January 31, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

THE TRAITORS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Some of the Senators who voted against the filibuster yesterday voted against the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court today. That isn't good enough. The only way to stop Alito from getting on the Court, along with his extremist right-wing ideology, was to vote for a filibuster yesterday. I'm sick and tired of getting shafted by people who are supposed to represent me. They vote for this vile war, they vote for the despicable bankruptcy bill, they vote for any nominee Bush sends to them. They aren't exactly what JFK would have called profiles in courage. Maybe it's time for a new party built around the ideas of a Democratic party that once represented working class people. This bunch can only be counted on to sell us out every time.

DEPRESSION ANYONE?

Those reruns of The Waltons set during the Great Depression may not seem so quaint anymore. For the first time since 1933, the personal savings rates of Americans dropped into negative territory. And today the Federal Reserve, in its infinite wisdom, raised interest rates again. We're getting hammered by both higher gas prices and by higher interest rates. The leadership we have in this country now is truly amazing. This article by MARTIN CRUTSINGER is at news.yahoo.com:

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

The Commerce Department reported Monday that the savings rate fell into negative territory at minus 0.5 percent, meaning that Americans not only spent all of their after-tax income last year but had to dip into previous savings or increase borrowing.

The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before — in 1932 and 1933 — two years when the country was struggling to cope with the Great Depression, a time of massive business failures and job layoffs.

HOUSING CRISIS IN KERN COUNTY

It's time for a little local flavor. When you see the way things are in the San Joaquin Valley in 2006 you'd almost swear John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was a brand new novel. Instead of Okies, it's Mexican immigrants, but it's pretty much the same. The irony is that the local right-wingers love immigrants when they want the crops picked, but they despise immigrants the rest of the time. This story shows that low income people in Kern County can't even find adequate housing. The story is from www.fresnobee.com:

With almost 6,000 names on the waiting list for low-income housing, Kern County faces a housing crisis among its working poor and low-income residents, officials and residents said.

The number of people seeking low-cost apartments stood at 5,944 earlier this month, almost seven times the 895 total units available in the county. The shortage has residents seeking shelter in dilapidated trailers and wooden shacks and using sewage systems made from open trenches, according to a report by The Bakersfield Californian.

"Oh my God, it's a disaster out here," Lamont resident Gregoria Zuniga told the newspaper. "Nothing works, including the water and the electrical plug-ins. I buy candles and get water from the store."

January 29, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

FILIBUSTER ALITO

GOOD ARTICLE ABOUT MIKE MALLOY

I discovered Mike Malloy a few years ago on the ieamerica network. I had to listen to his show on the Internet. Then ieamerica folded and Mike was off the air for about six months, which was a depressing time. Along came Air America Radio and Mike got back on the air. I admire Malloy for being absolutely uncompromising in fully illuminating the crimes and lies of George W. Bush and his administration. Mike is doing what all the media, if they really cared about decency and the good of the country, would be doing. A criminal in the White House is still a criminal no matter how many photo-ops he does or how many times he repeats buzzwords like "freedom" or "democracy" or how much gushing praise he gets from the likes of Cokie Roberts or Wolf Blitzer and Katie Couric and other media hacks. This article by Sheila Samples at www.democraticunderground.com:

"I'm pissed off -- and I'm Mike Malloy."

Malloy, clean-up guy for Air America Radio (10pm-1am), rode in on the strident vibrations of Pink Floyd's Run Like Hell and, for the next three hours, relentlessly hit both spineless Democrats and Republican "sonszabitches" with the truth about the Bush crime family, pummelled them with the truth about spineless and quivering democrats, bitch-slapped them with the truth about where we're headed if we don't wake up, stand up and speak up...

CLIMATE CHANGE MAY BE HAPPENING FASTER THAN THOUGHT

You're reminded of the famous Robert Frost poem where he talks about the road not taken. We're at the fork in the road in dealing with global climate change. We can pretend it's not happening and go along with right-wing ideologues who think short term profit is more important than the environment, or we can start taking serious action to stop human effects on global climate change. Scientists who study the issue say we have to take dramatic steps within the next fifty years or the changes to the climate may be irreversible. This article by Juliet Eilperin is at www.washingtonpost.com:

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.

This "tipping point" scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.

GREED ISN'T GOOD

It would seem like common sense that transferring all the world's wealth to a very few hands isn't a good idea. It's like the old cliche about not putting all your eggs in one basket. Even more, it's about justice . How long are the have-nots supposed to tolerate grossly unfair economic systems that reward just a few people? This article takes a look at the transfer of wealth from the developing world to the industrialized world and how that system isn't sustainable. The article from Reuters is at www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-01-28-davos-rdp_x.htm?csp=26

Massive flows of capital from the emerging to the developed world are unsustainable and risk damaging both poor and rich countries, some of the world's top finance officials said on Saturday.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said that the current global investment pattern was "profoundly abnormal" and in no country's interest.

"It is not sustainable in the long run that the emerging world would finance the industrial world. It doesn't correspond to the interest of the emerging world, neither to the interest of the industrialised world," he said.

Then, with a friendly and quiet "watch your back," he was gone. I just sat there, grinning. Maybe we aren't doomed to slip-slide into fascist hell after all. By sheer luck, I had stumbled across a guy with the ability to see the truth and the courage to tell the people...

January 28, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

FILIBUSTER ALITO

BUSH TAX CUTS HURT ECONOMY

According to the wackos who tout supply side economics, along with big tax cuts for the rich and corporations, government revenues are supposed to surge and a good time is to be had by all. A new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office shows that Bush's tax cuts are actually hurting the economy. When Bill Clinton raised taxes modestly on the very wealthy the economy prospered by historical standards. This article by Aviva Aron-Dine is at www.cbpp.org/1-27-06bud.htm

New forecasts issued by the Congressional Budget Office confirm that if the tax cuts and Alternative Minimum Tax relief are extended, the nation faces large and growing deficits over the next ten years, with total deficits of between $3.5 and $4 trillion over that period.[1]

While still quite high, CBO’s current deficit projections are somewhat lower than those issued last January and August. A key reason for the lower deficit estimates is that CBO has revised its revenue projections upwards.

Some proponents of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts may try to seize on CBO’s new budget forecasts to argue that “tax cuts are working.” They may claim that tax cuts have led to stronger economic growth and that this growth is the source of the higher revenue estimates.

DARK AGES REVISITED

In the age of Bush we see the worst combination of militarism, jingoism, torture, and religious fundamentalism. It's like the Dark Ages Version 2.0. Gore Vidal has some thoughts in this article at www.truthdig.com:

Berman sets his scene briskly in recent history. “We were already in our twilight phase when Ronald Reagan, with all the insight of an ostrich, declared it to be ‘morning in America’; twenty-odd years later, under the ‘boy emperor’ George W. Bush (as Chalmers Johnson refers to him), we have entered the Dark Ages in earnest, pursuing a short-sighted path that can only accelerate our decline. For what we are now seeing are the obvious characteristics of the West after the fall of Rome: the triumph of religion over reason; the atrophy of education and critical thinking; the integration of religion, the state, and the apparatus of torture—a troika that was for Voltaire the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment world; and the political and economic marginalization of our culture…. The British historian Charles Freeman published an extended discussion of the transition that took place during the late Roman empire, the title of which could serve as a capsule summary of our current president: "The Closing of the Western Mind." Mr. Bush, God knows, is no Augustine; but Freeman points to the latter as the epitome of a more general process that was underway in the fourth century: namely, ‘the gradual subjection of reason to faith and authority.’ This is what we are seeing today, and it is a process that no society can undergo and still remain free. Yet it is a process of which administration officials, along with much of the American population, are aggressively proud.” In fact, close observers of this odd presidency note that Bush, like his evangelical base, believes he is on a mission from God and that faith trumps empirical evidence. Berman quotes a senior White House adviser who disdains what he calls the “reality-based” community, to which Berman sensibly responds: “If a nation is unable to perceive reality correctly, and persists in operating on the basis of faith-based delusions, its ability to hold its own in the world is pretty much foreclosed.”

THE ECONOMY NOSEDIVES

Last quarter Bush apologists were cheering the "robust" economy, but the economic growth was an illusion. We see the reality of the Bush economy in the fourth quarter that showed just a 1.1% annual growth. Some people are quick to blame higher gas prices, which are certainly a factor. But the fact is most of us in the middle class and the poor don't have any money. Wages aren't keeping pace with inflation. The government has made things worse by raising minimum credit card payments and by passing a Draconian bankruptcy law. Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve have also increased interest rates several times for God only knows what reason. What we're seeing now is the real Republican economy at work. This article by Dan Arnall is at abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=1548547&ad=true

A surprising government report this morning showed U.S. economic growth slowed considerably in the fourth quarter of 2005, an indication that skyrocketing energy prices were hitting consumers' wallets and slowing spending.

The Department of Commerce report showed that the nation's economy grew at an anemic 1.1 percent — the worst performance in three years.

January 27, 2006

FILIBUSTER ALITO

IMPEACH BUSH

THE MASTER OF PAIN AND SUFFERING

If you could measure the pain and suffering caused by the policies of George W. Bush, there wouldn't be a scale large enough. The unnecessary war in Iraq has caused needless death and injuries to tens of thousands. Bush has deliberately allowed the torture of other people. He has made life more difficult for the poor and the middle class in this country with his onerous tax policies. He has paid scant attention to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. His prescription drug plan will undoubtedly cause many seniors to die because they can't get their medications. Bob Herbert has a good column linked at www.topplebush.com:

The fiasco in Iraq and the president's response to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe were Mr. Bush's two most spectacular foul-ups. There have been many others. The president's new Medicare prescription drug program has been a monumental embarrassment, leaving some of the most vulnerable members of our society without essential medication. Prominent members of the president's own party are balking at the heavy hand of his No Child Left Behind law, which was supposed to radically upgrade the quality of public education.

The Constitution? Civil liberties? Don't ask.

Just keep in mind, whatever your political beliefs, that incompetence in high places can have devastating consequences.

BUSH AN ABJECT FAILURE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

The traitorous Karl Rove recently told a group of Republicans that national security was the major Republican issue for the 2006 elections. Rove claims that Republicans are much stronger than Democrats at protecting the country. An examination of the facts, however, shows the dismal failure of the Bush administration to provide for the common defense. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is still on the loose. Our military has been grossly misused and overcommitted to a war in Iraq that wasn't even necessary. Iraq has become a quagmire with no good way out. This article comes from americanprogressaction.org:

Our homeland is still not secure. Almost two years after the 9/11 Commission gave its report on the state of our nation’s security and steps that needed to be taken, the administration received failing grades from the Public Discourse Project. Thomas H. Kean, former chair of the 9/11 Commission, said that homeland security is "not a priority for the government right now.” Only 6 percent of national security spending is devoted to homeland security, and as Hurricane Katrina showed us, first responders still lack the crucial communications apparatus they need to operate during an emergency.

THE END OF SOCIAL MOBILITY

Reactionaries like George W. Bush deliberately pursue policies that eviscerate the chance to climb into the middle class or beyond. The policies of this administration seek not only to preserve the status quo, but to take us back to a harsher, more unequal society. During the years of this administration productivity of American workers has been reaching record levels, but that productivity is not being rewarded by better wages. The gains are instead going to CEOs and big stockholders. This article by Bob Burnett is at www.commondreams.org:

However, in the same time period, The Economist ran an article noting that while Americans continue to believe that anyone can change social class through hard work, "A growing body of evidence suggests that the meritocratic ideal is in trouble in America. Income inequality is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But social mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society." This, and more recent studies, indicate that opportunity is disappearing for those who would become triumphant individuals.

January 26, 2006

FILIBUSTER ALITO

IMPEACH BUSH

THE BUSH TWO STEP

What is being called Spygate is just getting uglier and uglier. We know that George W. Bush said publicly that the government needed a warrant to eavesdrop on people. Even then the administration was spying on Americans. But an interesting twist to this story is that a few years ago the administration said they believed a law that would enable what they've been doing was unconstitutional. Huh? They said at the time they didn't need the law. These guys can't even do corruption competently. This item comes from http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/01/this-is-huge-in-2002-bush.html

The Bush Administration opposed legislation that would have given them the very power they now claim they needed, power they now claim they didn't have under FISA. It's because they didn't have this power, they now claim, that they had to break the law and spy without a warrant. But this law would have given them much of the legal power they wanted. Yet they said they didn't need it, and worse yet, that the proposed legislation was likely unconstitutional. But now we know they did it anyway.

And it was all discovered by a blogger, and now it's a big story in Thursday's Washington Post and LA Times. Amazing.

And when you read through the story, below, note what the administration NOW says. They claim the new legislation wouldn't have gone far enough. Really? First, the administration said at the time that the legislation went too far and wasn't needed, so bull.

Second, the Bush administration now is changing their story and claiming that they opposed the legislation because it wouldn't have permitted them to snoop as much as they wanted. But back in 2002 the Bush people said that even the lesser-snooping-power in the proposed legislation was likely unconstitutional. So if the lesser power was likely unconstitutional, imagine how unconstitutional Bush's ACTUAL domestic spying program was and is? A program that by the Bush administration's own admission went (and goes) far beyond what the proposed law would have allowed.

EVEN GROVER NORQUIST OPPOSES SPYING

I don't like Grover Norquist and his philosophy of turning everything over to private interests. Norquist is famous for saying we should shrink government to the size it can be drowned in a bathtub. So it comes as a genuine surprise that even Grover Norquist is on record as opposing the Bush administration's warrantless spying. This item by James Sterngold is at www.commondreams.org:

Larry Diamond, a Democrat and a Hoover Institution senior fellow, went to Baghdad in 2004 as a consultant for the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority, believing strongly in the Bush administration's goal of building a democracy there. While critical of many aspects of the Iraq war, he has, he says, wholeheartedly supported President Bush's aggressive approach to the war on terror.

Grover Norquist is one of the most influential conservative Republicans in Washington. His weekly "Wednesday Meeting" at his L Street office is a must for conservative strategists, and he has been called the "managing director of the hard-core right" by the liberal Nation magazine. Perhaps the country's leading anti-tax enthusiast, he is, like Diamond, a hawk in the war on terror.

Despite coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, they agree on one other major issue: that the Bush administration's program of domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency without obtaining court warrants has less to do with the war on terror than with threats to the nation's civil liberties.

"My view on the terrorists is that we should find all of them and kill them," said Norquist. "But we should also protect our civil liberties, which the terrorists are trying to destroy."

THE RICH-POOR DIVIDE

It should come as no surprise that another study shows the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is widening. We have seen deliberate policies by the federal government to create a small group of very rich and to slam the door on everyone else. Failure to raise the minimum wage above its disgraceful $5.15 an hour is just one of the most egregious examples of catering to the wealthy. Tax policies that consistently lower taxes on the most affluent, while slashing programs for the poor and the middle class, contribute to the divide. This article by Mark Johnson is at www.sfgate.com:

The disparity between rich and poor is growing in America as the federal minimum wage has remained flat for years, union membership has declined and industries have faced global competition, according to a study released Thursday.

The report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, both liberal-leaning think tanks, found the incomes of the poorest 20 percent of families nationally grew by an average of $2,660, or 19 percent, over the past 20 years. Meanwhile, the incomes of the richest fifth of families grew by $45,100, or nearly 59 percent, the study by the Washington-based groups said.

Families in the middle fifth saw their incomes rise 28 percent, or $10,218.

January 25, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

ROVE'S GAME PLAN

Republicans for years have tried to represent themselves as the better party on national security. They often resort to innuendo and outright lies. Richard Nixon was a master at painting his political opponents as Communist sympathizers or at least weak on Communism. Karl Rove, Bush's Nixon, is using the old tried and true tactic to suggest Democrats are weak on terrorism. Never mind that it was Rove himself who undoubtedly outed CIA agent Valerie Plame. Never mind that the Bush administration ignored the dangers of a terrorist attack until we got hit on 9/11. Never mind all the holes in our security outlined in the 9/11 Commission Report. E. J. Dionne looks at the Rove game plan at www.washingtonpost.com:

And, yes, the core questions must be asked: Are we really safer now than we were five years ago? Has the Iraq war, as organized and prosecuted by the administration, made us stronger or weaker? Do we feel more secure knowing the heck of a job our government did during Hurricane Katrina? Do we have any confidence that the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies will clean up their act if Washington remains under the sway of one-party government?

Imagine one Super Bowl team tipping the other to a large part of its offensive strategy. Smart coaches would plot and plan and scheme. You wonder what Democrats will do with the 10-month lead time Rove has kindly offered them.

WHEN WORKERS COUNTED

This is an article in part about the Remington Company that made guns and the anti-capitalist sentiment that prevailed in the 19th century during the Remington Company's heyday. It was a time when work and workers were honored. We've seen a major paradigm shift. Now it is capitalists who are revered and workers are treated as so much refuse. This article by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman is at www.commondreams.org:

Doukas, who is now a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, says that in the late 1800s, corporations, once they took control of production, tried to change the culture of the United States.

From the gospel of work to what Andrew Carnegie called the gospel of wealth.

"If we look at the United States in the 19th century, we see a popular culture that was, in a word, anti-capitalist," Doukas said. "And this was reflected very much in the political scene of the time. You had to be in favor of the working man. You had to support and praise the common man. The basic idea is that work is what dignifies a person. It is an anti-aristocratic ideology. It goes way back, really. Aristocrats were characterized as parasites, as people who lived off the work of others. Whereas good, virtuous American people worked hard and were expected to enjoy the fruits of their labor."

So, for example, Abraham Lincoln, in his first annual message to Congress in 1861, makes his statement about capital and labor: "Capital is only the fruit of labor. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration."

THE PEEPING TOM PRESIDENT

The voices are speaking to George W. Bush. They're the voices that he says told him to attack Iraq and that he was appointed by God, not the Supreme Court, to be president. The voices tell George that he must know everything about everyone because the enemy is out there lurking in the shadows. Is it America that George is protecting, or is it the fear that he, George W. Bush, is being revealed before the world and history as a massive fraud. Mark Morford has some interesting thoughts about the Bush administration's foray into Internet searches. You wonder how much farther they're willing to go to invade our lives. This column is at www.sfgate.com:

Simply couple this latest move with BushCo's outright love and defense of torture, along with Dubya's recent enthusiastic declaration that his team of flying monkeys has been secretly wiretapping whomever it wants in this nation for the past four years without any sort of warrant and, well, you've got yourself one hell of a big sticky taste of happy neofascism.

What, not enough? Fine. How about how Bush's insane rate of issuing those now-infamous "signing statements," those little firebombs of judicial misprision wherein your mumbling president gets to reserve for himself the right to ignore any law he signs -- yes, any law he desires: anti-torture, surveillance, you name it -- whenever he feels like it, if he deems that law unconstitutional. Screw Congress. Screw the system of law. And screw, well, you.

For the record: Ronald Reagan issued 71 signing statements during his unholy term. Bill Clinton issued 105 over the span of eight years. Bush 41 signed off on 146, the previous record.

January 23, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

NEW YORK TIMES SAYS NO TO ALITO

Samuel Alito might be fit to head up the Federalist Society or some other right-wing extremist group, but he doesn't belong on the Supreme Court. His judicial record clearly shows he would support the government against the citizen and big business against workers and consumers. We can be fairly certain he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which may set off a civil war in this country. This editorial opposing Alito comes from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:

There is every reason to believe, based on his long paper trail and the evasive answers he gave at his hearings, that Judge Alito would quickly vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. So it is hard to see how Senators Lincoln Chaffee, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, all Republicans, could square support for Judge Alito with their commitment to abortion rights.

Judge Alito has consistently shown a bias in favor of those in power over those who need the law to protect them. Women, racial minorities, the elderly and workers who come to court seeking justice should expect little sympathy. In the same flat bureaucratic tones he used at the hearings, he is likely to insist that the law can do nothing for them.

The White House has tried to create an air of inevitability around this nomination. But there is no reason to believe that Judge Alito is any more popular than the president who nominated him. Outside of a small but vocal group of hard-core conservatives, America has greeted the Alito nomination with a shrug - and counted on senators to make the right decision.

The real risk for senators lies not in opposing Judge Alito, but in voting for him. If the far right takes over the Supreme Court, American law and life could change dramatically. If that happens, many senators who voted for Judge Alito will no doubt come to regret that they did not insist that Justice O'Connor's seat be filled with someone who shared her cautious, centrist approach to the law.

FREE MARKET BRAINWASHING

Almost from the moment you're born in the United States you start getting brainwashed with free market orthodoxy. You hear the old Horatio Alger rags-to-riches myth recited to you in a variety of ways. Success is defined by how much material wealth you own. Free market propaganda the past few years has emphasized the benefits of a global economy. We're supposed to think it's a good thing that we see jobs going off shore and wages falling. It's particularly galling on the day that the Ford Motor Company has announced up to 30,000 job cuts. This item comes from David Sirota at www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/the-dishonest-economic-fa_b_14263.html

What's really going on is obvious: the political/media Establishment is trying to dishonestly create the perception that it is just a fact that the Big Money position on key economic issues (ie. corporate-written trade deals and neoliberal economics) has resulted and always will result in major benefits to society. The Establishment does this even though almost every factual indicator about these policies of import to ordinary people - real wages, trade deficits, health care & retirement benefit levels - are on the negative swing. Oh sure, corporate profits continue to skyrocket - but the indicators that actually matter to the vast majority of hard working Americans in their day-to-day lives are not.

The most interesting question of all is why? Why would the Establishment so deliberately bias its economic coverage? For politicians, the answer is easy - the more they toe the corporate line, push economic policies that screw over ordinary citizens and pad Big Money's bottom line, the more our corrupt, pay-to-play political process rewards them with huge wads of campaign cash. For the media, it is more complex, having partly to do with the fact that the media is owned by corporations with a huge incentive to push ultraconservative economic policies and partly to do with the fact that in today's journalist-as-celebrity era, many of the most important opinion-setting reporters are upper-crust elites who never have to deal with the consequences of the economic prescriptions they push.

BROKE AND UNDER SURVEILLANCE

In Bush world Pollyanna would feel right at home. We're told the economy is robust, the war in Iraq is going swell, and the American dream is brighter and healthier than ever. The facts show otherwise. Most of us are just going broke and we're under surveillance lest we offend Fearless Leader. This article by Ed Naha is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

After inflation is taken into account, the wages of 80% of American workers have gone down every year for the past four years.

The amount of Americans living in poverty has gone up every year for five years.

The number of bankruptcy cases filed in the 12-month period ending on September 30th, 2005, totaled a record 1,782,643, up 10.1% from the same period the year before. (600,000 in last October alone before Scrooge's new bankruptcy laws went into effect.)

Last year was the first time since the Great Depression that Americans spent more than they earned.

According to SAMNow (Save American Manufacturing), as of last October, 48 out of 50 states have lost manufacturing jobs under Georgie's reign, with California losing 350,000, Ohio over 165,000, Illinois and New York over 135,000 each and Pennsylvania over 150,000.

January 22, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

THE REAL REASON FOR WARRANTLESS SPYING

The Bush administration has a history of making incursions into our lives. We know now that Bush was doing warrantless spying on Americans months before the 9/11 attacks. The administration, under the guise of writing a new law to protect kids from pornography, wants major search engines to turn over their records of searches. Groups with absolutely no connection to terrorists, but who oppose Bush's policies, have been infiltrated. It's all about spying on political opponents. This guy makes Richard Nixon look sane. This article by William E. Gibson is at www.bradenton.com:

While the White House defended domestic surveillance as a safeguard against terrorism, a Florida peace activist and several Democrats in Congress accused the Bush administration on Friday of spying on Americans who disagree with President Bush's policies.

Richard Hersh, of Boca Raton, Fla., director of Truth Project Inc. of Palm Beach County, told an ad hoc panel of House Democrats that his group and others in South Florida have been infiltrated and spied upon despite having no connections to terrorists.

"Agents rummaged through the trash, snooped into e-mails, packed Web sites and listened in on phone conversations," Hersh charged. "We know that address books and activist meeting lists have disappeared."

The Truth Project gained national attention when NBC News reported last month that it was described as a "credible threat" in a database of suspicious activity compiled by the Pentagon's Talon program. The listing cited the group's gathering a year ago at a Quaker meeting house in Lake Worth, Fla., to talk about ways to counter military recruitment at high schools.

WHERE'S OSAMA?

After the attacks on 9/11 George W. Bush was in full swagger saying that he was going "smoke out" Osama bin Laden, that bin Laden was "on the run." He was going to get Osama "dead or alive." Over four years later, as far as we know, Osama is very much alive and conveniently providing threatening tapes whenever the Bush administration needs a diversion from its myriad of scandals and incompetence. You have to think that actually capturing Osama, or confirming his death, would deflate Bush's balloon. As long as the Evil One is out there taunting Americans he's a useful tool. Maureen Dowd takes a look in this column linked at www.trueblueliberal.com:

I don’t like the thought of Dick Cheney ogling my Googling.

Because what I’m Googling, of course, is Dick Cheney. I have to constantly monitor how Vice Voyeur is pushing the federal government to constantly monitor millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls, e-mail notes and Internet searches.

If you want to know why the Grim Peeper is willing to turn this country into a police state to take his version of democracy to other countries, just do a Google search under “antiterrorism,” “government snooping,” “overreaching” and “fruitcake.”

It was hard to know which story yesterday was scarier: Osama bin Laden, still alive and taunting the U.S., or the Justice Department’s trying to force Google to turn over a suspiciously broad array of information on millions of users’ searches and Web addresses, supposedly to investigate online crime involving pornography.

THE LIGHT AND THE DARKNESS

Mark Morford is one of my favorite columnists. In this column he looks at the success of the movie "Brokeback Mountain." Oh, the horror! A gay love story that might actually win some Academy Awards. As he points out, human consciousness has continued to expand, despite all the efforts of the trolls to hold it back with their hatred, their bigotry, and their superstition. This column is linked at www.sfgate.com:

No matter the heat and bile of the resistance, no matter how brutish or sanctimonious the stranglehold of our leadership, no matter how many complaints about nipples or wailings about intelligent design or accusations of a "gay agenda," no matter how many uptight neocon judges they appoint, progress still manages to find the cracks, to slip through the holes, to seek the sun. Consciousness expands anyway. The river flows on. The awakening continues. It is always the way.

And the Bushes and the Cheneys and the Rumsfelds, the Gonzalezes and the James Dobsons and the Sam Alitos of the world, they can only stand at the base of that mountain of new awareness and pass their laws and beat their chests and scream their resistance as the mystics and the masters just smile that ageless, knowing smile and walk away.

January 21, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

TODAY'S FRESNO BEE RIGHT-WINGER

In today's Fresno Bee we have a right-winger attacking a letter writer who criticized Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito for his convenient lapses of memory during the Senate confirmation hearings. In a typical right-wing tactic, the writer said Hillary Clinton had lapses of memory in regard to the Rose Law firm records and that Al Gore had lapses of memory about the Clinton administration's alleged warrantless searches.

First, I would point out that those issues have nothing whatever to do with Samuel Alito. If the writer is so chagrined about Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, why isn't he equally concerned about Samuel Alito, especially when Alito is vying for a lifetime appointment? I always thought that the Rose Law Firm and Whitewater were non-issue issues anyway, and Hillary Clinton was not an elected official or a prospective Supreme Court Justice. We've learned that warrants were not required by law when the Clinton administration pursued a spy. Samuel Alito is a very dangerous man with his record of supporting strongarm tactics by the government and his endorsement of the "unitary executive" theory of the presidency.

PRISONS ARE A LOUSY SOLUTION

Here in Punitive Land you're poor because you're lazy, stupid, or lack virtue. Those poor character traits then lead you to use drugs, rob liquor stores, or commit other crimes that get you sent to prison. There are some people in prison who belong there, but there are far too many inmates who are there for things like drug abuse. This is an extremely articulate, thoughtful article from a female inmate in Chowchilla, California, just up the road from Fresno. The article by Beverly Henry is at progressive.org/media_mphenry010306

As an African-American girl, I attended segregated schools without enough resources to provide a quality education. As an adult, I struggled continuously with drug addiction, but there were no resources available for me to get help. Instead, I was sent to prison.

My experience resonates with the historical reality for black people. We always have had unequal access to resources that would have allowed us to provide for our families and make our communities prosper. Nearly one-fourth of all black folks in America live below the poverty line, twice the national average.

America has become a country that imprisons those it fails, blaming poverty, drug addiction or homelessness on individuals, rather than recognizing and addressing the conditions that give rise to them.

January 20, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

NO MORE REPUBLICAN LITE

Like Molly Ivins, I'm weary of Democrats being Republican Lite. We've seen it consistently since Democrats allowed George W. Bush to steal the 2000 election. They've rolled over for appointments like John Ashcroft as Attorney General. They rolled over and voted for Bush's Iraq War Resolution. They supported the despicable bankruptcy bill. They're refusing to filibuster the dangerous Samuel Alito as a Supreme Court Justice. The polls show the public overwhelmingly supports progressive ideas such as universal health care, raising the minimum wage, and getting out of Iraq. This column is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.

PUT ECONOMIC ISSUES UP FRONT

We learn today that presidential advisor and traitor Karl Rove told a group of Republicans that national security is the issue for Republicans in 2006. Rove claimed that Democrats are "consistently wrong" on national security issues. Who was it, once again, who was in power on September 11, 2001? Who was it who lied us into a war that has recruited countless enemies, killed thousands of innocent people, stretched our military, and drained our treasury? Who has failed to capture Osama bin Laden? Don't talk to me about national security. But the issues where Democrats can trounce Republicans are economic. We see the evidence of Republican economic policies. A few very rich people are getting richer, and everyone else is sinking. This article by Bernie Horn is at www.tompaine.com:

To win in 2006, progressives must frame the election as a choice between an equal opportunity economy and a trickle-down economy. “It’s the economy, stupid”—but unlike 1992, it’s not a matter of economic growth versus stagnation. This time it’s about fundamental fairness. While the rich are getting richer, for the rest of us, the American Dream is slipping from our grasp.

There are other issues that motivate voters, of course. The Bush administration and its right-wing enablers are making America less free and less secure. But voters are predisposed to give conservatives the benefit of the doubt on freedom and security. Equal opportunity is the American “value” most clearly owned by progressives.

So this year, progressives should focus on policies that are (1) principally about economics, (2) popular with a large majority of voters, and (3) framed in such a way that conservatives will have to oppose them. That’s the definition of a progressive wedge issue—a political position where we are strong and they are compelled by their corporate benefactors to side against the American public.

January 19, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

THE DISMAL STATISTICS

Sixteen quarters of economic expansion under George W. Bush show wages growing at a slower pace than at any time since the end of World War II. Where are the benefits from those tax cuts to the rich we heard so much about? This item comes from Kevin Drum at www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_01/008032.php

After 16 consecutive quarters of economic growth, pay is rising at a slower rate than in any similar expansion since the end of World War II. Companies are paying less of their cash gains in the form of wages and salaries than at any time since the Great Depression, according to government figures.

...."There is no doubt that something is happening" to reduce labor's share of income, says Robert Solow, a Nobel Prize- winning economist and professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. An economy that doesn't distribute its gains widely is "poorly performing," he says.

MCCLELLAN IS BUSH'S LIAR

Scott McClellan gets paid to stand before the Washington press corps almost every day to lie through his teeth. McClellan dodges and weaves and dissembles about matters of national and international import. If you like lying for a living, then George W. Bush is the right guy to represent. This commentary by Doug Thompson is at www.opednews.com:

Although White House spokesliar Scott McClellan claims lobbyist/crook du jour Jack Abramoff only met with administration staff two or three times, the scandal ridden buyer of influence enjoyed frequent private meetings with President George W. Bush, who referred to Abramoff as “one of this administration’s greatest friends.”

In a town where money buys influence and access, it would have been highly unusual for one of the top fundraisers for the Bush White House to not have had meetings with the President.

McClellan, in a carefully-worded response to reporters Tuesday, said his personal investigation into the matter revealed that Abramoff may have had two “private staff level meetings” at the White House. This is the same Scott McClellan who claimed he investigated the Valerie Plame leak and told reporters that neither Vice President Dick Cheney nor anyone on his staff had any involvement in that scandal. Then Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, got slapped with an indictment for giving the info to the press.

January 18, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

IT DEPENDS ON THE WEAPONS

Another bit of right-wing logic graced the pages of the letters page in The Fresno Bee today. Today's correspondent was replying to people who quote Benjamin Franklin. Franklin said that people who give up liberty for security deserve neither liberty or security. The argument this person used was that, well, in Franklin's time the weapons were more primitive. They had things like muskets and bows and arrows. Today terrorists or other enemies have a variety of more advanced weaponry. So I guess the existence of nuclear weapons that can exterminate all life on earth, according to this guy, means that we shouldn't have any civil liberties. I don't see that having civil liberties impedes efforts against terrorists. If we're ever to get beyond this dark time in human history, we should uphold civil liberties more strongly than ever before, or the terrorists will win. Taking us back to a more superstitious, fearful, repressive society is exactly what they want.

DEATH BY REMOTE CONTROL

Among the weapons in the U.S. arsenal are aerial drones that can be directed by remote control from thousands of miles away. When the operator decides it's time to take out someone they send the drone after them and fire Hellfire missiles. The problem with these assassination machines is that innocent people are getting murdered. A recent incident in Pakistan comes to mind. Ted Rall talks about it in this article linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

In the dark, pre-dawn hours of Friday, the thirteenth of January, near the Afghan-Pakistani border, the buzz of an unmanned robot plane broke the silence. Half a world and 12 and a half time zones away, someone on the sixth floor of CIA headquarters keyed a command into a computer. The digitized message, relayed through the building's circuitry and transmitted skyward, bounced along an array of aircraft and satellites before arriving at the RQ-1 Predator drone plane hovering above the Bajaur region of Pakistan's Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA). Four AGM-114N Hellfire II missiles, each purchased by American taxpayers from Lockheed Martin at a cost of $45,000, streaked off toward the hamlet of Damadola, five miles into Pakistan.

The four missiles, each carrying enough explosives to take out an armored vehicle, slammed into three local jewelers' houses at 950 miles per hour, nearly twice the speed of a passenger jet at cruising altitude. "The houses have been razed," reported a neighbor, a member of the Pakistani parliament. "There is nothing left. Pieces of the missiles are scattered all around. Everything has been blackened in a 100-yard radius." The target of this latest assassination attempt via missile strike, Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, wasn't there. At least 22 innocent civilians, including five women and five children, were killed. "They acted on wrong information," a Pakistani intelligence official said of the Americans.

ECONOMIC ZOMBIES

We increasingly have an economic system that is ludicrous. Most of the rewards go to very few people. The rest of us toil away with little hope of ever bettering our lives. The essentials necessary for a decent life, such as health care, education, and housing are becoming unattainable. Credit is shoved at us like a drug and a good many Americans have an actual negative net worth, owing more than they own. The Bush administration passed a draconian bankruptcy law that makes it almost impossible for many Americans to get even a fresh start. Nicholas von Hoffman writes about economic zombies in this article at www.thenation.com:

If individuals and families continue to spend more than they make, millions of us may also end up in the land of the living dead. After inflation is taken into account, the wages of 80 percent of working people have been trending slightly downward for the past four years. At the same time the clamor to get people to buy and spend does not abate and will not, since the masters of the universe have determined that the prosperity of the entire globe depends on Americans continuing to visit the mall.

We are seeing early signs of the zombie syndrome. It first appeared in the American automobile industry and latterly at Wal-Mart and the other big, lower-price retail chains. When faced with a choice of selling fewer cars at a profit or more cars at a loss, the automobile companies made the zombie choice to sell more, lose money and sink closer to bankruptcy. This past holiday shopping season retailers, faced with the possibility of lower sales than last year, elected to cut their already thin profit margins to keep their increasingly strapped customers at the checkout lines with their shopping carts full and their bank accounts empty.

January 17, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH MAKING HEALTH CARE WORSE

We're already hearing of what a disaster the Bush administration's prescription drug program has become. People are being turned away from buying life-preserving drugs. The plans are so complicated most people don't know what they should use. Bush has made a big deal about "tort reform," another name for shafting the little guy and benefiting big corporations. Now we see the extension of that ideology of the free market at all costs being pushed into the health care system. Millions of Americans have no health insurance at all. Many of us are having to pay higher and higher premiums and co-pays. Paul Krugman takes a look at yet another Bush disaster in this column linked at www.topplebush.com:

It's widely expected that President Bush will talk a lot about health care in his State of the Union address. He probably won't boast about his prescription drug plan, whose debut has been a Katrina-like saga of confusion and incompetence. But he probably will tout proposals for so-called "consumer driven" health care.

So it's important to realize that the administration's idea of health care reform is to take what's wrong with our system and make it worse. Consider the harrowing series of articles The New York Times printed last week about the rising tide of diabetes.

Diabetes is a horrifying disease. It's also an important factor in soaring medical costs. The likely future impact of the disease on those costs terrifies health economists. And the problem of dealing with diabetes is a clear illustration of the real issues in health care.

ANOTHER WASTE OF RESOURCES

We're learning now that Bush's unconstitutional spying on Americans tied up NSA and FBI resources so they could chase mostly nonexistent terrorists. Bush broke the law and should be impeached. He also has put us in more danger by not apprehending the real terrorists like Osama bin Laden in his mad pursuit of Americans who have no involvement with terrorists. This article by LOWELL BERGMAN, ERIC LICHTBLAU, SCOTT SHANE and DON VAN NATTA Jr. is at www.nytimes.com:

In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.

F.B.I. officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. The spy agency was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of phone and Internet traffic. Some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy.

As the bureau was running down those leads, its director, Robert S. Mueller III, raised concerns about the legal rationale for a program of eavesdropping without warrants, one government official said. Mr. Mueller asked senior administration officials about "whether the program had a proper legal foundation," but deferred to Justice Department legal opinions, the official said.

DON'T BELIEVE BUSH PREDICTIONS

How do you take a war projected at 70 billion dollars and turn it into a war that costs two trillion dollars? You put the Bush administration in charge. Of course, there are other more disturbing aspects to this war than its monetary cost. But how much good could two trillion dollars do in our country and around the world? This, like a living wage, is a moral issue. In this article Bill Gallagher looks at the multitude of failed predictions by the Bush administration. The article is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The predictions of President George W. Bush and his minions are predictably wrong. The Busheviks' latest Iraq war predictions are, as always, wildly off the mark and make astrological predictions seem like hard science.

"We will settle for nothing less than complete victory," Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars last week. He made glowing predictions about continued political progress in Iraq, declaring in pure delusion that "when victory comes and democracy takes hold in Iraq, it will serve as a model for freedom in the broader Middle East."

I can see it now. It's written in the stars. The Saudis, Egyptians and Syrian strongmen will be rushing to reform their despotic regimes as the winds of democracy swirl through the desert. And soon after that, just watch those religious radicals in Iran follow the Iraq model. War, invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation for fabricated reasons -- that's the winning formula for freedom and democratic reform in the region.

JANUARY 16, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

THE LIVING WAGE MOVEMENT

Right-wingers have no problems with CEOs making millions of dollars a year, even when their companies don't perform well. They have no problem with wealth being concentrated among the top 5% of the population. But talk of raising the minimum wage above poverty level and they whine and screech and claim that it will cause the collapse of western civilization. The living wage movement has framed this as a moral issue and I agree. No one working full time should be living below the poverty line. This article by Jon Gertner is at www.nytimes.com:

The immediate goal for living-wage strategists is to put initiatives on the ballots in several swing states this year. If their reckoning is correct, the laws should effect a financial gain for low-income workers and boost turnout for candidates who campaign for higher wages. In Florida, a ballot initiative to raise the state's minimum wage by a dollar, to $6.15, won 71 percent of the vote in 2004, a blowout that surprised even people like Kern, who spent several weeks in Miami working on the measure. "We would like it to become a fact of political life," Kern says, "where every year the other side has to contend with a minimum-wage law in some state." Though victories like the one in Florida may have done little to help the Kerry-Edwards ticket - George Bush won 52 percent of the state's vote - Kern and some in the Democratic establishment have come to believe that the left, after years of electoral frustration, has finally found its ultimate moral-values issue. "This is what moves people to the polls now," Kern insists. "This is our gay marriage." Already, during the past few months, a coalition of grass-roots and labor organizations have begun gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures to ensure that proposed laws to increase wages are voted on in November. The first targets, Kern told me, will be Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and Ohio. Next in line, either this year or soon after, are Montana, Oklahoma and Arkansas, the home of Wal-Mart.

MAKING KING'S DREAM A REALITY

Today is Martin Luther King Day and it's time to remember what Dr. King represented. He provided hope and inspiration and vision to millions. His death was a tremendous loss to the civil rights movement and to all of those who wanted a more peaceful and just world. His "I Have A Dream" speech is one of the greatest speeches in American history. It's linked at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/Ihaveadream.htm

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

JANUARY 15, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH'S IMPENDING COLLAPSE

There has been justifiable concern that George W. Bush is creating an apparatus for dictatorship. His disregard or outright contempt for the Constitution, his alliance with the Christian right, and the vast media echo chamber that parrots his policies all seem a part of the equation. But even with all the assets at his command Bush's approval ratings have dropped below 40%. There is increasing restlessness among Americans as they see the results of Bush's economic policies, his total incompetence in handling disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, and the crony capitalism that rewards war profiteers, big pharmaceutical companies, and others. In this item Steve Gilliard analyzes why a dictatorship is not likely in the United States. The column is at stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2006/01/imperial-ceo.html

First, the conditions for one man rule comes after social disorder. People have to feel unsafe in the streets in a personal way. Not in the sense of crime, but of a sense of society falling apart. The Reds fighting the Nazis in the streets of Berlin, the left in Latin America and Greece going after the right.

Just big talk or even a terrorist attack will not do it. There has to be a sense of a lack of personal safety from a society losing control.

The government has to be seen as ineffective as well. Not just slow or annoying, but unable to protect you from crime or your job or even basic social order.

Second: you need a national police force. One poster calls America's current police forces militarized. Funny, when I do my research, I read about the French CRS and the German Bundespolizei, complete with special forces. The way American law is, police are strictly regionalized and resistant to orders from state and federal authorities

The United States is a country of nearly 300 million people with over 200 million guns. To quell the LA riots took elements of the 40th CANG and the 5th Marines days. Two men with AK's held off the LAPD for hours.

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

You wonder why some people were so ready to cower in abject fear after the attacks on 9/11, so much that they were willing to hand over almost unlimited power to the incompetent president who didn't prevent the attacks. Many of us lived through the Cold War when there was a very real possibility of nuclear annihilation every day. We weren't giving up our civil liberties then and we weren't going through color coded alerts. George W. Bush, far from exercising real leadership, has made fear itself the method of governing. He uses the fear button to get whatever he wants, whether it's a war against Iraq, or tax cuts for his rich friends, or suppression of civil liberties. This editorial is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Let's put things in perspective. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, around 80,000 Americans have been killed in ordinary homicides. Home invasions, friends getting into an argument at a party, people not wanting to wait for a divorce, and the like. A similar number have been killed on our nation's highways.

Has our chickenhawk president moved boldly to curtail our civil liberties based on these body counts? Of course not.

JANUARY 13, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH ISN'T ABOVE THE LAW

During the Clinton years we heard the phrase "rule of law" repeatedly from Republicans. Bill Clinton wasn't above the "rule of law" in the Paula Jones lawsuit or in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But George Bush isn't held to the same standards because there's a "war on terror." It reminds you a little of that famous line from the Vietnam war that "we had to destroy the village in order to save it." Bush and company are destroying all the foundations of Constitutional law that have made this country so different from other countries around the world. Bob Herbert talks about it in this column linked at www.topplebush.com:

It has become fashionable to say that this controversy is about the always difficult problem of balancing civil liberties and national security. But I think the issue is starker than that. The real issue is President Bush's apparent belief - stoked at every opportunity by that zealot of zealots, Dick Cheney - that he can do just about anything he wants (mistreat prisoners, lock people up forever without filing charges), and justify it in the name of fighting terror.

NEVER MIND THE EXCUSES

There have been a variety of right-wing talking points to justify the U.S. attack on Iraq. George W. Bush began the cavalcade of lies by saying that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that presented an imminent threat to the United States. Then he tried to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. After the U.S. invasion failed to turn up weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration justified the invasion by saying that removing Saddam Hussein was a good thing and we were installing democracy in Iraq. After it became evident that the U.S. was not being welcomed in Iraq, but instead seen as a conqueror, we've heard both that the insurgency is in its "last throes" or that it will take decades to win the "war on terror." We've also heard that the Clinton administration had the same wrong intelligence as the Bush administration, and that Bush acted on bad intelligence. The Downing Street Memos show that Bush wanted a war no matter what. The memos state that the policy regarding Iraq was being "fixed." Ray McGovern talks about the deliberate lies that got us into this war in this article linked at www.commondreams.org:

James Risen’s State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, may hold bigger secrets than the disclosure that President George W. Bush authorized warrantless eavesdropping on Americans.

Risen’s book also confirms the most damning element of the British Cabinet Office memos popularly called the “Downing Street memos;” namely, that “the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.” The result is that it is no longer credible to maintain that the failures in the Iraqi intelligence were the product of a broken intelligence community. The Bush administration deliberately fabricated the case against Iraq, lying to Congress and the American people along the way.

Risen, a senior reporter for The New York Times, reports that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had an urgent need in the summer of 2002 to get the equivalent of a “second opinion” regarding Bush’s plans for war in Iraq—insight independent of his own telephone conversations with the president and independent of what Blair was hearing from his own foreign office.

BUSH SPYING BEGAN BEFORE 9/11

Dick Cheney recently said that if the Bush administration had been conducting warrantless spying before 9/11 the attack might have been prevented. Well, we learn now that the National Security Agency was spying on Americans prior to 9/11. The spying was personally authorized by George W. Bush, according to James Risen, author of a new book that reveals the spy scandal. This article by Jason Leopold is at www.truthout.org:

James Risen, author of the book State of War and credited with first breaking the story about the NSA's domestic surveillance operations, said President Bush personally authorized a change in the agency's long-standing policies shortly after he was sworn in 2001.

"The president personally and directly authorized new operations, like the NSA's domestic surveillance program, that almost certainly would never have been approved under normal circumstances and that raised serious legal or political questions," Risen wrote in the book. "Because of the fevered climate created throughout the government by the president and his senior advisers, Bush sent signals of what he wanted done, without explicit presidential orders" and "the most ambitious got the message."

The NSA's domestic surveillance activities that began in early 2001 reached a boiling point shortly after 9/11, when senior administration officials and top intelligence officials asked the NSA to share that data with other intelligence officials who worked for the FBI and the CIA to hunt down terrorists that might be in the United States. However the NSA, on advice from its lawyers, destroyed the records, fearing the agency could be subjected to lawsuits by American citizens identified in the agency's raw intelligence reports.

JANUARY 12, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

NEW LEVELS OF INCOMPETENCE EVERY DAY

George W. Bush and his administration don't know how to do anything competently or honestly, which may be one of the reasons they so consistently resort to lying, manipulation, and smearing. Look at the long record of incompetence. Everything from the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks, the unnecessary war in Iraq, the way the war in Iraq has been pursued, the absolute failure to handle the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the abysmal prescription drug plan, and driving the country over the cliff with deficits, shows the absolute incompetence of this administration. Molly Ivins has a column at www.workingforchange.com:

Boy, you really can't take your eyes off this bunch for a minute, can you? If they're not screwing up one thing, then they're screwing up another -- busy little beavers. And then there are the administrative nightmares they have created all by themselves: The new Medicare prescription-drug benefit is such a disaster area, four states took it over in less than a week just to make sure poor people received their drugs.

Some of the press is starting to get the drill. Give us something like the West Virginia coal mine disaster, and instead of standing around emoting like Geraldo Rivera, a few reporters have enough sense to ask the obvious question: What is this mine's safety record? And when it turns out to be abysmal, a few more reporters have enough sense to ask: Who's in charge of doing something after a mine gets 205 safety violations in one year? Where's the Mine Safety and Health Administration? Who runs it? What's their background -- are they professionals or mining industry stooges? Who's the Michael "Heckuvajob" Brown in this outfit? Why are so many jobs at MSHA just left completely unfilled? How much has MSHA's budget been cut since 2001 to pay for tax cuts for the rich?

NEW YORK TIMES ON ALITO

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito bobbed and weaved his way through his Senate confirmation hearings and we got the added melodrama of his wife bursting into tears and leaving the chamber. But Alito's record from his time on the federal bench offers much to concern anyone who cares about abortion rights, employee rights, and protection from the abuse of police powers. The New York Times offers some commentary at www.nytimes.com:

Some commentators are complaining that Judge Samuel Alito Jr.'s confirmation hearings have not been exciting, but they must not have been paying attention. We learned that Judge Alito had once declared that Judge Robert Bork - whose Supreme Court nomination was defeated because of his legal extremism - "was one of the most outstanding nominees" of the 20th century. We heard Judge Alito refuse to call Roe v. Wade "settled law," as Chief Justice John Roberts did at his confirmation hearings. And we learned that Judge Alito subscribes to troubling views about presidential power.

Those are just a few of the quiet bombshells that have dropped. In his deadpan bureaucrat's voice, Judge Alito has said some truly disturbing things about his view of the law. In three days of testimony, he has given the American people reasons to be worried - and senators reasons to oppose his nomination. Among those reasons are the following:

Evidence of Extremism

Judge Alito's extraordinary praise of Judge Bork is unsettling, given that Judge Bork's radical legal views included rejecting the Supreme Court's entire line of privacy cases, even its 1965 ruling striking down a state law banning sales of contraceptives. Judge Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton - a group whose offensive views about women, minorities and AIDS victims were discussed in greater detail at yesterday's hearing - is also deeply troubling, as is his unconvincing claim not to remember joining it.

LEGALIZING BUSH'S POWER GRABS

The past few days we've been hearing about concepts such as the "unitary executive" and "plenary powers" and "signing statements." The "unitary executive" concept in effect makes the president all-powerful. Independent executive branches in the federal government such as the Securities and Exchange Commission would be under the direct thumb of the president. I bet the SEC under Bush would be really interested in investigating insider trading and other financial chicanery, don't you? "Plenary powers" gives the president virtually unlimited powers and "signing statements" are a nice little mechanism for not enforcing laws. The latest example was Bush signing an anti-torture law that wasn't worth the paper it was written on because he issued a "signing statement" saying he could interpret the law the way he wanted. In this column Robert Parry talks about the danger of the "unitary executive" concept. The article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The "unitary" theory of presidential power sounds too wonkish for Americans to care about, but the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court could push this radical notion of almost unlimited Executive authority close to becoming a reality.

Justice Alito, as a longtime advocate of the theory, would put the Court's right-wing faction on the verge of having a majority committed to embracing this constitutional argument that would strip regulatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, of their independence.

If that happens, George W. Bush and his successors would have the power to instruct these agencies what to do on regulations and enforcement, opening up new opportunities to punish enemies and reward friends. The "unitary" theory asserts that all executive authority must be in the President's hands, without exception.

The Supreme Court's embrace of the "unitary executive" would sound the death knell for independent regulatory agencies as they have existed since the Great Depression, when they were structured with shared control between the Congress and the President. Putting the agencies under the President's thumb would tip the balance of Washington power to the White House and invite abuses by letting the Executive turn on and off enforcement investigations.

JANUARY 11, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

PAUPER NATION

You have to think Republicans really like poor people because they're creating so many of us. Every economic policy that has been pushed by Republican administrations in the past two decades has been to transfer wealth to the very affluent and leave the middle class and the poor in the United States scrambling to survive. All the necessities are more expensive, things like health care, housing, and food, while wages have actually fallen. In this article Floyd J. McKay takes a look at the disappearing middle class. The article is linked at www.commondreams.org:

Why can't we get it right on a national health policy to reduce this huge risk to the middle class, and why are we giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich, who never have to or ever will worry about these issues?

Credit laws are stacked against consumers. Payday-cash storefronts, exorbitant credit-card interest rates and variable-rate mortgages are devastating families.

Congress has let the financial industry run wild, including legislation this year making it harder to declare bankruptcy.

All the talk about family values is just that — talk — when our financial policies are driving middle-class families to the wall.

ABRAMOFF SCANDAL IS ALL REPUBLICAN

A typical Republican tactic when Republicans get caught in scandal and corruption is to claim that well the Democrats do it too. Richard Nixon claimed that he didn't do anything worse than previous administrations, although he most certainly did. Now that Republicans are drowning in the swamp of the Abramoff scandal they're again trying to say this scandal is bipartisan. It's not. Gene Lyons writes about it in this column linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

American politics offers few spectacles quite so diverting as the pious hypocrite unmasked. For your entertainment dollar, nothing beats the United States Congress in full scandal mode. Particularly, it must be said, a Republican Congress. So brazen and nefarious were the schemes of former GOP House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, for example, that it appears "The Hammer" might with more accuracy have been dubbed "The Chisel." What with GOP super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff having pleaded guilty to five felony counts of conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion, and agreeing to help prosecutors, there's no telling how many high-fliers he'll take down with him. Abramoff boasts that he's got the goods on as many as 60 congressmen and their staffs. He's probably blowing smoke, but plenty of name-brand Republicans are having trouble sleeping nights.

RIGHT WING WANTS TO DESTROY FOURTH AMENDMENT

Today a right wing letter to The Fresno Bee went to new extremes in defending Bush's spying on Americans without warrants. Today's constitutional scholar claims that the Fourth Amendment only applies to "contraband." He goes on to claim that Article II of the Constitution gives the president almost unlimited power in a "time of war."

I've read a little history and my reading tells me the Founding Fathers were greatly concerned about an all-powerful executive. The Constitution was constructed with a system of checks and balances precisely because the Founders did not want another King George III. There are no clauses in the Fourth Amendment stating that it doesn't apply in a "time of war."

The Fourth Amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The Founders obviously didn't know about telephones, computers, or other electronic means of communication, but it seems pretty clear that the Fourth Amendment protected personal privacy against searches and seizures without a warrant.

If the right wing gets it way, the Bill of Rights will be tossed into the dustbin of history and we will descend into a dictatorship.

January 09, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

ALITO - THE GOVERNMENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT

Conservatives, who have traditionally been concerned about the encroachment of government, should be concerned about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Alito has a fifteen year record of sitting on the federal bench and he has consistently ruled in favor of government usurping the rights of citizens, including allowing the strip search of a ten year old girl. In this article Senator Edward Kennedy talks about the danger of Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court when George W. Bush has been grabbing more and more extraconstitutional power. The article is at www.truthout.org:

I am gravely concerned by Judge Alito's clear record of support for vast presidential authority, unchecked by the other two branches of government. In decision after decision on the bench, he has excused abusive actions by the authorities that intrude on the personal privacy and freedoms of average Americans. And in his writings and speeches, he has supported a level of overreaching presidential power that frankly most Americans find disturbing and even frightening.

In fact, it is extraordinary that each of the three individuals this President has nominated for the Supreme Court - Chief Justice Roberts, Harriet Miers, and now Judge Alito - has served not only as a lawyer for the Executive Branch, but has defended the most expansive views of presidential authority. Perhaps that is why this President nominated them.

But as Justice O'Connor stated, even a state of war is not a "blank check" for a President to do whatever he wants. The Supreme Court must serve as an independent check on abuses by the executive branch, and a protector of our liberties, not as a cheerleader for an imperial presidency.

There are other areas of concern. In an era when too many Americans are losing their jobs, or working for less and trying to make ends meet, in close cases Judge Alito has ruled the vast majority of the time against the claims of individual citizens. He has acted instead in favor of the government, large corporations, and other powerful interests. In a study by a well-respected expert, Professor Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School, Judge Alito was found to rule against the individual in 84 percent of his dissents. To put it plainly, average Americans have had a hard time getting a fair shake in his courtroom.

BUSH'S WAR ON AMERICANS

Today George W. Bush was in full macho mode again when he "warned" Democrats about criticism of the Iraq war. Criticism, Bush claims, gives aid to America's enemies. But it is George W. Bush who has been making war on Americans. His disastrous economic policies that benefit only the wealthy are making economic war on most of us. His trashing of civil liberties is making war on us. His ignorance and apathy about the effects of global climate change are just as dangerous as ignoring nuclear threats. His incompetence in following up on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission leave gaping holes in our security. In this article Doug Thompson talks about Bush's war against us. The article is linked at www.opednews.com:

Yes, Bush is a wartime President because he’s the one at war – at war with the American people, at war against the American way of life and at war with the Constitution of the United States, that law of the land that he calls “just a goddamned piece of paper.”

My friends in the White House say Bush has also declared war on any Republican Senator who does not vote to make the Patriot Act a permanent threat to American liberties when it comes back up for a vote later this month.

They tell me Bush repeatedly refers to Idaho Senator Larry Craig as “a goddamned traitor” for joining with Democrats to block permanent renewal of the act and add that the President has similar insults for Senators Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snowe.

JANUARY 9, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

THE BUSH CULT

The diehard supporters of George W. Bush seem to have no standards at all. Ethics don't count. Morality doesn't count. Telling the truth doesn't count. Violating the Constitution doesn't count. They support their man no matter what. Ed Tant discusses the issue at www.smirkingchimp.com:

"In Bush we trust" could be the mindless motto of the cult of George W., the diehard Bush backers who would defend their man even if he were caught in bed with the proverbial live boy and dead girl. While the slick and sleazy Bill Clinton was impeached for lies and cover-ups of a tawdry scandal that made his Oval Office more of an oral office, the same pundits, preachers and politicians who wanted to storm the Clinton White House with torches and pitchforks now seem to have no problem with a president who seems hell-bent on making this country into "one nation under surveillance."

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states all Americans have the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

BUSH NOT COMPETENT ON TERRORISM EITHER

George W. Bush has deservedly low approval ratings in almost every area of public policy. His one claim to legitimacy has been his "war on terror," where his approval ratings are 50% or slightly higher. But does Bush deserve any credit for any perceived success in the "war on terror"? Michael T. Klare has some doubts in this article at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=47757

Far from impeding Al Qaeda and its offshoots, the overthrow of the Taliban and, especially, the Hussein regime have been a boon to their efforts. War and chaos in the Middle East, with American forces serving as an occupying power, have proved to be the ideal conditions in which to nurture a multinational jihadist movement aimed at punishing the West. As noted in a recent CIA report, would-be jihadists from all over the world are flocking to Iraq to bloody the Americans and acquire critical combat skills that can later be applied in their own countries. According to a summary of a CIA report in the New York Times, the Agency has concluded that "Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda's early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory" for militants to improve their skills in urban combat. It follows from this that the longer American troops remain in Iraq, the greater will be the potential advantage to international terrorism. Indeed, senior CIA officials have reportedly told Congressional leaders that the war in Iraq is "likely to produce a dangerous legacy, by dispersing to other countries Iraqi and foreign combatants more adept and better organized than they were before the conflict."

BUSH'S SHORT TERM MEMORY

When the Enron scandal erupted and engulfed "Kenny Boy" Lay George W. Bush suddenly couldn't remember Ken Lay, even though Lay was a major contributor to the Bush campaign and enough of a confidant to earn the moniker "Kenny Boy." Now Bush can't remember Jack Abramoff, the super lobbyist who has enough information to sink the corrupt Republican party. It turns out the Secret Service has 195 documented visits from Abramoff to Bush administration officials or Bush himself. There are also photos of Abramoff with Bush. So many scandals and so little time. Will this one bring down Bush? This article is at www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-06-abramoff-bush_x.htm

In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration as they pressed for friendly hires at federal agencies and sought to keep the Northern Mariana Islands exempt from the minimum wage and other laws, records show.

The meetings between Abramoff's lobbying team and the administration ranged from Attorney General John Ashcroft to policy advisers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, according to his lobbying firm billing records.

Abramoff, a $100,000-plus fundraiser for Bush, is now under criminal investigation for some of his lobbying work. His firm boasted its lobbying team helped revise a section of the Republican Party's 2000 platform to make it favorable to its island client.