ever come to a dictatorship. When you have a situation where Congress is stepped on, that means the American people are stepped on. So I don’t think you can take anything off the table. Because, in fact, the Constitution doesn’t permit us to take these things off the table.

A plurality of Americans want George Bush impeached. A majority want Dick Cheney impeached. Is Congress finally waking up and realizing, as many of us do, that they have no other choice?

...And in other news, poetic justice

2007-07-12T15:26:00.000-04:00

Sharpe James, the longtime mayor of Newark, NJ, was indicted today on 33 counts of corruption. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen the Oscar-nominated documentary, Street Fight, about the 2002 Mayoral election in Newark between Sharpe James and Cory Booker. James used thug tactics, lies, distortions, and a huge war chest to beat Booker, who promised sweeping changes in poverty-striken Newark. If you haven't seen the documentary, I highly recommend it as it gives great insight into what goes on behind the scenes of political campaigns.

Miers a no-show

2007-07-12T13:05:00.000-04:00

Harriet Miers has defied her Congressional subpoena and the Democratic committee members are rightfully incensed. Look for contempt of Congress proceedings against Miers in the near future.

Bush commits a(nother) felony?

2007-07-12T10:34:00.001-04:00

Josh Marshall had an interesting post yesterday. It sure sounds like our fearless leader just committed a felony by instructing Harriet Miers to ignore her congressional subpoena.

The line in the sand - an open letter to Congress

2007-07-04T12:34:00.000-04:00

I am outraged beyond words by the lawless behavior of the entire Bush administration and the apparent unwillingness of Congress to put an end to it. With the commutation of Lewis Libby's sentence for felony convictions for perjury and obstruction of justice, the Bush administration is once again demonstrating to the entire world that they believe themselves to be above the law. While it is within his constitutional authority to grant Mr. Libby a pardon or to commute his sentence, George Bush has never taken such drastic action with anyone else during his entire administration. Furthermore, he has gone back on his word to wait until the appeals process was exhausted in an obvious attempt to obstruct justice in an ongoing investigation. The Bush administration is doing everything in its power to destroy the foundations of the American system of government and the American way of life.

Our food isn't safe to eat, our water supply isn't safe to drink, and our air isn't safe to breathe. We are contributing to the destruction of the planet at a far higher rate than any other country. Instead of tackling these issues by standing up for the common good, the Republican party, lead by George Bush and Dick Cheney, has sought to eliminate government oversight of corporate activities in virtually every industry to the detriment of public safety in the name of corporate profits.

We have a Vice president who believes he belongs to some mystical fourth branch of government that is not accountable to anyone at all. Worse, Congress appears to be accepting his claims with nothing more than some vague threats about cutting off his funding while he continues to thumb his nose at all attempts at oversight.

We are much less safe from both internal and external threats than we were when George Bush took office. His administration has done virtually nothing to prevent major terrorist attacks other than tell us what a great job he is doing of funneling taxpayer money to his friends and contributors under the guise of the undefinable and perpetual “Global War on Terror”. He led us into a disastrous war against a country that had neither attacked us nor posed a threat to us based on outright lies. Our moral standing throughout the world has been irreparably damaged due to our government's use of extraordinary rendition, torture, and a general disregard for international law. Our national resources and treasure are being wasted in Iraq further enlarging our already out of control national debt with no thought given to how it will be repaid. (As an aside, imagine if this country had put $500 billion into hydrogen research instead of starting a war for oil in Iraq. We would now be at the beginning of the next great revolution – the hydrogen revolution – that would dramatically reduce our use of petroleum and our dependence on foreign oil, and would greatly reduce the amount of carbon we are dumping into the atmosphere. Whole new industries would have been created overnight creating a new wave of economic prosperity.)

Public education, the foundation for creating a well-informed, productive, and inventive citizenry, has been frighteningly eroded. Science, once the basis for the technological explosion that has occurred in the United States in the past 100 years, is under constant attack from special interests with the approval and assistance of political appointees in key positions throughout executive branch agencies and an unrestrained corporate media machine that is more interested in entertainment than exposing corruption.

Our technical and manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas while our shrinking middle class struggles with decreasing wages, fewer jobs, and ever increasing costs for health care. Our domestic labor jobs are going to illegal immigrants who work for less than minimum wage, pay no taxes, put a strain on publicly funded resources, take jobs from law-abiding, tax-paying citizens, and depress wages for everyone while the Bush administration refuses to enforce laws designed to punish corporations for hiring undocumented workers. Both the meat packing and poultry industries, once providing career employment for tens of thousands of American citizens, have been turned upside down and now are strictly the domain of illegal immigrants who receive substandard pay and are forced to work in deplorable conditions because they have no voice.

The United States imprisons more of its citizens that any other country in the world, mostly for nonviolent drug offenses as part of an ideological war on drugs that has consumed over a trillion dollars over 30 years while doing nothing to stem the flow or consumption of illegal drugs. Twenty-two percent of all people incarcerated in the world are in prisons in the United States, yet we only account for five percent of the world's population. Something is very wrong here, but instead of taking on the issue and doing something about it, politicians of all stripes choose to claim their “tough on crime” bonafides by doing nothing or preaching about the need for tougher sentencing for criminals.

Our courts have been packed with far-right ideologues who are now tearing down decades of progress in areas of workers rights and civil rights. The wall between church and state is under constant assault from the religious right who want to force everyone to hold their beliefs and have them enforced by the government.

Through all of this, the Democrats have done nothing more than talk because their useless consultants have them convinced that it is bad to take on the Republicans on virtually every issue. It's no wonder the American people think the Democratic party doesn't stand for anything. It will take decades for this country to recover from six years of Republican debauchery, if we are even able to recover at all, and Democrats are only worried about how they will look.

Last November, we, the American people, gave you, the Democratic Congress, the ability and mandate to do something about the almost innumerable major problems facing this country, yet collectively you have done little more than express outrage at what is happening. This is not why we elected you. The congressional oversight and investigations that are underway are encouraging, but so far very little has come out of them other than words. To quote General Petraeus, “Tell me how this ends.”

Even though George Bush has a Nixonian-level approval rating, Congress' is worse. The reason it is worse is because the people are sick and tired of Congress doing little more than paying lip service to the lawless activities and reckless policies of George Bush, his Republican cronies, and their sycophants.

The Bush administration has repeatedly lied to the American public and to Congress; has stripped us of many of our cherished civil rights; has eliminated the great writ of habeas corpus, without which our remaining rights are meaningless; has illegally spied on us by listening to our phone calls and reading our mail; and has intentionally subverted important intelligence gathering operations in the name of political retribution. In short, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Alberto Gonzales have committed high crimes and treason against the United States of America. What more do they have to do before Congress takes a serious look at impeachment? At what point do you say, enough is enough? Where is the line in the sand? The future of the United States and all of its citizens is literally in your hands.

Saturday Funnies

2007-07-01T11:05:00.002-04:00

Bob Geiger's Saturday funnies. As expected, Dick Cheney gets a lot of unwanted, yet completely deserved attention.

Why government regulation is necessary

2007-06-20T12:54:00.000-04:00

Greenboy over at Needlenose reminds us why government regulation of industry is needed:

Long-time readers may remember that of the conservative pantheon, I hate Libertarians the most of all. Possibly because one of my uncles is an asshole Libertarian. Possibly because of their unbelievable hypocrisy. Or quite possibly just because their pseudo-intellectual arguments underly the unrestricted free-market bullshit promulgated by inhuman corporate interests that seem determined to destroy the planet.

I cringe when I hear some jackass, high on Ayn Rand, claim that the free market can solve all problems. Or who whines about regulations and how they are the root of all evil, and opines about how wonderful the world would be if only the markets were truly free.

I wonder how said jackass would react if he/she found his toddler gnawing on a Chinese-made toy painted with lead paint. Or found his beloved Labrador was eating pet food tainted by melamine, added no doubt by fellow Ayn Rand afficianados to save a buck at the jackasses expense. Or found out his toothpaste was purposely contaminated with a toxic chemical. Sadly, the list goes on.

The reason our rules exist in the first place is not because of evil Liberals trying to drown the Ayn Randers in red tape out of spite, but because of a history of jackass entrepreneurs adulterating food with often dangerous substances to make a quick buck out of us in the past.

Because we rely increasingly upon China for cheap food and medicine imports, we are at the mercy of their 'least common denominator' regulation. They have moved from an extreme form of state-control to a nation of Ayn Randian jackasses happy to make a quick buck regardless of who they poison.

And American industry, corporate lobbyists, fucktard Libertarian stink-tanks and Repug puppet pols have been happy to lead us to a state of affairs where our own regulatory bodies appear to be unable to provide us with the proactive protection to which we've become accustomed. It seems a bassakward approach to wait until the damage has been done (i.e. pets die, children get brain damage from lead poisoning) before the government can spring into action and pull the items off the shelves.

Anyway, it's time to scrap the WTO and build up an international organization with some teeth in it that can promote and manage 'safe trade.' Fair trade. Sustainable trade.

And speaking of hypocrisy...

2007-06-08T21:23:00.000-04:00

From Crooks and Liars:

This story epitomizes the modern conservative movement. They are filled with Frank Luntz talking points, but when it comes down to actual life experiences…well….I give you Judge Robert Bork:
Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they “wantonly, willfully, and recklessly” failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.

Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs’ ability to recover through tort law. In a 2002 article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy–the official journal of the Federalist Society–Bork argued that frivolous claims and excessive punitive damage awards have caused the Constitution to evolve into a document which would allow Congress to enact tort reforms that would have been unconstitutional at the framing:…read on (h/t Matt)
He can sue, but you can’t. Scooter can lie and obstruct justice, but you can’t.

IOKIYAR.

Bush impedes congressional investigation

2007-06-08T21:00:00.000-04:00

Someone please remind me again, why is impeachment off the table?

President Bush derailed a bill by the US Congress aimed at ending the Administration's illegal wiretapping by not providing documents related to the President’s warrantless wiretapping program to the Senate Intelligence Committee that is currently reviewing the proposed legislation.

The evidence that George Bush and Dick Cheney have committed high crimes and misdemeanors is overwhelming. Now they're refusing to cooperate with Congress thereby preventing them from performing their constitutionally mandated oversight duties. Listening to Bush lecture leaders of other countries for their lack of transparency when he is doing his best to turn the United States into the new Soviet Union is the height of hypocrisy. He is going to continue to flip the bird to Congress and the American public until he is dragged kicking and screaming from office. What will it take to get impeachment on the table? What will it take for them to do their duty to protect the constitution? If they don't, it will be hard to prevent the next president from doing more of the same. If not now, then when?

Administration confusion

2007-06-02T10:35:00.000-04:00

This tidbit reported by Dan Froomkin yesterday caught my attention:

"Officials say proponents of reducing the troops and scaling back their mission next year appear to include Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They have been joined by generals at the Pentagon and elsewhere who have long been skeptical that the Iraqi government would use the opportunity created by the troop increase to reach genuine political accommodations."
But Michael Abramowitz and Peter Baker wrote Sunday in The Washington Post that the White House disputed the Times report. They write: "The administration is trying to make judgments about where it will be in the months ahead, and officials are discussing possibilities accordingly. The scenarios for troop withdrawal are based on the premise of a successful 'surge.' There is also discussion about what to do if the buildup plan fails, but officials are unwilling to discuss it with outsiders even privately."

So according to the White House, the "surge" must be successful before we can even start to talk about withdrawing any troops from Iraq. Ignoring for a moment the fact that Bush has never actually defined "success" as it applies to anything in Iraq, this clearly implies that there will be no withdrawal if the adventure fails. If that's the case, then why is General Petraeus saying that the surge is going so swimmingly that he's already calling for it to continue until at least December so that he can reduce troops levels to...exactly where they were before the surge started by the end of 2008? So which is it...the surge will keep going if it succeeds, or if it fails? Who's the decider here anyway?

The essence of the Republican party

2007-05-30T19:19:00.000-04:00

This isn't a joke.

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.
The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.

The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.

You read that correctly. A business wants to protect its customers from serious illness and the Bush administration is trying to prevent that from happening. Sadly, this isn't an isolated incident. Remember the salmonella outbreak in peanut butter? How about the E. coli in fresh spinach? Or the lettuce at Taco Bell? Tainted pet food? Think it's all a coincidence that these reports of food chain contamination are appearing with increasing regularity? Think it's just the "librul media" taking pot shots at Bush?

Think again. This is the predictable result of Republican policies. It's how Republicans protect American citizens. Despite all their rhetoric to the contrary, Republicans couldn't care less about small government, financial responsibility, "family values," national security, or any of their other "signature" issues. In fact, they couldn't care less about the health, safety, and welfare of American citizens if they tried. Their philosophy of governance is that their primary responsibility is to protect corporate interests. Period. What, you're not rich? Cry me a river about your petty health care problems and your stagnant salary.

The above are just a few examples dealing with food safety. If you really want to see the contempt the Republican party has for all of us, look at these:

FEMA/Hurricane Katrina
Dept. of Education/Every child left behind
Alberto Gonzales/US Attorneys firings
Cheney's energy task force
Halliburton's No bid contracts
Falsification of justification for war with Iraq
Outing of Valerie Plame
Warrantless wiretapping
Walter Reed
EPA/WTC Ground zero air quality
Abu Ghraib/torture
Extraordinary rendition
Suspension of Habeas Corpus
Jack Abramoff
Extended tours of duty for soldiers in Iraq

The list goes on and one. Just think about these scandals the next time you hear a Republican proselytizing. He doesn't give a shit about you. He just wants your vote and he'll say anything he thinks you want to hear to get it. The evidence is right in front of you. All you need to do is open your eyes.

As the Justice Department Turns (over a spit)

2007-05-23T23:48:00.000-04:00

Jesus H. Christ, how freakin' stoopid does the Bush administration, and in particular his Justice Department, think we are? There will always be the 28-percenters who would be okay with George Bush eating a live baby on the fifty yard line during the Super Bowl half-time show, but what about the rest of us? These officials sound like a bunch of children telling lies to their parents. None of them are even remotely believable.

I still remember the look on Patrick Leahy's face in response to Gonzales turning himself into a human pretzel during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 13^th. We've all seen that look from teachers in grade school whenever kids tried to give some bullshit excuse for not having their homework done. While watching him testify, I kept thinking of the scene from Oliver Stone's "JFK" in which David Ferrie (Joe Pesci) was telling his cockamamie story about a trip to Houston with "the boys" during a bad thunderstorm to go goose hunting without any guns, and Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) said something to the effect of, "I'm sorry, Mr. Ferrie, we're going to have to detain you for further questioning. Frankly, we find your story to be not believable", to which Ferrie replies, "Really?...Which part?"

Now today, Monica Goodling admitted she broke the law with her questioning of prospective employees, but she didn't mean to. (/me bangs head on table.) Then she let this gem slip:

[Goodling] said Gonzales told her, "Let me tell you what I can remember," and "laid out his general recollection" of the process leading up to the firings -- that he believed they had all been dismissed for performance-based reasons.

Let me get this straight. The Attorney General of the United States believed that eight, Senate-confirmed United States Attorneys, who reported to him, were fired "for performance-based reasons." Ahem. Excuse me if I'm a little skeptical. We're not talking about McDonald's here (no offense to McDonald's employees). When a United States Attorney is fired, it's memorable. If you're the president of a major corporation and one of your vice presidents is fired (much less eight), you'll remember precisely why. This is no different.

What he was really telling her was, "I don't remember anything. That's my story, so you'll have lots of maneuvering room if the questions get tight. Just don't blame me or the president, and we'll hook you up with a nice cushy job at the Heritage Foundation when this blows over." It's either that, or he really is that clueless about what is happening in the department he is supposed to be running. I guess he's just praying that everyone will think he's a total idiot because that's preferable to being impeached and possibly prosecuted for federal crimes.

Dems made to look like fools

2007-05-22T23:47:00.000-04:00

The Democrats caved in and gave the president everything he asked for with his supplemental Iraq spending bill: no timelines, no benchmarks, no strings attached.

Democrats gave up their demand for troop-withdrawal deadlines in an Iraq war spending package yesterday, abandoning their top goal of bringing U.S. troops home and handing President Bush a victory in a debate that has roiled Congress for months.

They are playing political games with the lives of millions of people. Someone remind me, why exactly did we elect these guys? I know congressional hearings and oversight were desperately needed and I'm thankful that we seem to have some accountability back, but this plus the fact that some Democrats are seriously considering not voting to restore Habeas Corpus is both disheartening and disturbing.

The person I'm most disappointed with is Jon Tester from Montana. I contributed money to his campaign, and he's not even from my state. Not that I'm expecting him to do what I want him to do just because I showed him some love, but his platform included endorsing withdrawal from Iraq:

“It is time for the President to articulate a clear exit strategy for American troops from Iraq. An open-ended occupation is not in the best interests of the United States, the Iraqi people, or the Middle East. The time has come to support our troops by laying out a plan to bring them home.”

So to hear him now reciting the slop from Karl Rove's fax machine is quite unexpected:

"I am doing everything in my power as a U.S. senator to end the war in Iraq, but I will not cast any vote that I believe compromises the safety and security of our troops on the ground," Tester said, also in a prepared statement.

Tester doesn't understand the way the government works, or he's being intentionally obtuse. Neither one makes him look especially good to most of the people who voted for him, and he completely reneged on his campaign promise. He will vote to give the president the open-ended occupation that Tester already said was "not in the best interests of the United States, the Iraqi people, or the Middle East." Mr. Tester: please take Max Baucus with you and spend some quality time with Harry Reid and Russ Feingold. It sounds like the four of you need to have a li'l talk.

MSNBC impeachment poll

2007-05-22T01:46:00.000-04:00

MSNBC is conducting a poll that asks:

Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?

After 443,843 votes, 88% of the respondents answered:

Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.

This is an astonishing figure even though MSNBC does state that it is not a scientific poll (which should be as good as the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for the Intelligent Design crowd).

Remember back when the Washington Post's polling editor Richard Morin was getting the vapors because participants in a WaPo online chat session kept asking him if he was going to poll on public support for impeaching George Bush? Jane Hamsher said:

The headline blazing across the Washinton Post this morning reads: "Poll: Most Americans Support NSA’s Efforts."

It was written by Richard Morin, and we’ve been down this road before. Just days after the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal broke, before people had become wise to what was going on (and long before Clinton’s popularity soared during the congressional hearings), Morin was polling on impeachment with carefully worded questions. He got the results he was looking for, and long after public opinion had turned they existed as a bulwark against any change in conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill.

This, however, was Morin’s response not long ago in a Washington Post online chat:

Naperville, Ill.: Why haven’t you polled on public support for the impeachment of George W. Bush?

Richard Morin: This question makes me mad…

Seattle, Wash.: How come ABC News/Post poll has not yet polled on impeachment?

Richard Morin: Getting madder…

Haymarket, Va.: With all the recent scandals and illegal/unconstitutional actions of the President, why hasn’t ABC News / Washington Post polled whether the President should be impeached?

Richard Morin: Madder still…

(snip)

[W]e do not ask about impeachment because it is not a serious option or a topic of considered discussion –witness the fact that no member of congressional Democratic leadership or any of the serious Democratic presidential candidates in ‘08 are calling for Bush’s impeachment. When it is or they are, we will ask about it in our polls.

So Richard (or can I call you...Dick?), even though Congress is ignoring the issue for the time being, given the rather substantial size and skew of this MSNBC poll, can we expect to see you conduct your own poll to get an actual scientific answer to the question to help members of Congress gauge the speed and direction of the wind?

Comey's testimony

2007-05-22T01:29:00.000-04:00

Since much of the corporate media didn't even bother to mention James Comey's stunning testimony last week, here are a few links to articles by Glenn Greenwald that examine it. One of the bombs dropped was this radioactive bit:

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey detailed the desperate late night efforts by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card to get the Justice Department to approve a secret program -- the warrantless wiretapping program.

According to Comey's testimony this morning, only when faced with resignations by a number of Justice Department officials including Comey, his chief of staff, Ashcroft's chief of staff, Ashcroft himself and possibly Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, did the White House agree to make changes to the program that would satisfy the requirements of the Justice Department to sign off on it. . .

The events took place in March of 2004, when the program was in need of renewal by the Justice Department. When then-Attorney General John Ashcroft fell ill and was hospitalized, Comey became the acting-Attorney General.

The deadline for the Justice Department's providing its sign-off of the program was March 11th (the program required reauthorization every 45 days). On that day, Comey, then the acting AG, informed the White House that he "would not certify the legality" of the program.

The transcript of part of Comey's testimony is here. In particular, Comey detailed the attempt by Andy Card and Gonzales to manipulate Ashcroft's approval while Ashcroft was in the hospital so sick from a gall bladder condition that he named Comey Acting Attorney General pending his recovery. Comey's recollection is that the hospital visit by Gonzales and Card was arranged as a result of a telephone call from the President himself to Ashcroft's wife.
Comey testified that upon learning of this intended visit, he literally ran up the stairs to Ashcroft's hospital room, and his reason for the rush tells you all you need to know about this administration: "I was worried about him, frankly. I was concerned that this was an effort to do an end-run around the acting attorney general and to get a very sick man to approve something that the Department of Justice had already concluded -- the department as a whole -- was unable to be certified as to its legality." According to Comey, once he arrived in Ashcroft's hospital room, this is what occurred:
And it was only a matter of minutes that the door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card. They came over and stood by the bed. They greeted the attorney general very briefly. And then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there -- to seek his approval for a matter, and explained what the matter was -- which I will not do.

And Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me. He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me -- drawn from the hour-long meeting we'd had a week earlier -- and in very strong terms expressed himself, and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general.

SCHUMER: But he expressed his reluctance or he would not sign the statement that they -- give the authorization that they had asked, is that right?

COMEY: Yes.

Poppies fund the Taliban

2007-05-22T00:08:00.000-04:00

Anyone doubt we'll see heroin addicts prosecuted for "providing aid and comfort to the enemy" sometime in the near future?

Fundraising for Osama

2007-05-21T17:47:00.000-04:00

His ability to effortlessly express his ideas is what makes Digby one of my favorite writers:

The Bush administration and its neocon muses have long said that the most dangerous thing the US could do would be to give the terrorists a victory by "proving" that we don't have the ballocks to stand and fight. They firmly believe that a failure to kick ass and take names, going all the way back to Reagan and the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut, is what caused the Islamofascists to think they could attack us. They know this because bin Laden has trash talked this line on various tapes and missives over the years so it must be true. (He wouldn't lie, would he?)

And when they hear him saying "bring it" like big dumb bulls they see red and immediately start snorting and stomping the ground and rush headlong into some half baked scheme designed to prove that we can't be intimidated. But what if the Islamoboogeymen are actually waving their capes in front of the big, dumb United States in order to get them to do exactly that?

[...]

Basing your decisions upon your stated enemy's threats and taunts and holding fast so they can't yell "psych!" is not a foreign policy --- it's a WWF advertising campaign. It isn't real and it doesn't address any real problem. The US is the most powerful country on earth and the Islamoboogeymen are not going to take over our government and make us all wear burkas and pray to mecca. Really.

This is a conversation that should have taken place in 2002 after the shock of 9/11 wore off somewhat, but instead of facing the problems head-on like true leaders, Bush and Cheney decided that it didn't matter (and still doesn't) why Al Qaeda attacked the United States. It's much easier for them to frame it as good (Christianity/democracy) vs. evil (Islam/not democracy) than it is to try to understand the true dynamics at work because they never really cared. They saw 9/11 as more than just a horrible act of war; they saw it as an opportunity to enact the neocon agenda while enriching their friends and empowering themselves.

How many times have our fearless leaders told us that Islamics hate us for our freedoms? Think about that for a minute. People everywhere have pretty much the same basic needs and desires. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you plot to kill as many people as you possibly could in another country thousands of miles away simply because you don't like the books they read or the clothes they wear? Does that even make any sense? Or could there possibly be another, more logical explanation? Al Qaeda has told us exactly why they hate us, but our government totally ignores their stated justifications for obvious reasons: it shifts at least part of the blame onto them. Al Qaeda, and indeed most of the rest of the world at this point, don't hate the American people for cultural reasons (at least not enough to want to kill us all); they hate us for our government's policies. Since we're the ones who vote our government officials into power, they hate us by extension.

The intelligence community has a term for what Muslim extremists are doing: blowback. Blowback is why the Japanese attacked us in 1941 and it's why the Iranians took Americans hostage in Tehran in 1979. It's also why Al Qaeda attacks our interests throughout the world today. Ron Paul, who is an old school conservative, tried to explain this during the recent second Republican debate, and Giuliani all but branded him a traitor because Republicans can't afford to have their signature issue, The Great Global War on Terra^™, questioned by rational people. Americans are way too valuable as compliant sheep who pull the correct election booth levers as directed by our strong, fearless leaders to worry our pretty little heads about boring issues like foreign policy that are way too complicated for us beer-drinking, American Idol-watching consumers to understand anyway.

Now, I am by no means condoning Al Qaeda's actions. I think Bin Laden and everyone who had anything to do with 9/11 should be hunted down, arrested, and put on trial for their crimes. If capture can't be accomplished, I have no problem with permanently entombing them in their caves or turning their homes into large craters . However it's handled, the perpetrators of 9/11 cannot go unpunished. It would be just peachy if the Bush administration shared this sentiment and cared at all about bringing public enemy #1 to justice, especially since the Commander Guy promised on more than one occasion to do exactly that, but it's clear by their actions that Bin Laden is more useful to them alive and free.

Digby shares with us how Al Qaeda is being well funded thanks to our escapades in Iraq. You could say that we are a boon for business. But this is a two way street and the Republicans, being the master marketers that they are, are well aware of it. It would be great if one of the Democratic candidates would point out the symbiotic relationship that exists between them. Al Qaeda gets new members and an influx of cash to wage their war on the infidels because our government's policies are inflaming the Muslim world. Meanwhile, Republicans get votes from scared citizens so they can maintain control of the government because they've convinced enough of us that there are Islamofascists hiding under every bed and in every closet waiting to strike, and the only way to keep your family from being murdered in some spectacularly gruesome manner is to keep voting for Republicans (even though they were in control when we were attacked and ignored numerous warnings). We're getting the short end of the stick, however. Al Qaeda is growing stronger by the day, while we're draining our precious resources on a campaign that cannot possibly end positively from our perspective, yet our leaders are so blinded by their all-consuming hunger for power that it doesn't matter to them.

The ticking bomb

2007-05-20T22:54:00.001-04:00

Anonymous Liberal wrote an outstanding essay on the ever popular "ticking bomb" scenario for torture justification.

The second, far less relevant question is this: are there certain hypothetical scenarios under which the use of torture can be morally justified? If you construct the right scenario (nuclear bomb about to go off, suspect knows the target, etc.) just about anyone will answer yes to this question. But that's not at all surprising or informative. After all, it's possible to construct a hypothetical scenario where you'd be morally justified in shooting a little girl in the head (you're in a cave running out of air, there are four other younger children, they'll all die unless you off yourself and the oldest kid, etc.). The bottomline is that all of us are capable of simple utilitarian moral reasoning. If you are presented with a choice between something very bad and something even worse, the moral logic is pretty clear.

But this is all an exercise in irrelevance because that's not how rational people make policy decisions. Just because you can construct a hypothetical scenario w[h]ere shooting a girl in the head is the "right" thing to do, that doesn't mean that we should do away with the legal prohibition against murder. When it comes to acts that are sufficiently bad--such as murder and torture--you need categorical rules.

[highlighting is mine]

The so-called "ticking bomb scenario" is simple-minded nonsense. It assumes two things that never happen in real life: 1) that you know for certain that a bomb is about to be detonated, and 2) that you're positive the person you have in custody has information that will allow you to stop that bomb from going off. I'm fairly certain that in the entire history of mankind, that scenario has never yet presented itself. Moreover, even if it did, the odds are slim, at best, that the suspect would divulge the necessary information under duress (as opposed to simply giving you disinformation).

As McCain and others have pointed out, if a sufficiently dire situation presents itself, those officials who would contemplate the use of torture need to do so with the knowledge that it is a practice so disgusting and heinous that we have seen fit as a society to ban it categorically. If they are to engage in torture, they need to know it is illegal and that they are likely to be punished if they are wrong. Then and only then can we have any hope that our soldiers and intelligence officials will be sufficiently judicious in their use of this horrible practice.

It still amazes me that we even need to be having this debate in this country. Where are our values? The part that really makes my brain hurt is that American Christians are more likely than non-religious Americans to approve of torture, with Catholics favoring torture in much higher percentages than all other groups. You can't help but wonder, do most Christians know anything at all about their savior? I suppose this makes sense when you consider that this group went to see "The Passion of the Christ," the bloodiest movie about Jesus and by far the highest grossing, for entertainment purposes literally by the bus load.

Christianists own today's Republican party. They also own each and every Republican running for President. If John McCain is the only one who thinks torture is the antithesis of the most base beliefs held by this country until George Bush came along, then we are in serious trouble if any one of them becomes the next president.

What has happened to this country?

2007-05-20T21:07:00.001-04:00

This is one of the most disturbing articles I've read in a long time. Please read the whole story, but here is the short version. A 43-year old woman was brought to the emergency room at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in Los Angeles by LA County police complaining of severe abdominal pains. This was her third trip in two days. The other two trips resulted in essentially "take two aspirin and call me in the morning". The woman collapsed on the floor from the pain she was experiencing, yet the hospital staff ignored her. A janitor even mopped the floor all around her. The whole scene was recorded on the hospital's closed circuit camera system. Her boyfriend showed up and repeatedly tried to get the hospital staff to help her, but they ignored him. Within 90 minutes, the woman was dead from a massive infection resulting from a perforated large bowel.

What kind of country have we become that something like this could happen? This is absolutely disgusting. It would be one thing if this were an isolated occurrence, but incidents like this are becoming more common especially in LA where hospitals routinely dump indigents in the gutters. I hope this poor woman's family owns that hospital and everyone working there who ignored her after the lawyers are done with them. This is precisely why tort law is needed.

Saturday Funnies

2007-05-19T17:47:00.000-04:00

Bob Geiger's weekly political cartoon roundup.

Wolfowitz out

2007-05-18T14:05:00.001-04:00

Paul Wolfowitz has finally resigned as president of the World Bank. The man had no business being in charge of a poverty fighting institution to begin with. The only reason Bush put Wolfowitz in charge was to ensure that the neocon agenda was realized. Their goal was to use the World Bank as yet another weapon to bully countries that are hostile to US interests, while protecting and rewarding those that are friendly. His corruption fighting agenda was just a bogus excuse.

Even though he is being forced to resign, Wolfowitz still makes out pretty well. He accepts no responsibility for his willful manipulation of the rules and the bank is blaming their own. How typical for a member of the Party of Responsibility^®. They always manage to find someone else to blame for their screw-ups. I suppose it's a small price to pay to get him out the door, but it's still ridiculous considering everyone knows it's bullshit. Also, he was to receive a $400,000 bonus if he held onto his office for 2 years, which would have been June 2^nd. Since he is holding out until June 30^th, I'm guessing he will still get his booty although none of the mainstream outlets have reported on this that I am aware of. I would point out that that money could have been much better spent helping poor, starving children somewhere in the world, but the World Bank throws away so much money on themselves that $400K doesn't even register with them.

Now if only Gonzales, Cheney, and Bush can be convinced to follow suit, we can finally look to begin heading down the long road to recovery from too many years of Republican rule.

Nice face lift, Rush

2007-05-12T11:18:00.000-04:00

Limbaugh never looked so good. TRex has the skinny.

Saturday Funnies

2007-05-12T10:50:00.000-04:00

Bob Geiger reviews this past week's political cartoons.

On approval ratings

2007-05-10T11:20:00.000-04:00

Chapter 39 of Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" begins with a paragraph describing the results of a poll conducted in Iraq the week of November 11 to 18, 2005 that measured the approval rating of various Iraqi leaders. The interesting part of this is in the footnote where Woodward notes that Saddam Hussein had a 22%/78% favorable/unfavorable rating in that poll. After everything he had done to his country, he still had a 22% approval rating. When you consider that the most recent Newsweek poll of George Bush peg him at 28%/64% with 8% undecided, what does this say about Bush and his supporters, not to mention the Iraqis?

We now officially have a king

2007-05-10T01:11:00.000-04:00

George Bush coronated himself king today when he signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.

See this post at Fire Dog Lake. Be sure to watch the video. Then read Glenn Greewald here. Then please call your Congressman and both Senators. I'm lost for words.

It's not terrorism if you're white, part deux

2007-05-08T20:39:00.000-04:00

It was just last week that I was discussing the corporate media's complete lack of interest in home-grown terrorist, Tyler Joseph Froatz. Froatz was held without bail after authorities found a sizable weapons cache in his Jeep and apartment following his arrest for assaulting the organizer of an immigration rally in Washington, DC. Details can be found here. At the time, I speculated that the case might have attracted more attention if his name had been more exotic and his skin browner:

Imagine if Tyler Joseph Froatz was named Tayib Jamal Farahani and was of Middle Eastern decent. To say that this would have generated some national interest is a bit of an understatement. This would have been splattered all over CNN for hours. Fox would have had a field day. The wingnut blogs would have been on this like ugly on an ape for weeks. Michael Chertoff would have made a public statement raising the terra level to blinking red. Dick Cheney would've booked all the Sunday talking head shows. And Dubya would've said something incredibly stupid. But since it was just Bubba from Podunk, the MSM and assorted right tards not only couldn't care less, many of them wish he would've succeeded.

I just never expected my theory to be tested quite so quickly. All we need now is the official response from the White House.

I also want to point out that none of our civil rights were harmed in the making of these arrests. George Bush didn't have to listen to our phone calls, open our mail, monitor our Internet activity, or check our bank transactions. Hell, he didn't even need to torture any of the detainees at Gitmo. Nope. This case was blown wide open with good old fashioned police work based on a tip from a concerned citizen.

It will be interesting to see if the details currently being reported stay consistent over time or if this is another case like the Miami terrorists. In any event, this case proves that there are still some competent, hard-working people in the executive branch. The FBI are to be commended for taking any and all appropriate action here.

Oh, and since the terrorists are indeed following us back here, does that mean our soldiers can come home now?

Dems wimping out

2007-05-07T19:21:00.000-04:00

(Updated below)

I had high hopes for this Democratic Congress. They occasionally seem to show awareness that the main reason they displaced the rubber-stamp, Republican-controlled Congress is because the American people are sick and tired of the war in Iraq. The only thing that's changed since then is that even more Americans are sick and tired of the death and destruction being wrought in their name while the coffers are being siphoned into the bank accounts of corporate interests and foreign governments that are only too happy to fund our suicidal spending spree.

Congressional Democrats were all fire and brimstone about not giving our clueless leader a blank check on Iraq. The first time he said "boo" to them, however, they all turned into a giant puddle of piss.

House Democratic leaders are preparing a new version of the Iraq war funding bill that would pay for the war in two stages.
The first stage would give the Bush administration about half of the $95.5 billion it seeks for U.S. troops and military operations. Congress would vote on authorizing the second half of the funds in July, but only after it reviews a report from President Bush on a series of benchmarks measuring the Iraqi government's progress.
[...]
[A leadership aide] said that by "fencing off" the second installment of war funding, Congress would get more detailed information about how the money would be spent and how much more is needed. The aide described the plan as "being responsive to concerns of members who really want us to keep the pressure on Bush, and at the same time we are making sure we are funding the troops and making members comfortable with that."

Shorter version: they're going to give him the fucking money. After all the tough talk, they're going to do exactly what Bush said they would do: they're going to pussy out and give him the money. By attaching the bullshit language about "benchmarks," they are trying to give the appearance of holding Bush accountable, but it's a farce because he gets $50 billion up front, no questions asked and later gets to go back to the well after he writes his "who I killed on my summer vacation" report at the conclusion of the next Friedman.

Our military has been occupying Iraq for four years, but today we can't even identify who the enemy is (besides the 17 al Qaeda members who immigrated after we invaded), what our objectives are, or how we define success. In short, there is no plan whatsoever and there never has been. Yet knowing all this, our duly elected Democratically-controlled Congress is going to just hand over another $50 billion to George Bush so he can keep getting his rocks off. Jesus tap-dancing Christ this is so stupid.

It's even worse than it appears, though. Real people are being used as pawns in a big political game. When these pawns die, though, it's real lives being snuffed out way too early and entire families being ripped apart. And this for some bullshit ideological war on an undefinable enemy. The Democrats will not take a meaningful, principled stand against this insane war for fear of losing out in the next election. It doesn't matter how many people have to die or how much damage is done to either Iraq or the United States. It's all about power. This is just par for the course for the Democrats, though. They talk the talk, but when it comes time to put up or shut up, they fold like cheap patio furniture.

The truly mind-boggling part to this whole funding debate, though, is that Congress can end the war very easily if they really want to. There's no need to rush to present a bill to Bush at all. To end this war, all they have to do is emulate the last Congress by not doing a goddamn thing. They just don't pass a spending bill and the war is over. The Republicans did exactly that to Clinton in Somalia. And what did Clinton do once the funds were cut off? He pulled the troops out!

Our national debt is 9 trillion dollars and growing. That's $9,000,000,000,000. That's $30,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. The interest alone on that debt is over $400 billion each year. Where is the money going to come from to pay for this and why do none of our leaders seem to think we have a problem?

Republicans may be full of shit whenever they open their mouths, but at least you always know where they stand on any given issue. I think that's why so many people vote for them: they want strong, decisive leaders. Democrats love to tell us how they are for the common good and that they represent the common man, but it's all bullshit. Every time they start to grow a pair of balls, their highly paid and highly useless "consultants" convince them that it's bad to stand up to the man whose only supporters are people who make money by doing so, and people who believe The Rapture is upon us.

Maybe I'm wrong about the Democrats on this, and believe me, I sincerely hope I am. If so, I'll gladly issue a huge mea culpa. Until that happens, though, I will remain skeptical and mad as hell. And they wonder why we're the "angry left?"

UPDATE:

Digby just said it better than I ever could:

This interesting post from Steamboats Are Ruining Everything takes us back to 1820 and reminds us that brutish conservatives are nothing new:
William Hazlitt explained the nature of it in his 1820 essay, "On the Spirit of Partisanship."

Conservatives and liberals play the game of politics differently, Hazlitt wrote, because they have different motivations. Liberals are motivated by principles and tend to believe that personal honor can be spared in political combat. They may, in fact, become vain about their highmindedness. Hazlitt condemns the mildness as a mistake, both in moral reasoning and in political strategy. "They betray the cause by not defending it as it is attacked, tooth and nail, might and main, without exception and without remorse." [highlighting is mine.]

The conservatives, on the other hand, start with a personal interest in the conflict. Not wishing to lose their hold on power, they are fiercer. "We"---i.e., the liberals, or the "popular cause," in Hazlitt's terminology---"stand in awe of their threats, because in the absence of passion we are tender of our persons.
Hazlitt was right. And never more than today when the stakes are so high...History proves that bad things do sometimes happen. Being barely left standing to say "I told you so" will be no compensation.

Another domino falls

2007-05-07T13:39:00.000-04:00

(Updated below)

In other news, one of embattled World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz' top aides resigned today to pursue "other opportunities." Kevin Kellems was a White House employee before Wolfowitz tapped him to become his adviser at the bank. In a statement to the Associated Press, Kellems said, "Given the current environment surrounding the leadership of the World Bank Group, it is very difficult to be effective in helping to advance the mission of the institution."

Yo Kevin, I hear the Justice Department is looking for some people with your background. And don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

UPDATE:

From the NY Times (login required):

A committee of World Bank directors has formally notified Paul D. Wolfowitz that they found him to be guilty of a conflict of interest in arranging for a pay raise and promotion for Shaha Ali Riza, his companion, in 2005. The findings stepped up the pressure on Mr. Wolfowitz to resign.

[...]

It was not clear whether the committee, consisting of 7 of the bank’s 24 board members, would remove Mr. Wolfowitz from his post or, more likely, express a loss of confidence in his leadership in a manner that might persuade him to resign. Bank officials say that a majority of the bank board has concluded that he should go.

[...]

European officials at the bank said that if Mr. Wolfowitz resigns, either now or some time in the future, Europeans may be willing to let the United States continue to exercise its customary prerogative of choosing the next bank president.

Since the bank was established as part of the post-World War II global economic architecture in a conference at Bretton Woods, N.H., the United States has always chosen the bank’s president, in part because it has always had the largest single share of voting rights at the bank, currently 16.4 percent.

A senior European official said that Europeans have informally told Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. that many of their governments, some of whom asked for the custom to be discarded in 2005, would now renew their demand, especially if Mr. Wolfowitz is forced out by a vote of the bank board.

This official said that the overwhelming sentiment in Europe, as expressed in editorials, political commentaries and even web logs, was that European governments should never again let the United States pick the president of the World Bank all by itself.

The nerve of those Europeans thinking they can tell the President of the U. S. of A. how to do his presidentin'. It's about time for The Commander Guy to once again express his complete confidence in Wolfowitz because there is no way a bunch of pansy euroweenies will push Dubya around. He may have to get his flightsuit prepped. A bigger codpiece may even be in order. Given Bush's propensity for belligerence, there is little doubt that he will tell the EU to piss off when they challenge him much like he has done with Congress. What happens after that should be highly entertaining.

Time for another Friedman Unit

2007-05-07T13:08:00.000-04:00

(Updated below)

Since the January Friedman Unit is about over, it's time time to start talking about the next one:

Sigh. Here we do NOT go again:

"Over the course of the next three to four months, we'll have some idea how well the plan's working. . . . By the time we get to September or October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn't, what's Plan B?"

Sure they will. This is deja vu all over again:

I think it will be rather clear in the next 60 to 90 days as to whether this plan is going to work. . . . We need to know, as we . . . move through these benchmarks, that the Iraqis are doing what they have to do. -Boehner, 1/23/07

Meanwhile, some of the nice folks out in the red states that have been devastated by tornadoes over the past week are realizing that their national guard might be of some use back home about now. Maybe this is some of the sacrifice that Dubya has spoken of.

I'm not suggesting that these people are responsible for their national guardsmen being over in Iraq because of their blind support for George Bush and his disastrous war of choice, but I am suggesting that some of them might want to reevaluate their position now that they see the real world consequences. Oh, and the whole middle of the country still doesn't look too good, weather-wise.

UPDATE:

From Crooks & Liars:

More on the Kansas National Guard Equipment Problems

John Amato adds: "We can only hope Mother Nature is a little kinder to us in the future."

Greed and indifference have been our guiding principles for the past 100+ years with respect to nature. Relying on hope at this point with all the evidence indicating Mother Nature is really pissed off might not be the best strategy (not that hope ever is a strategy).

How subjective the truth?

2007-05-07T00:35:00.000-04:00

It's interesting to me how conservatives and liberals both constantly accuse each other of lying about everything. The liberals call themselves "the reality-based community." The conservatives call them that also, but they're just being sarcastic. They think the "moonbats" are the liars. I mean, what really gives here?

I've been reading political blogs for about 4 years now. The whole reason I started was because I didn't feel like corporate media was providing a complete or accurate picture of what was going on in the world. Everything seemed to have a surreal quality to it, like something just wasn't right. Some of the news sounded more like propaganda than journalism. A lot of things didn't seem to make sense any more. One day I got fed up. I googled for alternative news sites and came across a few blogs.

The sites that I read religiously (see my blog roll) all strike me as being run by honest, intelligent people with loads of integrity. Sure, they sometimes make mistakes, but they acknowledge their mistakes and print a correction every time one has been pointed out. I've seen some arguments stretched a bit at times, too (at least in my opinion), but they really care about being accurate. The few times I tried to read major conservative sites, like redstate.com, littlegreenfootballs, and michelle malkin, I could only take a few minutes before either getting pissed off or feeling ill. They just seem to create their own facts. Even when they are proven wrong, which has been almost always (remember Captain Jamil Hussein?), they never own up to their screw ups.

What I'm really curious about is this: are the conservatives who claim liberals are serial liars being ingenuous with their claims? Do they believe what they're saying? Does the world outside their windows really look that different than it does outside mine? I just can't see how two people can look at the same event yet produce such different sets of facts unless one of them is lying. Is the truth really that subjective?

I would like to be able to hold an honest, intelligent, non-emotional conversation with a conservative to try to understand why we see everything so differently. I'm not talking about a debate here, just a conversation. I have little faith that it could happen without turning into a huge ad hominem fest, but I would like to at least try. (And no, I don't sit in my room and hit myself in the head with a hammer, either.)

On Digby on Woodward On Tenet

2007-05-07T00:08:00.000-04:00

From Digby quoting Bob Woodward:

In his remarkable, important and often unintentionally damning memoir, George Tenet, the former CIA chief, describes a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, two months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In much more vivid and emotional detail than previously reported, Tenet writes that he had received intelligence that day, July 10, 2001, about the threat from al-Qaeda that "literally made my hair stand on end."
According to At the Center of the Storm, Tenet picked up the phone, insisted on meeting with Rice about the threat from al-Qaeda, and raced to the White House with his counter-terrorism deputy, Cofer Black, and a briefer known only as "Rich B."
"There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months," Rich B. told Rice, and the attack would be "spectacular." Black added, "This country needs to go on a war footing now." He said that President Bush should give the CIA new covert action authorities to go after Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization. After the meeting, Tenet's briefer and deputy "congratulated each other," Tenet writes. "At last, they felt, we had gotten the full attention of the administration."

Is it me, or does this fish keep getting bigger? I know Tenet is just being a self-serving finger pointer here like the kid who rats out the others to try to get out of detention, and Condi does not dispute that he told her, but this story gets better every time he tells it. He's trying to throw Condi under the bus for hanging him out to dry on the infamous 17 words, but he ends up making himself look foolish also.

Woodward wonders why he didn't take it directly to the President. As Digby points out, though, there is no reason to believe Bush would've listened since he already blew off the CIA for telling him the same thing by famously saying, "All right, you've covered your ass, now."

With the serial lies that come out of this administration, it's hard to tell who's the more full of shit.

Saturday Funnies

2007-05-05T14:41:00.000-04:00

Bob Geiger's weekly round-up of political cartoons.

It's not terrorism if you're white

2007-05-04T17:55:00.000-04:00

The Maryland dead tree edition of The Examiner reported today that a counter protester was arrested at an immigration rally in Washington, DC this past Tuesday (May 1^st) following a confrontation with several protesters. Prior to physically challenging some of the protesters, 24-year-old Tyler Joseph Froatz was distributing fliers that read, "The only way to stop a flood is to cut off the flow" and displayed cartoon drawings of tanks and soldiers gunning down people crossing into the US from Mexico. When police arrested him after he assaulted the event's organizer, they found him armed with a hammer, taser, a loaded flare gun, and two knives including a 12-inch dagger. A search of his nearby Jeep turned up a loaded M-1 rifle, ammunition, and a map of a local embassy. Police later searched his apartment and found "at least 15 guns, a Molotov cocktail, a hand grenade, and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition." Froatz is a former Eagle scout and self-proclaimed Herndon Minuteman. He was denied bail by a DC Superior Court judge this afternoon over concerns that he may pose a threat to the area.

Ya think?

This is the first I've heard of this story, so I assume that it hasn't been widely reported by corporate media. A quick search on "the Google" turned up only a couple of local stories and a few blog accounts.

Imagine if Tyler Joseph Froatz was named Tayib Jamal Farahani and was of Middle Eastern decent. To say that this would have generated some national interest is a bit of an understatement. This would have been splattered all over CNN for hours. Fox would have had a field day. The wingnut blogs would have been on this like ugly on an ape for weeks. Michael Chertoff would have made a public statement raising the terra level to blinking red. Dick Cheney would've booked all the Sunday talking head shows. And Dubya would've said something incredibly stupid. But since it was just Bubba from Podunk, the MSM and assorted right tards not only couldn't care less, many of them wish he would've succeeded.

When a foreigner gets caught plotting to kill Americans, it's new$. When a white conservative gets busted? Not so much. Welcome to the United States of Bigotry.

The Reagan Love Fest

2007-05-04T08:36:00.000-04:00

(Updated twice below)

Over at Fire Dog Lake, Scarecrow nicely summarizes the Republican talking point dissemination forum being passed off as a debate. Reality denial appears to be alive and well within the Republican ranks. About the only debating that occurred was over who is most like Ronald Reagan and who could blame Clinton the most.

If you listen to these men, it appears we do not have a credibility problem with the rest of the world, so we don’t need to worry about how we will restore America’s honor or prestige or repair alliances or international institutions. Torture was not mentioned, nor the Military Commissions Act, with its denial of habeas corpus (except for Paul), nor restrictions on attorneys, nor use of secret evidence or evidence extracted through torture. Kidnapping and renditions weren’t mentioned either, so I guess Canada, Europe and the Middle East are not upset about that; there was no mention of secret prisons, nor Guantanamo, nor indefinite detention without charges or trials, nor warrantless wiretapping, misuse of national security letters by the FBI, and so on. Only Paul, now just a curious anachronism in his own party, a true believer in the limited government credo of what used to be the Republican Party but not longer is, could offer a few lines about the continuing expansion of executive powers — and then only in reference to Terry Schiavo.

No one brought up problems at the Justice Department, nor concerns about politicizing justice, or interfering with prosecutions. Matthews asked about Karl Rove, but no one took the opportunity to say anything bad about Karl. When asked which of the Bush mistakes (unnamed) he would avoid, Huckabee said he’d avoid sending US jobs overseas.

[...]

According to these men, the President’s tax cuts for the rich are fine and can be made permanent, and there were many proposals to cut different taxes further. But those Democrats need to be stopped from pork barrel spending, because the budget is out of control. Drunken sailors came in for praise by comparison. There was no support for increasing revenues, even to pay for their glorious war.

[...]

After the “debate,” MSNBC’s panelists tried to hype the disagreements, but the[y] missed the fact that these men share a common mind. These people do not live on the same planet as the rest of us. When they wake up and look out the window, they do no[t] see what we see.

They do not see a nation angry at them about the war nor shamed by a government that sanctions torture. With their Reaganesque optimism, they do not see families struggling with health care costs, job security, retirement security, and college tuition. They don’t seem to worry whether the government is doing enough to protect us from unsafe working conditions, unsafe products, unsafe foods and drugs. They apparently don’t see global warming as a national security or economic threat. American democracy is not threatened; the Constitution is not under siege, and Americans don’t hate the Bush regime for what it has done to our liberties (Paul excepted). Attacks on the rights of women, gays, and immigrants and anyone who looks like the “enemy” are non-issues.

The collective denial shown by these men was even more surprising because one of the first questions asked concerned the fact that about only 22 percent of the American people think the country is on the right track, but you’d never know it from listening to these men. And because they seem to completely disconnected from what the American people believe, there is no possibility that any of these men could successfully address the nation’s concerns. Last night, the Republican Party declared itself to be in denial and irrelevant except as an out of touch opposition party with no ideas left for any of the hard questions of governance.

This country can't survive another Republican presidency.

UPDATE: When this is the best the wingnut cheerleaders can come up with, you know they've got nothin'. Glenn Greenwald, on the other hand, has got plenty.

UPDATE II: As much as Republicans and their enablers have heaped praise upon Bush (to the point of ejaculation in a few instances) for the first six years of his presidentizing right up until the mid-term elections, it's curious that they now avoid mentioning his name at all. In fact, his name was mentioned exactly once during the debate last night, and even then it was only because one of the softball questions explicitly asked about him. He is their creation and the embodiment of everything they stand for. They all even sound like him. Why would they seek to distance themselves from someone they so wish to emulate?

A Little Schadenfreude

2007-05-03T17:38:00.000-04:00

I don't know about anyone else, but I am truly enjoying watching Paul Wolfowitz make a complete idiot out of himself in front of the entire world. It couldn't happen to a nicer neocon.

In a last ditch to save his neck or may be anticipating what the Ad Hoc committee would propose, Wolfowitz blames Bank rules for mix up. After directing the blame on staff who know the rules of the Bank, now he has a change of heart and is pointing the finger at confusion and miscommunication - and this three days after he has been crying that he has been unfairly judged.

This is Supporting the Troops

2007-05-03T00:34:00.000-04:00

Supporting the troops John Mellencamp style.

This isn't from his performance at Walter Reed; just showing the man some love.

Why Science Doesn't Suck - Reason #84,727,589

2007-05-02T17:02:00.000-04:00

The religious right wants everyone to believe that the study of science will turn people into amoral, emotionless automatons who see no purpose to life. Here is but one reason that science is so important to us all.

London: Scientists yesterday revealed the world's first genetic cure that could give the blind their sight back.

The next time you hear some religious whacko railing against science, please tell them that their opinion might be different if their knowledge of the world spanned more than a single book (and that is probably being generous). Or you could just tell them to STFU since you can't reason with someone who doesn't believe in logic and reasoning.

As Expected, Bush Vetoes Iraq Spending Bill

2007-05-01T23:11:00.000-04:00

Junior amazed nobody today with his veto of the Iraq supplemental spending bill. His speech following the veto started with:

Twelve weeks ago, I asked the Congress to pass an emergency war spending bill that would provide our brave men and women in uniform with the funds and flexibility they need. Instead, members of the House and the Senate passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders. So a few minutes ago, I vetoed the bill.

We've heard a number of retired generals who served in the Iraq war blasting Bush and his inept crew's policies within the past six months. The most critical condemnation to date appeared today. Having grown up in a military family, I just cannot fathom this happening under any other ~~president~~ commander guy.

May 1, 2007
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Today, in your veto message regarding the bipartisan legislation just passed on Operation Iraqi Freedom, you asserted that you so decided because you listen to your commanders on the ground.
Respectfully, as your former commander on the ground, your administration did not listen to our best advice. In fact, a number of my fellow Generals were forced out of their jobs, because they did not tell you what you wanted to hear -- most notably General Eric Shinseki, whose foresight regarding troop levels was advice you rejected, at our troops' peril.
The legislation you vetoed today represented a course of action that is long overdue. This war can no longer be won by the military alone. We must bring to bear the entire array of national power - military, diplomatic and economic. The situation demands a surge in diplomacy, and pressure on the Iraqi government to fix its internal affairs. Further, the Army and Marine Corps are on the verge of breaking - or have been broken already - by the length and intensity of this war. This tempo is not sustainable - and you have failed to grow the ground forces to meet national security needs. We must begin the process of bringing troops home, and repairing and growing our military, if we are ever to have a combat-ready force for the long war on terror ahead of us.
The bill you rejected today sets benchmarks for success that the Iraqis would have to meet, and puts us on a course to redeploy our troops. It stresses the need for sending troops into battle only when they are rested, trained and equipped. In my view, and in the view of many others in the military that I know, that is the best course of action for our security.
As someone who served this nation for decades, I have the utmost respect for the office you hold. However, as a man of conscience, I could not sit idly by as you told the American people today that your veto was based on the recommendations of military men. Your administration ignored the advice of our military's finest minds before, and I see no evidence that you are listening to them now.
I urge you to reconsider your position, and work with Congress to pass a bill that achieves the goals laid out above.
Respectfully,
Major General Paul D. Eaton, USA, Retired

Powerful stuff. It's clear the entire military has lost all respect for their Commander in Chief. How much longer will he let this go on?

Another Republican Sex Scandal

2007-04-29T08:58:00.000-04:00

Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds. The Party of "family values" once again gets caught with its pants down. Literally. Last year, it was Congressman Mark Foley from Florida, the Republican chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, who was forced to resign from Congress when it was revealed that he had been soliciting sex from underage male congressional pages. This had been going on for years with many Republicans being aware of it, but no action was taken for fear of political blowback.

Today's Republican sex scandal sees Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias resigning following revelations that he had been a customer of a DC prostitution service. The irony here is that, like Foley, Tobias had responsibility for eradicating the behavior that led to his demise. One of Tobias' responsibilities was to combat worldwide prostitution. Unlike the Foley affair, however, it looks like this scandal may involve many more high ranking White House officials. Be sure to pick up some popcorn because it's going to be entertaining watching the mighty Wurlitzer spin this. Clinton will no doubt be ultimately responsible.

Saturday Funnies

2007-04-28T08:35:00.000-04:00

Bob Geiger's Saturday morning political cartoon compilation from the past week.

Dig a hole, dig a hole, dig a hole...

2007-04-27T12:42:00.000-04:00

(Updated below)

Our Preznit is still throwing a tantrum over any suggestion that we should actually plan on ever leaving Iraq even though the majority of Americans believe otherwise.

President Bush warned Congress Friday that he will continue vetoing war spending bills as long as they contain a timetable...blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...we know. Why don't you stop talking about it and do it already. You've only told us 47 times this week. Go ahead George, make our day. Relegating your party to the dustbin of history because you refuse to acknowledge reality is fine by us. We're all sick and tired of you and your corporate-interests-first, use-religion-for-votes, screw-everyone-but-republican-cronies cabal anyway. You seem to be the only person on the planet who believes the thumping your party took in November meant that we wanted you to turn Iraq into Vietnam v2.0.

Update:

This NY Times headline makes it sound like Bush is softening his stance:

Bush Eases Tone on Iraq Spending Bill

President Bush adopted a more conciliatory tone toward Congress today, saying he was confident that he and the lawmakers could find “a way forward” on the Iraq war financing bill.

That is, until you read into what he really says:

While vowing again to veto any bill that includes a troop-withdrawal timetable — and use his veto repeatedly, if necessary — Mr. Bush said today, “I think we can come to our senses and make sure that we get the money to the troops in a timely fashion.”

Translation: “I think Congress will eventually cave in and give me a blank check with no oversight on Iraq just like the Republican-controlled Congress did. Until then, I'll keep my arm loose and my veto pen on standby.”

The man really does think he's king. Remember all his bravado before the mid-term elections about how there was no way the Democrats would take over either house of Congress? And it's obvious to everyone that his bullshit claims about conditions in Iraq don't even resemble the reality of the situation. Why does the media still hang on his every word? If they want to point out what a babbling idiot he is, why don't they just go ahead and do so? All of the recent polls show that the majority of American people want Congress to put an end to the conflict in Iraq. These same polls also show that people don't like the job that Congress is doing. When you combine those two pieces of information, it's clear that it means the people will stand behind Congress if they'll just grow some balls and stand up to the President.

Bush's Iron Maiden

2007-04-26T14:34:00.000-04:00

(updated below)

The media often talks of how George Bush lives in a bubble. Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" hints that Bush himself created this bubble, not the people around him. It's more like a reverse iron maiden than a bubble, however. Bush only hears what he wants to hear. His staffers won't say anything that contradicts his opinion or hints that his policies aren't working, not because they don't want to, but because they suffer from battered-wife syndrome: he verbally assaults anyone who challenges his worldview.

Two recent events bring his obstinance into high definition technicolor view that should cause even the most hardcore Bush supporters to roll their eyes. The first was Alberto Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 20^th. Everyone who witnessed his virtuoso rendition of "Theme and Variations on 'I don't recall'" was stunned by how poorly he addressed the critical issues at hand.

CNN’s Dana Bash:

Loyal Republican after loyal Republican in this hearing room, and more specifically, in private to CNN today have made it clear that they are frankly flabbergasted by how poorly they think the attorney general has done in this hearing. … During the lunch break, in private, several very loyal Republicans made it clear to CNN that they were really dripping with disappointment.

CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux:

[White House officials] believe Gonzales is in trouble. … Two senior White House aides here describing the situation, Gonzales’ testimony, as “going down in flames.” That he was “not doing himself any favors.” One prominent Republican describing watching his testimony as “clubbing a baby seal.”

Everyone, that is, except for the one person who mattered: George Bush.

Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino:

President Bush was pleased with the Attorney General’s testimony today. After hours of testimony in which he answered all of the Senators’ questions and provided thousands of pages of documents, he again showed that nothing improper occurred. He admitted the matter could have been handled much better, and he apologized for the disruption to the lives of the U.S. Attorneys involved, as well as for the lack of clarity in his initial responses. The Attorney General has the full confidence of the President, and he appreciates the work he is doing at the Department of Justice to help keep our citizens safe from terrorists, our children safe from predators, our government safe from corruption, and our streets free from gang violence.

I want some of what he's smoking.

The second event was the major controversy surrounding former Deputy Secretary of Defense and Bush-appointed World Bank current President Paul Wolfowitz, neocon extraordinaire. For anyone not familiar with this one, Wolfie arranged to provide his non-citizen girlfriend with a security clearance and secondment to the U.S. State Department, where she was given a tax-free salary of $193,000 and change so she could go work for a Republican think tank. She is now the highest paid employee at the State Department exceeding even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It is virtually unheard of for a foreigner to receive a security clearance, but Wolfie decided to really go for the gusto by using his DoD connections to obtain the clearance without going through the required FBI background checks.

Now Wolfowitz wasn't exactly loved by career World Bank directors and employees when he was thrust upon them. So when his little scheme became public knowledge, a near mutiny occurred. In the weeks since this was first reported, nearly everyone associated with the World Bank has called for his resignation. Even the European Union is out for his head.

MPs asked European Union leaders to press the White House over the subject at a EU-US summit in Washington on Monday.

They voted 333-251 with 31 abstentions to include a paragraph in a resolution on trans-Atlantic relations calling on Germany, holder of the 27-nation bloc's rotating presidency, and the US to ask Mr Wolfowitz to stand down.

They should "signal to the president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, that his withdrawal from the post would be a welcome step towards preventing the bank's anti-corruption policy from being undermined," the paragraph reads.

Ouch. That's gotta hurt.

A reasonable person would expect that revelations of Wolfie's unethical if not downright illegal activities would be of concern to George Bush, the man who appointed him, since it does say something of Bush's credibility and judgment. Who am I kidding? This is George Bush we're talking about here:

I appreciate very much the fact that the World Bank is taking the lead in eradicating poverty in places like Africa, and Paul Wolfowitz, thank you for your leadership of the World Bank.

He either truly does believe what he says, or he believes that he still has credibility when he says something. It really doesn't matter what the true answer is because the conclusion is the same: George Bush is delusional and is a danger to the world as long as he remains in office.

Update: More pressure on Wolfowitz from within the World Bank.

The Failure of the Fourth Estate

2007-04-26T13:38:00.000-04:00

If you didn't see Bill Moyers' documentary on PBS last night, "Buying the War," it's available in its entirety here and is well worth viewing. As usual, Christy says it better than I can.

I can remember being very confused as the Iraq War drums began to beat ever more loudly — because the evidence that we knew about publicly was altogether thin to nonexistent in substance. And yet the softball questions continued — from both the press and members of Congress who ought to have known better than to hype their political hide over their duty to the public — and no one embodied this public scam more than Judy Miller. Her over-the-top hyping of the WMD threats (which were, even at the time, unsubstantiated and knowingly so) were so creepy, because her on-air persona and her writing for the NYTimes was so absolute in its certainty.
Having done graduate work in security studies and had classes through the years with people who have actually looked at these issues for a living, I can honestly tell you that certainty of the evidence on something like this is a dead giveaway that someone is selling you a load of crap.

The White House Iraq Group did an excellent sales job. And the people that should have been the most skeptical fell for it hook, line, and sinker…because it was easier that way on their immediate personal connections, on their reputations, on their corporate bottom line. And on their immediate political aspirations, in the case of far too many elected representatives.

After watching the Moyers special last night, I was infuriated. This morning, sipping my first cup of coffee and trying to make some sense of it all, I'm still angry. So I'm going to watch it again later, with a pot of tea, and see if I can glean something beyond "the truth really, really hurts…all of us."

Tell it, sister.

Goodling to Get Immunity

2007-04-25T13:42:00.000-04:00

I've been wondering when this was going to happen. It will be interesting to see what's going to happen now. Will she blow smoke up the committee's ass like Gonzo, or will she say something substantive? She'll no longer be able to plead the 5th, but she'll still have to pony up some answers or her immunity deal will go out the window.

More Responsibility from the "Party of Responsibility"

2007-04-25T08:37:00.000-04:00

Read here, here, here, and here for further evidence that the Bush administration has zero interest in the safety and welfare of the American people. Christy over at Fire Dog Lake also has something to say about this.

OSHA:

That response reflects OSHA’s practices under the Bush administration, which vowed to limit new rules and roll back what it considered cumbersome regulations that imposed unnecessary costs on businesses and consumers. Across Washington, political appointees — often former officials of the industries they now oversee — have eased regulations or weakened enforcement of rules on issues like driving hours for truckers, logging in forests and corporate mergers.

FDA:

The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show.

Profits for corporate shareholders and CEOs rules supreme. Using Bushian logic, the U.S. economy is driven by giving rich people all the money because they then turn around and throw the working class an occasional bone. If a few of us must die so the Ken Lays of the world can buy another Lear jet, then so be it. We all have to die some day anyway.