January 31, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH LINKED TO PLAME OUTING
Right-wingers like to throw around the word "treason" at anyone who doesn't support the war in Iraq. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other members of the Bush administration have suggested that any dissent from the war gives aid to the terrorists. I wonder how right-wingers who have backed this war will react to the apparent link between George W. Bush and the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Outing Ms. Plame compromised intelligence vital to the security of the United States. It has emerged in the trial of I. Lewis Libby that Bush may have been directly involved in outing Plame. This story by Jason Leopold and Marc Ash is at www.truthout.org:
Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by defense attorneys for former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case.
Bush has long maintained that he was unaware of attacks by any member of his administration against [former ambassador Joseph] Wilson. The ex-envoy's stinging rebukes of the administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence led Libby and other White House officials to leak Wilson's wife's covert CIA status to reporters in July 2003 in an act of retaliation.
But Cheney's notes, which were introduced into evidence Tuesday during Libby's perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial, call into question the truthfulness of President Bush's vehement denials about his prior knowledge of the attacks against Wilson. The revelation that Bush may have known all along that there was an effort by members of his office to discredit the former ambassador begs the question: Was the president also aware that senior members of his administration compromised Valerie Plame's undercover role with the CIA?
Further, the highly explicit nature of Cheney's comments not only hints at a rift between Cheney and Bush over what Cheney felt was the scapegoating of Libby, but also raises serious questions about potentially criminal actions by Bush. If Bush did indeed play an active role in encouraging Libby to take the fall to protect Karl Rove, as Libby's lawyers articulated in their opening statements, then that could be viewed as criminal involvement by Bush.
Last week, Libby's attorney Theodore Wells made a stunning pronouncement during opening statements of Libby's trial. He claimed that the White House had made Libby a scapegoat for the leak to protect Karl Rove - Bush's political adviser and "right-hand man."
WE'LL MISS MOLLY
Firebrand columnist Molly Ivins died today of breast cancer. Molly was one of the most perceptive and wittiest columnists I've ever read. I thought in the early years of the Bush administration she was too soft on Bush. She talked about his time as Governor of Texas and that he was personable. But, in general, her commentaries have been right on target. This article by Kelley Shannon is at www.commondreams.org:
Best-selling author and columnist Molly Ivins, the sharp-witted liberal who skewered the political establishment and referred to President Bush as "Shrub," has died after a long battle with breast cancer, the managing editor of the Texas Observer said Wednesday. Ivins was 62.
The writer, who made a living poking fun at Texas politicians, whether they were in her home base of Austin or the White House, revealed in early 2006 that she was being treated for breast cancer for the third time.
More than 400 newspapers subscribed to her nationally syndicated column, which combined strong liberal views and populist-toned humor. Ivins' illness did not seem to hurt her ability to deliver biting one-liners.
"I'm sorry to say (cancer) can kill you but it doesn't make you a better person," she said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News in September 2006, the same month cancer claimed her friend former Gov. Ann Richards.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
January 29, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CHENEY AND THE PLAME OUTING
As the trial of I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby proceeds, it's becoming more and more apparent that Dick Cheney was heavily involved in outing CIA operative Valerie Plame as an act of political revenge against her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson made facts known that revealed the administration was lying about Saddam Hussein trying to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. Cheney's case for his beloved war was going poof! This article by John Prados is at www.tompaine.com:
There can be no question that Cheney was the puppeteer in this entire production. This is not the same role as previous vice presidents, even activist ones like Al Gore or Walter Mondale—indeed Mondale said recently that had he taken such liberties, President Jimmy Carter would have made him resign. At a minimum it is clear Cheney believes he can substitute his judgment for the president’s. Cheney not only reinforces Bush’s worst traits, he sandbags the president into even more extreme positions. Where this will lead when it comes to Iran or North Korea should send shudders up the spine.
Cheney has gone out of his way to make sure no one got to the bottom of this affair. Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W. Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, related new key details of this in an interview with McClatchy newspapers last week. During the previous Congress, the committee attempted to conduct a “Phase II” investigation of how the Iraq intelligence was manipulated to bring on the war, but was stymied at every turn by obstacles thrown up by the Republican majority, led by then-chairman Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. Rockefeller told reporters that Cheney’s interference with committee business “was just constant” and that it was “not hearsay” that Cheney had induced Roberts to drag out the inquiry.
Cheney himself continues to push the line that “obviously” only flawed intelligence was at issue on Iraq, and as he told Newsweek last week , “we should not let the fact of past problems in that area lead us to ignore the threat we face today.” Cheney is himself to testify at the Libby trial. It is a good bet that he hopes questioning will stay away from these areas.
BUSH: PRO BUSINESS, ANTI-PEOPLE
George W. Bush has signed an executive order that gives the White House more control over federal agencies. The order allows Bush to plant a political appointee in each agency to make sure the agency follows the Bush line. It's illustrative that the agencies most targeted are the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. It's no accident that agencies charged with protecting the environment and insuring employee rights and safety would get targeted by Bush. This article is from www.rawstory.com:
This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.
The White House said the executive order was not meant to rein in any one agency. But business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
...
Business groups welcomed the executive order, saying it had the potential to reduce what they saw as the burden of federal regulations. This burden is of great concern to many groups, including small businesses, that have given strong political and financial backing to Bush.
Consumer, labor and environmental groups denounced the executive order, saying it gave too much control to the White House and would hinder agencies' efforts to protect the public.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CHENEY AND THE PLAME OUTING
As the trial of I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby proceeds, it's becoming more and more apparent that Dick Cheney was heavily involved in outing CIA operative Valerie Plame as an act of political revenge against her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson made facts known that revealed the administration was lying about Saddam Hussein trying to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. Cheney's case for his beloved war was going poof! This article by John Prados is at www.tompaine.com:
There can be no question that Cheney was the puppeteer in this entire production. This is not the same role as previous vice presidents, even activist ones like Al Gore or Walter Mondale—indeed Mondale said recently that had he taken such liberties, President Jimmy Carter would have made him resign. At a minimum it is clear Cheney believes he can substitute his judgment for the president’s. Cheney not only reinforces Bush’s worst traits, he sandbags the president into even more extreme positions. Where this will lead when it comes to Iran or North Korea should send shudders up the spine.
Cheney has gone out of his way to make sure no one got to the bottom of this affair. Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W. Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, related new key details of this in an interview with McClatchy newspapers last week. During the previous Congress, the committee attempted to conduct a “Phase II” investigation of how the Iraq intelligence was manipulated to bring on the war, but was stymied at every turn by obstacles thrown up by the Republican majority, led by then-chairman Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. Rockefeller told reporters that Cheney’s interference with committee business “was just constant” and that it was “not hearsay” that Cheney had induced Roberts to drag out the inquiry.
Cheney himself continues to push the line that “obviously” only flawed intelligence was at issue on Iraq, and as he told Newsweek last week , “we should not let the fact of past problems in that area lead us to ignore the threat we face today.” Cheney is himself to testify at the Libby trial. It is a good bet that he hopes questioning will stay away from these areas.
BUSH: PRO BUSINESS, ANTI-PEOPLE
George W. Bush has signed an executive order that gives the White House more control over federal agencies. The order allows Bush to plant a political appointee in each agency to make sure the agency follows the Bush line. It's illustrative that the agencies most targeted are the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. It's no accident that agencies charged with protecting the environment and insuring employee rights and safety would get targeted by Bush. This article is from www.rawstory.com:
This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.
The White House said the executive order was not meant to rein in any one agency. But business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
...
Business groups welcomed the executive order, saying it had the potential to reduce what they saw as the burden of federal regulations. This burden is of great concern to many groups, including small businesses, that have given strong political and financial backing to Bush.
Consumer, labor and environmental groups denounced the executive order, saying it gave too much control to the White House and would hinder agencies' efforts to protect the public.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
January 28, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE DANGEROUS DICK CHENEY
There have been some people in history who make a Mafia Don look like a moral and upright guy. Dick Cheney is one of those people. When George W. Bush was looking for a vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney was appointed to find the candidate. Cheney selected himself. It put him into a great position to help himself and his oil buddies. Cheney made millions as CEO at Halliburton and continues to make a fortune with Halliburton's no-bid contracts. From a financial standpoint, the Iraq war has been very good for Halliburton and Dick Cheney. Cheney talks about democracy from one side of his mouth, but sneeringly dismisses it from the other. He and Bush won't pay attention to any Congressional resolutions against the war, he said. This column by Maureen Dowd is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
It requires an exquisite kind of lunacy to spend hundreds of billions destroying America’s reputation in the world, exhausting the U.S. military, failing to catch Osama, enhancing Iran’s power in the Middle East and sending American kids to train and arm Iraqi forces so they can work against American interests.
Only someone with an inspired alienation from reality could, under the guise of exorcising the trauma of Vietnam, replicate the trauma of Vietnam.
You must have a real talent for derangement to stay wrong every step of the way, to remain in complete denial about Iraq’s civil war, to have a total misunderstanding of Arab culture, to be completely oblivious to the American mood and to be absolutely blind to how democracy works.
BUSH THE PREVARICATOR
In one of his most memorable manglings of English George W. Bush declared himself "the Decider." It might be more accurate to describe himself as "the Liar." We can dress it up a bit and call him "the Prevaricator." From the beginning Bush has lied to the American people. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which should have set off alarm bells for anyone who knows anything about conservatism. He and his political operatives stole the 2000 presidential election. He used the tragic and horrendous attacks on 9/11 to build a phony case for a war against Iraq, a war he and neocons wanted anyway. He continues to lie about the violence in Iraq. The motives he ascribes to the insurgency are not in line with the facts. This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:
Since 2001, rather than focusing on the al-Qaeda Sunni fundamentalist terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks, Bush has expanded the conflict exponentially – tossing in unrelated enemies such as Iraq’s secular dictator Saddam Hussein, Shiite-led Iran, Syria and Islamic militants opposed to Israel, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
In effect, Bush has transformed what began as a definable military objective – the defeat of “terrorist groups with global reach” – into an endless war against what he regards as evil, a conflict so vague that it is claiming as collateral damage America’s “unalienable rights” and the Founders’ checks and balances on the powers of the Executive.
In Bush’s State of the Union speech on Jan. 23, there could be heard a requiem for the Republic.
“The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world. And so long as that’s the case, America is still a nation at war,” Bush told Congress.
But that “evil” will always be “at work in the world,” so America will always be “a nation at war” and thus, under Bush’s theories of unlimited Commander-in-Chief powers, the American Republic will be banished permanently.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE DANGEROUS DICK CHENEY
There have been some people in history who make a Mafia Don look like a moral and upright guy. Dick Cheney is one of those people. When George W. Bush was looking for a vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney was appointed to find the candidate. Cheney selected himself. It put him into a great position to help himself and his oil buddies. Cheney made millions as CEO at Halliburton and continues to make a fortune with Halliburton's no-bid contracts. From a financial standpoint, the Iraq war has been very good for Halliburton and Dick Cheney. Cheney talks about democracy from one side of his mouth, but sneeringly dismisses it from the other. He and Bush won't pay attention to any Congressional resolutions against the war, he said. This column by Maureen Dowd is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
It requires an exquisite kind of lunacy to spend hundreds of billions destroying America’s reputation in the world, exhausting the U.S. military, failing to catch Osama, enhancing Iran’s power in the Middle East and sending American kids to train and arm Iraqi forces so they can work against American interests.
Only someone with an inspired alienation from reality could, under the guise of exorcising the trauma of Vietnam, replicate the trauma of Vietnam.
You must have a real talent for derangement to stay wrong every step of the way, to remain in complete denial about Iraq’s civil war, to have a total misunderstanding of Arab culture, to be completely oblivious to the American mood and to be absolutely blind to how democracy works.
BUSH THE PREVARICATOR
In one of his most memorable manglings of English George W. Bush declared himself "the Decider." It might be more accurate to describe himself as "the Liar." We can dress it up a bit and call him "the Prevaricator." From the beginning Bush has lied to the American people. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which should have set off alarm bells for anyone who knows anything about conservatism. He and his political operatives stole the 2000 presidential election. He used the tragic and horrendous attacks on 9/11 to build a phony case for a war against Iraq, a war he and neocons wanted anyway. He continues to lie about the violence in Iraq. The motives he ascribes to the insurgency are not in line with the facts. This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:
Since 2001, rather than focusing on the al-Qaeda Sunni fundamentalist terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks, Bush has expanded the conflict exponentially – tossing in unrelated enemies such as Iraq’s secular dictator Saddam Hussein, Shiite-led Iran, Syria and Islamic militants opposed to Israel, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
In effect, Bush has transformed what began as a definable military objective – the defeat of “terrorist groups with global reach” – into an endless war against what he regards as evil, a conflict so vague that it is claiming as collateral damage America’s “unalienable rights” and the Founders’ checks and balances on the powers of the Executive.
In Bush’s State of the Union speech on Jan. 23, there could be heard a requiem for the Republic.
“The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world. And so long as that’s the case, America is still a nation at war,” Bush told Congress.
But that “evil” will always be “at work in the world,” so America will always be “a nation at war” and thus, under Bush’s theories of unlimited Commander-in-Chief powers, the American Republic will be banished permanently.
Friday, January 26, 2007
January 26, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DEFLATING AL-QAEDA
The Bush administration has suggested that a U. S. withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for al-Qaeda. However, intelligence on al-Qaeda suggests just the opposite. The U. S. presence in Iraq is the best recruiting tool the terrorist organization could ask for. Like a giant parasite, the Iraq war is draining the United States. We've stretched our military thin, we're sustaining horrific casualties, and we're bleeding our treasury. We are also sacrificing our credibility around the world. This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:
“Let’s be clear,” Liz Cheney wrote. “If we restrict the ability of our troops to fight and win this war, we help the terrorists. Don’t take my word for it. Read the plans of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman Zawahiri to drive America from Iraq, establish a base for al-Qaeda and spread jihad across the Middle East.”
But U.S. intelligence knows that al-Qaeda’s public statements must be taken with a grain of salt.
By contrast, analysts give more weight to intercepted al-Qaeda communiqués describing the leaders' private views. Those messages reveal that – even as al-Qaeda baits the United States about leaving Iraq – the group actually worries that a sudden U.S. withdrawal could collapse its position.
Intelligence analysts estimate that al-Qaeda's forces account for only five percent or less of the armed opposition fighting U.S. and allied forces – and many of those young jihadists are not considered committed fighters.
As Zawahiri said in one captured letter, a rapid American military withdrawal could cause al-Qaeda’s new foreign jihadists, who have gone to Iraq to battle the Americans, to simply give up the fight and go home.
REPUBLICANS HATE WORKING PEOPLE
Republicans prove time after time that they hate working class people. They consistently obstruct raising the disgracefully low minimum wage, but they pass huge tax cuts for corporations and the very rich. They gut health and safety regulations every chance they get. They sponsor legislation that moves jobs offshore. This article is about the impassioned speech by Senator Edward Kennedy telling it like it is about Republicans. The article by Bob Geiger is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
But Massachusetts' Senior Senator -- who has seen his efforts to increase the minimum wage shot down in the Senate three times in the last two years -- really unloaded on his Republican colleagues for their utter contempt for working people in this country.
"240 billion dollars in tax breaks for corporations. 36 billion dollars in tax breaks for small businesses. Increase in productivity -- 42 percent over the last 10 years," yelled Kennedy emotionally. "But do you think there's any increase in the minimum wage? No. At 12 after five today, on Thursday, I speak for all of our Democrats and say we're prepared to vote now. Now!"
"Do you have such disdain for hard-working Americans that you want to pile all your amendments on this? Why don’t you just hold your amendments until other pieces of legislation? Why this volume of amendments on just the issue to try and raise the minimum wage? What is it about it that drives you Republicans crazy? What is it? Something. Something! What is the price that the workers have to pay to get an increase? What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?"
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DEFLATING AL-QAEDA
The Bush administration has suggested that a U. S. withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for al-Qaeda. However, intelligence on al-Qaeda suggests just the opposite. The U. S. presence in Iraq is the best recruiting tool the terrorist organization could ask for. Like a giant parasite, the Iraq war is draining the United States. We've stretched our military thin, we're sustaining horrific casualties, and we're bleeding our treasury. We are also sacrificing our credibility around the world. This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:
“Let’s be clear,” Liz Cheney wrote. “If we restrict the ability of our troops to fight and win this war, we help the terrorists. Don’t take my word for it. Read the plans of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman Zawahiri to drive America from Iraq, establish a base for al-Qaeda and spread jihad across the Middle East.”
But U.S. intelligence knows that al-Qaeda’s public statements must be taken with a grain of salt.
By contrast, analysts give more weight to intercepted al-Qaeda communiqués describing the leaders' private views. Those messages reveal that – even as al-Qaeda baits the United States about leaving Iraq – the group actually worries that a sudden U.S. withdrawal could collapse its position.
Intelligence analysts estimate that al-Qaeda's forces account for only five percent or less of the armed opposition fighting U.S. and allied forces – and many of those young jihadists are not considered committed fighters.
As Zawahiri said in one captured letter, a rapid American military withdrawal could cause al-Qaeda’s new foreign jihadists, who have gone to Iraq to battle the Americans, to simply give up the fight and go home.
REPUBLICANS HATE WORKING PEOPLE
Republicans prove time after time that they hate working class people. They consistently obstruct raising the disgracefully low minimum wage, but they pass huge tax cuts for corporations and the very rich. They gut health and safety regulations every chance they get. They sponsor legislation that moves jobs offshore. This article is about the impassioned speech by Senator Edward Kennedy telling it like it is about Republicans. The article by Bob Geiger is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
But Massachusetts' Senior Senator -- who has seen his efforts to increase the minimum wage shot down in the Senate three times in the last two years -- really unloaded on his Republican colleagues for their utter contempt for working people in this country.
"240 billion dollars in tax breaks for corporations. 36 billion dollars in tax breaks for small businesses. Increase in productivity -- 42 percent over the last 10 years," yelled Kennedy emotionally. "But do you think there's any increase in the minimum wage? No. At 12 after five today, on Thursday, I speak for all of our Democrats and say we're prepared to vote now. Now!"
"Do you have such disdain for hard-working Americans that you want to pile all your amendments on this? Why don’t you just hold your amendments until other pieces of legislation? Why this volume of amendments on just the issue to try and raise the minimum wage? What is it about it that drives you Republicans crazy? What is it? Something. Something! What is the price that the workers have to pay to get an increase? What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?"
Thursday, January 25, 2007
January 25, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WHAT BUSH DIDN'T TALK ABOUT
When George W. Bush delivers a State of the Union speech it is much ado about nothing. The things he did talk about, such as his plan for health care and for energy independence, were ridiculous, if not outright disgusting. What he didn't talk about was more illustrative of Bush than what he said. This column by Bob Herbert is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
If Mr. Bush is bothered by his fall from political grace, it wasn’t showing on Tuesday night. He seemed as relaxed as ever, smiling, signing autographs, glad-handing.
I wanted to hear him talk about the suffering of the soldiers he has put in harm’s way, and the plight of the residents of New Orleans. I wanted to hear him express a little in the way of sorrow for the many thousands who have died unnecessarily on his watch. I wanted to see him slip the surly bonds of narcissism and at least acknowledge the human wreckage that is the sum and substance of his sustained folly.
But this is a president who runs when empathy calls. While others are monitoring the casualty lists, he’s off to the gym. At least Lyndon Johnson had the decency to agonize over the losses he unleashed in Vietnam.
The State of the Union speech was boilerplate at a time when much of the country, with good reason, is boiling mad. The United States, the most powerful nation in the history of the world, seems paralyzed. It can’t extricate itself from the war in Iraq, can’t rebuild the lost city of New Orleans, can’t provide health care for all of its citizens, can’t come up with a sane energy policy in the era of global warming, can’t even develop a thriving public school system.
FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT
The old saying is that familiarity breeds contempt, but I never liked George W. Bush, so it isn't just familiarity. But a good part of the country bought into Bush's snake oil for a very long time. Now his wall of lies is collapsing all around us. Joe Conason looks at the State of the Union address and just what a pitiful spectacle it was at news.yahoo.com:
As his presidency enters its twilight years, Bush evidently wishes he could revisit the sunny days of "compassionate conservatism," when gauzy proposals and happy talk so easily beguiled so many voters.
His problem is that we have heard all this before, and we know him too well by now.
Every year in his State of the Union address, he feigns deep concern over the same issues. He always urges independence from foreign oil, rapid development of alternative energy sources, effective use of conservation and improvement of the environment. (Remember his "switch grass" biofuel program from last year?) He always promises to make affordable health care available to more of the uninsured and their children.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WHAT BUSH DIDN'T TALK ABOUT
When George W. Bush delivers a State of the Union speech it is much ado about nothing. The things he did talk about, such as his plan for health care and for energy independence, were ridiculous, if not outright disgusting. What he didn't talk about was more illustrative of Bush than what he said. This column by Bob Herbert is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
If Mr. Bush is bothered by his fall from political grace, it wasn’t showing on Tuesday night. He seemed as relaxed as ever, smiling, signing autographs, glad-handing.
I wanted to hear him talk about the suffering of the soldiers he has put in harm’s way, and the plight of the residents of New Orleans. I wanted to hear him express a little in the way of sorrow for the many thousands who have died unnecessarily on his watch. I wanted to see him slip the surly bonds of narcissism and at least acknowledge the human wreckage that is the sum and substance of his sustained folly.
But this is a president who runs when empathy calls. While others are monitoring the casualty lists, he’s off to the gym. At least Lyndon Johnson had the decency to agonize over the losses he unleashed in Vietnam.
The State of the Union speech was boilerplate at a time when much of the country, with good reason, is boiling mad. The United States, the most powerful nation in the history of the world, seems paralyzed. It can’t extricate itself from the war in Iraq, can’t rebuild the lost city of New Orleans, can’t provide health care for all of its citizens, can’t come up with a sane energy policy in the era of global warming, can’t even develop a thriving public school system.
FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT
The old saying is that familiarity breeds contempt, but I never liked George W. Bush, so it isn't just familiarity. But a good part of the country bought into Bush's snake oil for a very long time. Now his wall of lies is collapsing all around us. Joe Conason looks at the State of the Union address and just what a pitiful spectacle it was at news.yahoo.com:
As his presidency enters its twilight years, Bush evidently wishes he could revisit the sunny days of "compassionate conservatism," when gauzy proposals and happy talk so easily beguiled so many voters.
His problem is that we have heard all this before, and we know him too well by now.
Every year in his State of the Union address, he feigns deep concern over the same issues. He always urges independence from foreign oil, rapid development of alternative energy sources, effective use of conservation and improvement of the environment. (Remember his "switch grass" biofuel program from last year?) He always promises to make affordable health care available to more of the uninsured and their children.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
January 24, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH THE DESTROYER
Last night George W. Bush gave the annual State of the Union speech in which he tried to put a positive gloss on his despicable and failed administration. Bush liked to claim he was "uniter, not a divider" once upon a time. He's a uniter; he's uniting the country and the world against his administration. But it doesn't stop him. He compounds a terrible war in Iraq by sending even more troops to be slaughtered. This commentary by Marie Cocco is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The truest and most tragic measure of Bush's continued power is the arrival in Iraq of more American troops, sent into the teeth of a beastly civil war. By defying the considered, bipartisan advice of the Iraq Study Group; by ignoring the results of the November election, in which voters demanded a change of course; by challenging Congress to a constitutional showdown over war-making powers, Bush has all but declared the voters to be irrelevant.
It is much more shocking than Gingrich's preening, and so much more dangerous.
The earnest hope for change is symbolized by the start of the 2008 presidential race, with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama poised to become the first African-American to put himself in serious contention for the Oval Office, and the entry of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the only woman in history to have a genuine chance to become president. There is palpable drama and energy in these developments, manifestations of a deep yearning for something new. You want, right now, to move quickly on to this new political terrain — but we can't.
There is no early out from the Bush presidency. The immediate challenge is to find a way not just to muddle through but to begin repairing the damage.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH THE DESTROYER
Last night George W. Bush gave the annual State of the Union speech in which he tried to put a positive gloss on his despicable and failed administration. Bush liked to claim he was "uniter, not a divider" once upon a time. He's a uniter; he's uniting the country and the world against his administration. But it doesn't stop him. He compounds a terrible war in Iraq by sending even more troops to be slaughtered. This commentary by Marie Cocco is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The truest and most tragic measure of Bush's continued power is the arrival in Iraq of more American troops, sent into the teeth of a beastly civil war. By defying the considered, bipartisan advice of the Iraq Study Group; by ignoring the results of the November election, in which voters demanded a change of course; by challenging Congress to a constitutional showdown over war-making powers, Bush has all but declared the voters to be irrelevant.
It is much more shocking than Gingrich's preening, and so much more dangerous.
The earnest hope for change is symbolized by the start of the 2008 presidential race, with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama poised to become the first African-American to put himself in serious contention for the Oval Office, and the entry of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the only woman in history to have a genuine chance to become president. There is palpable drama and energy in these developments, manifestations of a deep yearning for something new. You want, right now, to move quickly on to this new political terrain — but we can't.
There is no early out from the Bush presidency. The immediate challenge is to find a way not just to muddle through but to begin repairing the damage.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
January 23, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE REAL STATE OF THE UNION
Tonight we'll have the pomp and circumstance of the State of the Union speech. George W. Bush will stand before the assembled members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs, and the world and proceed to lie, lie, lie. Bush will claim we have a strong economy, when the economy is really only benefiting the very wealthy. He will claim we're strong militarily, although he has stretched the military to the limit with his godawful war in Iraq. He will make an asinine proposal to "reform" health care, which would be just another gift for his fat cat friends. This commentary by Bill Gallagher is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Is the state of our union better today than it was six years ago when Bush, the man five partisans on the Supreme Court selected to be president, took the oath of office? The only people who will answer yes are the super-rich, the supremely partisan, the uninformed and those impervious to the truth.
The war in Iraq has fostered terrorism and spawned an entire new generation of young people growing up with the trauma of violence and war shaping their very existence. Bush will certainly not mention that the United Nations reported more than 34,000 Iraqis were killed in 2006. Such troubling statistics clutter a State of the Union address.
Bush's plan to send more troops into Baghdad will only result in more Iraqi and American deaths, and do nothing to pacify the nation thrust into civil war as a result of the invasion and incompetent occupation. The only hope is a political solution. Bush will never even consider that approach.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE REAL STATE OF THE UNION
Tonight we'll have the pomp and circumstance of the State of the Union speech. George W. Bush will stand before the assembled members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs, and the world and proceed to lie, lie, lie. Bush will claim we have a strong economy, when the economy is really only benefiting the very wealthy. He will claim we're strong militarily, although he has stretched the military to the limit with his godawful war in Iraq. He will make an asinine proposal to "reform" health care, which would be just another gift for his fat cat friends. This commentary by Bill Gallagher is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Is the state of our union better today than it was six years ago when Bush, the man five partisans on the Supreme Court selected to be president, took the oath of office? The only people who will answer yes are the super-rich, the supremely partisan, the uninformed and those impervious to the truth.
The war in Iraq has fostered terrorism and spawned an entire new generation of young people growing up with the trauma of violence and war shaping their very existence. Bush will certainly not mention that the United Nations reported more than 34,000 Iraqis were killed in 2006. Such troubling statistics clutter a State of the Union address.
Bush's plan to send more troops into Baghdad will only result in more Iraqi and American deaths, and do nothing to pacify the nation thrust into civil war as a result of the invasion and incompetent occupation. The only hope is a political solution. Bush will never even consider that approach.
Monday, January 22, 2007
January 22, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S CALLOUSNESS SHOWS AGAIN
George W. Bush has come out with another rotten privatization scheme right out of right-wing fantasy land. This time it's health insurance. According to Bush, people with good health care coverage, usually through their employers, should have to pay taxes on that coverage because their coverage supposedly drives up the prices for everyone else. And, of course, Bush's plan features tax cuts that will benefit only the very wealthy. Just when you think this guy can't get any more despicable, he proves he can. This column by Paul Krugman is linked at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
On the radio, Mr. Bush suggested that we should “treat health insurance more like home ownership.” He went on to say that “the current tax code encourages home ownership by allowing you to deduct the interest on your mortgage from your taxes. We can reform the tax code, so that it provides a similar incentive for you to buy health insurance.”
Wow. Those are the words of someone with no sense of what it’s like to be uninsured.
Going without health insurance isn’t like deciding to rent an apartment instead of buying a house. It’s a terrifying experience, which most people endure only if they have no alternative. The uninsured don’t need an “incentive” to buy insurance; they need something that makes getting insurance possible.
Most people without health insurance have low incomes, and just can’t afford the premiums. And making premiums tax-deductible is almost worthless to workers whose income puts them in a low tax bracket.
TAKE BACK THE AIRWAVES
It was definitely a case of one hand washing the other when Ronald Reagan vetoed legislation that would reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Big media companies loved it. It opened the way for creeps like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity to spew out their propaganda hours and hours every day without a counter viewpoint. These right-wingers are not "entertainers." They're well-paid shills for the Far Right. Now a Congressman named Maurice Hinchey has introduced a bill to restore the Fairness Doctrine. He points out that the fascists who took control in Italy and Germany also had exclusive control of the airwaves. This article by Miriam Raftery is at www.rawstory.com:
Hinchey believes the takeover of the U.S. media has been carefully calculated by the “political right wing,” starting with the abolition in 1987 of the Fairness Doctrine, which was originally adopted in 1949 in reaction to the rise of global fascism prior to World War II.
“Fascist government dominated discussions in Europe. They could now broadcast all over and control all information going out. That’s how they took over governments in Spain and Italy,” Hinchey recalled. “The U.S. said the airways should be owned by everyone.”
The Fairness Doctrine required that broadcasters give equal time to people who wished to express an opposing viewpoint. “Under the Reagan administration, the FCC wiped out that rule and said only businesses that operate stations can express their view,” Hinchey noted. Congress passed a bill that would have required the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, but that bill was vetoed by Reagan.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S CALLOUSNESS SHOWS AGAIN
George W. Bush has come out with another rotten privatization scheme right out of right-wing fantasy land. This time it's health insurance. According to Bush, people with good health care coverage, usually through their employers, should have to pay taxes on that coverage because their coverage supposedly drives up the prices for everyone else. And, of course, Bush's plan features tax cuts that will benefit only the very wealthy. Just when you think this guy can't get any more despicable, he proves he can. This column by Paul Krugman is linked at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
On the radio, Mr. Bush suggested that we should “treat health insurance more like home ownership.” He went on to say that “the current tax code encourages home ownership by allowing you to deduct the interest on your mortgage from your taxes. We can reform the tax code, so that it provides a similar incentive for you to buy health insurance.”
Wow. Those are the words of someone with no sense of what it’s like to be uninsured.
Going without health insurance isn’t like deciding to rent an apartment instead of buying a house. It’s a terrifying experience, which most people endure only if they have no alternative. The uninsured don’t need an “incentive” to buy insurance; they need something that makes getting insurance possible.
Most people without health insurance have low incomes, and just can’t afford the premiums. And making premiums tax-deductible is almost worthless to workers whose income puts them in a low tax bracket.
TAKE BACK THE AIRWAVES
It was definitely a case of one hand washing the other when Ronald Reagan vetoed legislation that would reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Big media companies loved it. It opened the way for creeps like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity to spew out their propaganda hours and hours every day without a counter viewpoint. These right-wingers are not "entertainers." They're well-paid shills for the Far Right. Now a Congressman named Maurice Hinchey has introduced a bill to restore the Fairness Doctrine. He points out that the fascists who took control in Italy and Germany also had exclusive control of the airwaves. This article by Miriam Raftery is at www.rawstory.com:
Hinchey believes the takeover of the U.S. media has been carefully calculated by the “political right wing,” starting with the abolition in 1987 of the Fairness Doctrine, which was originally adopted in 1949 in reaction to the rise of global fascism prior to World War II.
“Fascist government dominated discussions in Europe. They could now broadcast all over and control all information going out. That’s how they took over governments in Spain and Italy,” Hinchey recalled. “The U.S. said the airways should be owned by everyone.”
The Fairness Doctrine required that broadcasters give equal time to people who wished to express an opposing viewpoint. “Under the Reagan administration, the FCC wiped out that rule and said only businesses that operate stations can express their view,” Hinchey noted. Congress passed a bill that would have required the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, but that bill was vetoed by Reagan.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
January 20, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
HERBERT HOOVER PART TWO
In this article Brent Budowsky is optimistic that there will be a Democratic sweep in 2008. I hope he's correct. He compares George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover. After the horrendous economic policies of the Hoover administration brought on the Great Depression, Republicans didn't have another president until Dwight D. Eisenhower. In some ways it's unfair to compare Hoover to Bush. I think Hoover was basically a decent man. He was certainly intelligent. Bush is neither of those things. This article is at www.opednews.com:
Our great aspiration is that January 2009 will bring a new Democratic President leading an uplifted America, with up to 60 Democratic Senators, additional gains in the House, and a wave of more Democratic governors ahead of the next census and reapportionment.
I served with senior Democratic Senators such as Lloyd Bentsen and with the House Democratic Leadership when Democrats were in control of Congress and have no doubt about this:
Democrats have only begun to realize the full magnitude of rejection of Bush and Bushism, the full magnitude of our power in Congress to set the agenda through legislation and investigations, and the full magnitude of opportunity in 2008 for a historic realignment. Republicans are politically incarcerated by a politics of Bushism that is dominated by an extreme right wing base, a royalist economics that makes them servants of the 1% at the expense of the 99%, and a psychology of national division, fear politics and war fever.
The traditional base of the Democratic Party is converging with the mainstream base of Middle America.
Fighting Democrats and war hero candidates appeal to tens of millions of Americans in military families who know well the bad faith and incompetence of Bush war fever and war partisanship.
BLAMING EVERYONE ELSE
Right-wingers are responsibility challenged. They talk a good game about "personal responsibility," but they can't accept the blame for anything they do wrong. We have right-wingers in full-throated roar trying to blame Presidents Carter and Clinton for al-Qaeda and the attacks on 9/11 when the evidence is that it was Republican administration policies that led to the disaster then and the disaster ongoing in Iraq . This article by Walter C. Uhler is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Incredibly, on January 18, 2007, the Lost Angeles Times (no typo) published Dinesh D'Souza's thoroughly biased Op-Ed, "How The Left Led Us Into 9/11." Mr. D'Souza's article is riddled with errors and all-too-convenient omissions, suggesting both ignorance and fraud. Although a fellow at the Hoover Institution, D'Souza writes history (judging by his opinion piece), as if he studied under the tutelage of that historian-imbecile, Ann Coulter.
Consider that D'Souza expects Americans to believe that "the Clinton and Carter administrations made the U.S. look like a weak, attractive target for terrorists." Well, perhaps some Americans will - especially if they've never read a newspaper or history book devoted to the issue, if they've just returned from a thirty-year visit to Mars, or if they're the incompetents at the LA Times who published D'Souza's Op-Ed.
You see, D'Souza gets it wrong virtually every possible way it can be gotten wrong. Thus, when he blames President Carter for pulling "the rug out from under [Iran's] shah," thereby allowing the Ayatollah Khomeini and his forces to seize power, you will not find D'Souza acknowledging the conclusion reached, for example, by Kenneth Pollock: "The shah brought the Iranian Revolution on himself. At the strategic level, his many mistaken policies created tremendous animosity against the regime across the breadth of Iranian society." [Pollock, The Persian Puzzle, p. 137] According to Pollock, America's real "policy failure in Iran was to tie ourselves so tightly to the shah's regime." [Ibid]
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
HERBERT HOOVER PART TWO
In this article Brent Budowsky is optimistic that there will be a Democratic sweep in 2008. I hope he's correct. He compares George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover. After the horrendous economic policies of the Hoover administration brought on the Great Depression, Republicans didn't have another president until Dwight D. Eisenhower. In some ways it's unfair to compare Hoover to Bush. I think Hoover was basically a decent man. He was certainly intelligent. Bush is neither of those things. This article is at www.opednews.com:
Our great aspiration is that January 2009 will bring a new Democratic President leading an uplifted America, with up to 60 Democratic Senators, additional gains in the House, and a wave of more Democratic governors ahead of the next census and reapportionment.
I served with senior Democratic Senators such as Lloyd Bentsen and with the House Democratic Leadership when Democrats were in control of Congress and have no doubt about this:
Democrats have only begun to realize the full magnitude of rejection of Bush and Bushism, the full magnitude of our power in Congress to set the agenda through legislation and investigations, and the full magnitude of opportunity in 2008 for a historic realignment. Republicans are politically incarcerated by a politics of Bushism that is dominated by an extreme right wing base, a royalist economics that makes them servants of the 1% at the expense of the 99%, and a psychology of national division, fear politics and war fever.
The traditional base of the Democratic Party is converging with the mainstream base of Middle America.
Fighting Democrats and war hero candidates appeal to tens of millions of Americans in military families who know well the bad faith and incompetence of Bush war fever and war partisanship.
BLAMING EVERYONE ELSE
Right-wingers are responsibility challenged. They talk a good game about "personal responsibility," but they can't accept the blame for anything they do wrong. We have right-wingers in full-throated roar trying to blame Presidents Carter and Clinton for al-Qaeda and the attacks on 9/11 when the evidence is that it was Republican administration policies that led to the disaster then and the disaster ongoing in Iraq . This article by Walter C. Uhler is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Incredibly, on January 18, 2007, the Lost Angeles Times (no typo) published Dinesh D'Souza's thoroughly biased Op-Ed, "How The Left Led Us Into 9/11." Mr. D'Souza's article is riddled with errors and all-too-convenient omissions, suggesting both ignorance and fraud. Although a fellow at the Hoover Institution, D'Souza writes history (judging by his opinion piece), as if he studied under the tutelage of that historian-imbecile, Ann Coulter.
Consider that D'Souza expects Americans to believe that "the Clinton and Carter administrations made the U.S. look like a weak, attractive target for terrorists." Well, perhaps some Americans will - especially if they've never read a newspaper or history book devoted to the issue, if they've just returned from a thirty-year visit to Mars, or if they're the incompetents at the LA Times who published D'Souza's Op-Ed.
You see, D'Souza gets it wrong virtually every possible way it can be gotten wrong. Thus, when he blames President Carter for pulling "the rug out from under [Iran's] shah," thereby allowing the Ayatollah Khomeini and his forces to seize power, you will not find D'Souza acknowledging the conclusion reached, for example, by Kenneth Pollock: "The shah brought the Iranian Revolution on himself. At the strategic level, his many mistaken policies created tremendous animosity against the regime across the breadth of Iranian society." [Pollock, The Persian Puzzle, p. 137] According to Pollock, America's real "policy failure in Iran was to tie ourselves so tightly to the shah's regime." [Ibid]
Friday, January 19, 2007
January 19, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
FIRE UP THE SHREDDERS
The Bush administration has busily been firing federal prosecutors who might make life difficult for the administration. It's a little like the "Saturday night massacre" during the Nixon administration, but on a far bigger scale. If this administration were a house, it would be toppling over from the rot inside and out. This column by Paul Krugman is linked at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
In Senate testimony yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to say how many other attorneys have been asked to resign, calling it a “personnel matter.”
In case you’re wondering, such a wholesale firing of prosecutors midway through an administration isn’t normal. U.S. attorneys, The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, “typically are appointed at the beginning of a new president’s term, and serve throughout that term.” Why, then, are prosecutors that the Bush administration itself appointed suddenly being pushed out?
The likely answer is that for the first time the administration is really worried about where corruption investigations might lead.
Since the day it took power this administration has shown nothing but contempt for the normal principles of good government. For six years ethical problems and conflicts of interest have been the rule, not the exception.
MORE BUSH INANITY
George W. Bush on "60 Minutes" was upset that the Iraqi people aren't more grateful to the United States. We've liberated them from a dictator, you see. We've also "liberated" hundreds of thousands from their lives. Iraqi infrastructure is a mess, and it's difficult to get basic necessities such as clean water and electricity. And, according to Bush, people who watch stories about Iraq on television are "sacrificing peace of mind." This column by Rosa Brooks is at www.latimes.com:
Bush retorted: "That we didn't do a better job, or they didn't do a better job?…. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude…. We've endured great sacrifice to help them…. [Americans] wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq."
Well, yes. I have wondered about that. Frankly — I'm talking to you, Iraqis! — a few flowers and ticker-tape parades wouldn't be amiss, even at this late stage. Remember, we got rid of Saddam Hussein for you — with a little help from his executioners, to be sure, who sent him to his death amid enthusiastic chants in praise of Shiite militia leader Muqtada Sadr. But that's just a detail.
Anyway, that's not all we've done for Iraq. We also introduced the Iraqis to basic principles of energy conservation. Before the U.S. invasion, the feckless residents of Baghdad used 16 to 24 hours of electricity each day. Today, thanks to us, they thriftily make do with about six hours of electricity a day. Under our tutelage, the Iraqis are also conserving fossil fuels: Oil production is still well below prewar levels! And — recognizing that auto emissions are a major contributor to global warming — a symbolically important number of Iraqis has gone from driving their cars to detonating their cars. Now that's dedication.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
FIRE UP THE SHREDDERS
The Bush administration has busily been firing federal prosecutors who might make life difficult for the administration. It's a little like the "Saturday night massacre" during the Nixon administration, but on a far bigger scale. If this administration were a house, it would be toppling over from the rot inside and out. This column by Paul Krugman is linked at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
In Senate testimony yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to say how many other attorneys have been asked to resign, calling it a “personnel matter.”
In case you’re wondering, such a wholesale firing of prosecutors midway through an administration isn’t normal. U.S. attorneys, The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, “typically are appointed at the beginning of a new president’s term, and serve throughout that term.” Why, then, are prosecutors that the Bush administration itself appointed suddenly being pushed out?
The likely answer is that for the first time the administration is really worried about where corruption investigations might lead.
Since the day it took power this administration has shown nothing but contempt for the normal principles of good government. For six years ethical problems and conflicts of interest have been the rule, not the exception.
MORE BUSH INANITY
George W. Bush on "60 Minutes" was upset that the Iraqi people aren't more grateful to the United States. We've liberated them from a dictator, you see. We've also "liberated" hundreds of thousands from their lives. Iraqi infrastructure is a mess, and it's difficult to get basic necessities such as clean water and electricity. And, according to Bush, people who watch stories about Iraq on television are "sacrificing peace of mind." This column by Rosa Brooks is at www.latimes.com:
Bush retorted: "That we didn't do a better job, or they didn't do a better job?…. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude…. We've endured great sacrifice to help them…. [Americans] wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq."
Well, yes. I have wondered about that. Frankly — I'm talking to you, Iraqis! — a few flowers and ticker-tape parades wouldn't be amiss, even at this late stage. Remember, we got rid of Saddam Hussein for you — with a little help from his executioners, to be sure, who sent him to his death amid enthusiastic chants in praise of Shiite militia leader Muqtada Sadr. But that's just a detail.
Anyway, that's not all we've done for Iraq. We also introduced the Iraqis to basic principles of energy conservation. Before the U.S. invasion, the feckless residents of Baghdad used 16 to 24 hours of electricity each day. Today, thanks to us, they thriftily make do with about six hours of electricity a day. Under our tutelage, the Iraqis are also conserving fossil fuels: Oil production is still well below prewar levels! And — recognizing that auto emissions are a major contributor to global warming — a symbolically important number of Iraqis has gone from driving their cars to detonating their cars. Now that's dedication.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
January 18, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IRAQ: SUCH A WASTE
Poet Robert Frost once wrote about the "road not taken." What if George W. Bush had not launched this unnecessary and bloody war in Iraq? Even if you put aside the thousands upon thousands of deaths and maimings, just consider the monetary cost. Consider how that money could have been used productively. We could find cures for deadly diseases. We could do something serious about making education affordable for everyone. We could have health care for everyone. This article by David Leonhardt is at www.nytimes.com:
The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.
For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.
Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IRAQ: SUCH A WASTE
Poet Robert Frost once wrote about the "road not taken." What if George W. Bush had not launched this unnecessary and bloody war in Iraq? Even if you put aside the thousands upon thousands of deaths and maimings, just consider the monetary cost. Consider how that money could have been used productively. We could find cures for deadly diseases. We could do something serious about making education affordable for everyone. We could have health care for everyone. This article by David Leonhardt is at www.nytimes.com:
The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.
For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.
Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
January 17, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
YOUR HOME IS YOUR CASTLE
The concept that your home is your castle goes back several hundred years. But the reactionary Bush administration doesn't care about things we've taken for granted for so long, things like privacy, not having our mail opened by the government, or having our phone calls kept private. The administration has made serious intrusions against another very old principle, the right of habeas corpus. We can deal with terrorists without giving up our freedoms. This column by Margie Burns is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
On July 25, 1973, Senator Sam Ervin, Democrat of North Carolina, returned to fundamentals and in the process summed up the legal argument against practically every action committed by the Nixon campaign in 1972. Here is part of Ervin’s statement, given during the televised Watergate committee hearings*:
“I do want to take this occasion to amplify the legal discussion and I want to mention a little of the Bible, a little of history and a little of law.
“The concept embodied in the phrase every man’s home is his castle represents the realization of one of the most ancient and universal hungers of the human heart. One of the prophets described the mountain of the Lord as being a place where every man might dwell under his own vine and fig tree with none to make him afraid.
“And then this morning, Senator Talmadge talked about one of the greatest statements ever made by any statesman, that was William Pitt the Elder, and before this country revolted against the King of England he said this:
“’The poorest man in his cottage may bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow through it, the storm may enter, the rain may enter, but the King of England cannot enter. All his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenements.’
“And yet we are told today, and yesterday, that what the King of England cannot do, the President of the United States can.”
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
YOUR HOME IS YOUR CASTLE
The concept that your home is your castle goes back several hundred years. But the reactionary Bush administration doesn't care about things we've taken for granted for so long, things like privacy, not having our mail opened by the government, or having our phone calls kept private. The administration has made serious intrusions against another very old principle, the right of habeas corpus. We can deal with terrorists without giving up our freedoms. This column by Margie Burns is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
On July 25, 1973, Senator Sam Ervin, Democrat of North Carolina, returned to fundamentals and in the process summed up the legal argument against practically every action committed by the Nixon campaign in 1972. Here is part of Ervin’s statement, given during the televised Watergate committee hearings*:
“I do want to take this occasion to amplify the legal discussion and I want to mention a little of the Bible, a little of history and a little of law.
“The concept embodied in the phrase every man’s home is his castle represents the realization of one of the most ancient and universal hungers of the human heart. One of the prophets described the mountain of the Lord as being a place where every man might dwell under his own vine and fig tree with none to make him afraid.
“And then this morning, Senator Talmadge talked about one of the greatest statements ever made by any statesman, that was William Pitt the Elder, and before this country revolted against the King of England he said this:
“’The poorest man in his cottage may bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow through it, the storm may enter, the rain may enter, but the King of England cannot enter. All his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenements.’
“And yet we are told today, and yesterday, that what the King of England cannot do, the President of the United States can.”
Monday, January 15, 2007
January 15, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE TEXAS STRATEGY
Savings and loans that made loans to crooked or incompetent real estate developers--and reported phony profits as a result--were using what became known as the "Texas strategy." One of the most infamous practitioners was Charles Keating. In this column Paul Krugman calls the Bush stalling on withdrawal from Iraq a variant of the Texas strategy. You throw out a few platitudes such as "we're making progress" or "freedom is on the march" long enough so you can dump the whole mess in someone else's lap. This column is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
Mr. Bush isn’t Roger Staubach, trying to pull out a win for the Dallas Cowboys. He’s Charles Keating, using other people’s money to keep Lincoln Savings going long after it should have been shut down — and squandering the life savings of thousands of investors, not to mention billions in taxpayer dollars, along the way.
The parallel is actually quite exact. During the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, people like Mr. Keating kept failed banks going by faking financial success. Mr. Bush has kept a failed war going by faking military success.
The “surge” is just another stalling tactic, designed to buy more time.
Oh, and one of the favorite techniques used by the owners of savings and loan associations to generate phony profits — it involved making high-interest loans to crooked or flaky real estate developers — came to be known as the “Texas strategy.”
TO MLK
Down through history there have been people who have stood out as the very embodiment of conscience. Jesus Christ certainly represented conscience in his calls for the meek to inherit the earth. Martin Luther King was, along with Gandhi, a living example of conscience. Doctor King was not only a great civil rights leader and a great defender of the oppressed, he spoke out unflinchingly against an immoral war in Vietnam. If Doctor King were here today, I believe he would be outspoken against the atrocity in Iraq. This article by Gary Vance is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
In a speech given on April 4, 1967 he indicted our national policies when he said, “…I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today- - my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.” He went on, “Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war.”
The same speech clearly indicates what Reverend King might say to President Bush and the Congress regarding escalating this war. He said, “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now…I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop must be ours.” Amen.
He spoke to people of faith in the same vein when he said, “Meanwhile we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible.” He was arrested thirty times for protesting injustice. Would Dr. King commend the American churches today for their stand on this war?
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE TEXAS STRATEGY
Savings and loans that made loans to crooked or incompetent real estate developers--and reported phony profits as a result--were using what became known as the "Texas strategy." One of the most infamous practitioners was Charles Keating. In this column Paul Krugman calls the Bush stalling on withdrawal from Iraq a variant of the Texas strategy. You throw out a few platitudes such as "we're making progress" or "freedom is on the march" long enough so you can dump the whole mess in someone else's lap. This column is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
Mr. Bush isn’t Roger Staubach, trying to pull out a win for the Dallas Cowboys. He’s Charles Keating, using other people’s money to keep Lincoln Savings going long after it should have been shut down — and squandering the life savings of thousands of investors, not to mention billions in taxpayer dollars, along the way.
The parallel is actually quite exact. During the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, people like Mr. Keating kept failed banks going by faking financial success. Mr. Bush has kept a failed war going by faking military success.
The “surge” is just another stalling tactic, designed to buy more time.
Oh, and one of the favorite techniques used by the owners of savings and loan associations to generate phony profits — it involved making high-interest loans to crooked or flaky real estate developers — came to be known as the “Texas strategy.”
TO MLK
Down through history there have been people who have stood out as the very embodiment of conscience. Jesus Christ certainly represented conscience in his calls for the meek to inherit the earth. Martin Luther King was, along with Gandhi, a living example of conscience. Doctor King was not only a great civil rights leader and a great defender of the oppressed, he spoke out unflinchingly against an immoral war in Vietnam. If Doctor King were here today, I believe he would be outspoken against the atrocity in Iraq. This article by Gary Vance is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
In a speech given on April 4, 1967 he indicted our national policies when he said, “…I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today- - my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.” He went on, “Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war.”
The same speech clearly indicates what Reverend King might say to President Bush and the Congress regarding escalating this war. He said, “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now…I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop must be ours.” Amen.
He spoke to people of faith in the same vein when he said, “Meanwhile we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible.” He was arrested thirty times for protesting injustice. Would Dr. King commend the American churches today for their stand on this war?
Sunday, January 14, 2007
January 14, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CHENEY: UNENDING WAR
Arrogant Dick Cheney was on the Sunday talk shows saying that the Bush administration is going to do what it wants to do regardless of what Congress, or the American people, want. Cheney and Bush are effectively giving us all the middle finger. Bush started this unnecessary war, and he's determined to stay there no matter what. Cheney claims that Democrats have offered no alternative, which is an outright lie. He also says this is a 30-40 year commitment. We can do better. We have to do better. Let us begin with impeaching these arrogant criminals. This article by the Associated Press is at www.cnn.com:
President Bush, facing opposition from both parties over his plan to send more troops to Iraq, said he has the authority to act no matter what Congress wants.
"I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I've made my decision. And we're going forward," Bush told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview to air Sunday night.
Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that lawmakers' criticism will not influence Bush's plans and he dismissed any effort to "run a war by committee."
"The president is the commander in chief. He's the one who has to make these tough decisions," Cheney said.
The defiant White House stance comes as both the House and Senate, now controlled by Democrats, prepare to vote on resolutions that oppose additional U.S. troops in Iraq. Cheney said those nonbinding votes would not affect Bush's ability to carry out his policies.
"He's the guy who's got to decide how to use the force and where to deploy the force," Cheney said. "And Congress obviously has to support the effort through the power of the purse. So they've got a role to play, and we certainly recognize that. But you also cannot run a war by committee."
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CHENEY: UNENDING WAR
Arrogant Dick Cheney was on the Sunday talk shows saying that the Bush administration is going to do what it wants to do regardless of what Congress, or the American people, want. Cheney and Bush are effectively giving us all the middle finger. Bush started this unnecessary war, and he's determined to stay there no matter what. Cheney claims that Democrats have offered no alternative, which is an outright lie. He also says this is a 30-40 year commitment. We can do better. We have to do better. Let us begin with impeaching these arrogant criminals. This article by the Associated Press is at www.cnn.com:
President Bush, facing opposition from both parties over his plan to send more troops to Iraq, said he has the authority to act no matter what Congress wants.
"I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I've made my decision. And we're going forward," Bush told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview to air Sunday night.
Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that lawmakers' criticism will not influence Bush's plans and he dismissed any effort to "run a war by committee."
"The president is the commander in chief. He's the one who has to make these tough decisions," Cheney said.
The defiant White House stance comes as both the House and Senate, now controlled by Democrats, prepare to vote on resolutions that oppose additional U.S. troops in Iraq. Cheney said those nonbinding votes would not affect Bush's ability to carry out his policies.
"He's the guy who's got to decide how to use the force and where to deploy the force," Cheney said. "And Congress obviously has to support the effort through the power of the purse. So they've got a role to play, and we certainly recognize that. But you also cannot run a war by committee."
Saturday, January 13, 2007
January 13, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DODGING THE TRUTH
Iraq is totally a creature of the right-wing in this country. It was their bumbling and corrupt and incompetent president who launched it. It was they who cheered him on. It was they who tried to give phony rationalizations for this war. Now the right-wing elite, the pundits, don't want to own up to their mistakes. This war could have been won, some claim, but for the "incompetence" in executing the war. This column by Eric Alterman is at www.thenation.com:
The Bush/Cheney war in Iraq has proven to be even more catastrophic than those who had the good sense to oppose it could have predicted. It has killed Americans and Iraqis, destroyed a functioning, albeit unfree nation, increased the threat of terrorism, destabilized the region, empowered our enemies--particularly Iran and Syria--inspired hatred of the United States across the globe and will ultimately cost American taxpayers upwards of a trillion dollars. It is, almost certainly, as Al Gore has noted, "the worst strategic mistake in the entire history of the United States."
The problem the war creates for the punditocracy and the rest of the political establishment is twofold. First, the leaders they backed have not only been wildly incompetent but also impervious to reality. Offered a face-saving exit by the Baker Commission, Bush, Cheney & Co. prefer instead to double down on disaster. Second, there is the problem of the pundits' individual reputations. If William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Lawrence Kaplan and David Brooks et al. are so smart, why were they so wrong about something so crucial? And why, given their sorry records, do they and their editors still think anybody ought to keep listening to them? At the very least, those they misled are entitled to an explanation.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DODGING THE TRUTH
Iraq is totally a creature of the right-wing in this country. It was their bumbling and corrupt and incompetent president who launched it. It was they who cheered him on. It was they who tried to give phony rationalizations for this war. Now the right-wing elite, the pundits, don't want to own up to their mistakes. This war could have been won, some claim, but for the "incompetence" in executing the war. This column by Eric Alterman is at www.thenation.com:
The Bush/Cheney war in Iraq has proven to be even more catastrophic than those who had the good sense to oppose it could have predicted. It has killed Americans and Iraqis, destroyed a functioning, albeit unfree nation, increased the threat of terrorism, destabilized the region, empowered our enemies--particularly Iran and Syria--inspired hatred of the United States across the globe and will ultimately cost American taxpayers upwards of a trillion dollars. It is, almost certainly, as Al Gore has noted, "the worst strategic mistake in the entire history of the United States."
The problem the war creates for the punditocracy and the rest of the political establishment is twofold. First, the leaders they backed have not only been wildly incompetent but also impervious to reality. Offered a face-saving exit by the Baker Commission, Bush, Cheney & Co. prefer instead to double down on disaster. Second, there is the problem of the pundits' individual reputations. If William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Lawrence Kaplan and David Brooks et al. are so smart, why were they so wrong about something so crucial? And why, given their sorry records, do they and their editors still think anybody ought to keep listening to them? At the very least, those they misled are entitled to an explanation.
Friday, January 12, 2007
January 12, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
ECONOMIC ROYALISTS
It's incredible that George W. Bush wants to tie an increase in the federal minimum wage to more tax cuts for fat cats. Bush allegedly wants to protect "small business." Does he mean those "small businesses" like McDonald's and Burger King? It has been ten years since the last raise in the minimum wage. In that time Congress has merrily raised the salaries of Congressmen to over $165,000. But the working poor are supposed to make do on $5.15 an hour. Such greed and callousness are unconscionable. This article by Sally Kohn is at www.commondreams.org:
Meanwhile, President Bush has argued he won’t sign the minimum wage increase unless there are special exemptions for small business owners. Profits, he explains, must be protected. Apparently, even if those profits come at the expense of workers, who can’t afford to feed their children or heat their homes. The real question is, how was it ever morally acceptable for employers of any size to pay people just $5.15 an hour for their hard work? Even the new rate of $7.25 an hour still places a family of three with one full-time worker below the federal poverty line. The gap between the rich and poor is reaching epic proportions in the United States and we continue to accept ridiculously abusive working conditions and wages for America’s hard working poor. I think that any employer who pays his or her workers below $7.25 an hour should be ashamed, no matter what the minimum wage is. And as a nation, we should be outraged.
While we’re on the subject, we should be outraged that Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli is getting paid $210 million dollars to not work, money that could be going Home Depot’s workers, some of whom start with hourly salaries around $7.25 an hour. By the way, in 2005, Nardelli received $37,862,312 in total compensation, which works out to about $18,203.03 an hour. Nardelli is cashing in on Home Depot while many of his employees can’t even afford to have a home. Where is our outrage?
The list goes on. There were more than 10.2 million cosmetic surgery procedures performed in the United States in 2005---including 324,000 liposuctions, 298,000 nose jobs and 291,000 breast enhancements. In all, wealthy Americans spent over $8.4 billion dollars on plastic surgery last year while over 46 million Americans didn’t even have health insurance and millions more struggled to pay rising premiums. Where is our outrage?
COOL RECEPTION FOR BUSH'S SURGE
The Bush administration has been Orwellian in its use of language. We got the "Clear Skies Initiative" that benefited polluters, we got the "Healthy Forest Initiative" to benefit logging companies, we heard about eliminating the "death tax," which benefits wealthy heirs, and on. Condi Rice describes Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq as an "augmentation." Even many Republicans are getting outraged at this waste of our military and our treasury. This article by Carolyn Lochhead is at www.sfgate.com:
Republican support for President Bush's Iraq policy shattered Thursday as top administration officials ran into a wall of skepticism and even damnation of his plan to send more troops to Iraq.
Hostility was especially intense toward Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. An architect of the Iraq war, Rice called the troop increase an augmentation, angering some senators. Senators of both parties clearly have wearied of her analyses, and, one after another, even normally quiescent backbench Republicans questioned her credibility.
Earlier skeptics of the proposal went on the attack.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
ECONOMIC ROYALISTS
It's incredible that George W. Bush wants to tie an increase in the federal minimum wage to more tax cuts for fat cats. Bush allegedly wants to protect "small business." Does he mean those "small businesses" like McDonald's and Burger King? It has been ten years since the last raise in the minimum wage. In that time Congress has merrily raised the salaries of Congressmen to over $165,000. But the working poor are supposed to make do on $5.15 an hour. Such greed and callousness are unconscionable. This article by Sally Kohn is at www.commondreams.org:
Meanwhile, President Bush has argued he won’t sign the minimum wage increase unless there are special exemptions for small business owners. Profits, he explains, must be protected. Apparently, even if those profits come at the expense of workers, who can’t afford to feed their children or heat their homes. The real question is, how was it ever morally acceptable for employers of any size to pay people just $5.15 an hour for their hard work? Even the new rate of $7.25 an hour still places a family of three with one full-time worker below the federal poverty line. The gap between the rich and poor is reaching epic proportions in the United States and we continue to accept ridiculously abusive working conditions and wages for America’s hard working poor. I think that any employer who pays his or her workers below $7.25 an hour should be ashamed, no matter what the minimum wage is. And as a nation, we should be outraged.
While we’re on the subject, we should be outraged that Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli is getting paid $210 million dollars to not work, money that could be going Home Depot’s workers, some of whom start with hourly salaries around $7.25 an hour. By the way, in 2005, Nardelli received $37,862,312 in total compensation, which works out to about $18,203.03 an hour. Nardelli is cashing in on Home Depot while many of his employees can’t even afford to have a home. Where is our outrage?
The list goes on. There were more than 10.2 million cosmetic surgery procedures performed in the United States in 2005---including 324,000 liposuctions, 298,000 nose jobs and 291,000 breast enhancements. In all, wealthy Americans spent over $8.4 billion dollars on plastic surgery last year while over 46 million Americans didn’t even have health insurance and millions more struggled to pay rising premiums. Where is our outrage?
COOL RECEPTION FOR BUSH'S SURGE
The Bush administration has been Orwellian in its use of language. We got the "Clear Skies Initiative" that benefited polluters, we got the "Healthy Forest Initiative" to benefit logging companies, we heard about eliminating the "death tax," which benefits wealthy heirs, and on. Condi Rice describes Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq as an "augmentation." Even many Republicans are getting outraged at this waste of our military and our treasury. This article by Carolyn Lochhead is at www.sfgate.com:
Republican support for President Bush's Iraq policy shattered Thursday as top administration officials ran into a wall of skepticism and even damnation of his plan to send more troops to Iraq.
Hostility was especially intense toward Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. An architect of the Iraq war, Rice called the troop increase an augmentation, angering some senators. Senators of both parties clearly have wearied of her analyses, and, one after another, even normally quiescent backbench Republicans questioned her credibility.
Earlier skeptics of the proposal went on the attack.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
January 11, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WAR ON TERROR IS A TROJAN HORSE
As this writer points out, once upon a time we had a real cause for fear. We had nuclear weapons pointed at our cities that could literally vaporize us and end civilization. But during the Cold War we never had the assault on civil liberties we've seen since George W. Bush got into the White House. We had McCarthy in the 1950's, and McCarthy did a lot of damage, but Bush makes Joseph McCarthy look tame. The attacks on 9/11 gave Bush and his neocons the excuse they needed to push their onerous agenda of destroying the middle class, devoting our resources to the military and military expansionism, and enriching war profiteers. This commentary by A. Alexander is at www.progressivedailybeacon.com:
Before moving forward in this discussion, we all need to understand one very important reality: The so-called War on Terror is nothing more than an excuse for corporate-sponsored fascism, bolstered by theocracy-dreaming foot soldiers, to advance its cause. Don't think any such thing exists or is possible? Then you must not be aware that conservative businessmen, fearful of 'socialisms influence', were the people that supported Hitler's rise to power.
During the cold war there were literally hundreds -- if not thousands -- of nuclear warheads pointed at America's cities. These weren't the useless "dirty bomb" variety that Bush and his people want you to be afraid of today, and that scientists say are generally pretty harmless. For all the fear-mongering surrounding dirty bombs, the fact is that such a weapon can't hurt people unless they stand stock-still in the blast area...for an entire year. That's no joke...that is, according to physicists, the truth about dirty bombs. On the other hand, during the cold war, the danger came from Soviet-built nuclear warheads that made Hiroshima and Nagasaki-type nukes look like firecrackers. These warheads were the serious "bend over and kiss your caboose goodbye," variety of nukes. No standing around required - instant vaporization.
REPUBLICANS: LEARN YOUR CLICHES
There's a great scene in the movie Bull Durham where Crash Davis tells a rookie phenom under his tutelage that he needs to "learn his cliches." The same could be said of Republican writers to The Fresno Bee. We get the same cliches regurgitated over and over. Today's missive was from a conservative aggrieved over a column by Maureen Dowd. Our writer actually thinks Maureen is a liberal. It's true she has gotten off some good bon mots against the Bush-Cheney cabal, but she was forever attacking Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore. How short the memories are!
Our letter writer like to characterize us as baby killers, marriage destroyers (for favoring gay rights), and so on. All are vast distortions of the truth, but conservatives are challenged when it comes to subtleties.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WAR ON TERROR IS A TROJAN HORSE
As this writer points out, once upon a time we had a real cause for fear. We had nuclear weapons pointed at our cities that could literally vaporize us and end civilization. But during the Cold War we never had the assault on civil liberties we've seen since George W. Bush got into the White House. We had McCarthy in the 1950's, and McCarthy did a lot of damage, but Bush makes Joseph McCarthy look tame. The attacks on 9/11 gave Bush and his neocons the excuse they needed to push their onerous agenda of destroying the middle class, devoting our resources to the military and military expansionism, and enriching war profiteers. This commentary by A. Alexander is at www.progressivedailybeacon.com:
Before moving forward in this discussion, we all need to understand one very important reality: The so-called War on Terror is nothing more than an excuse for corporate-sponsored fascism, bolstered by theocracy-dreaming foot soldiers, to advance its cause. Don't think any such thing exists or is possible? Then you must not be aware that conservative businessmen, fearful of 'socialisms influence', were the people that supported Hitler's rise to power.
During the cold war there were literally hundreds -- if not thousands -- of nuclear warheads pointed at America's cities. These weren't the useless "dirty bomb" variety that Bush and his people want you to be afraid of today, and that scientists say are generally pretty harmless. For all the fear-mongering surrounding dirty bombs, the fact is that such a weapon can't hurt people unless they stand stock-still in the blast area...for an entire year. That's no joke...that is, according to physicists, the truth about dirty bombs. On the other hand, during the cold war, the danger came from Soviet-built nuclear warheads that made Hiroshima and Nagasaki-type nukes look like firecrackers. These warheads were the serious "bend over and kiss your caboose goodbye," variety of nukes. No standing around required - instant vaporization.
REPUBLICANS: LEARN YOUR CLICHES
There's a great scene in the movie Bull Durham where Crash Davis tells a rookie phenom under his tutelage that he needs to "learn his cliches." The same could be said of Republican writers to The Fresno Bee. We get the same cliches regurgitated over and over. Today's missive was from a conservative aggrieved over a column by Maureen Dowd. Our writer actually thinks Maureen is a liberal. It's true she has gotten off some good bon mots against the Bush-Cheney cabal, but she was forever attacking Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore. How short the memories are!
Our letter writer like to characterize us as baby killers, marriage destroyers (for favoring gay rights), and so on. All are vast distortions of the truth, but conservatives are challenged when it comes to subtleties.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
January 10, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?
Supporters of George W. Bush's war in Iraq, complete with a new "surge," must believe in magic. There is no rational reason to believe another infusion of U. S. troops will produce anything but more casualties. This column discusses the failure of the crusades in the Middle Ages and how the modern day crusade is also destined for failure. The column by Dimitri K. Simes is at www.latimes.com:
But sending more brigades to pursue the same crusade is unlikely to bring success — at least not on an American political timetable. The problem is not just the incompetent management of the war's aftermath. The problem is that the crusade to reshape the Middle East that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq precludes anything that could be legitimately called victory.
The debacle that is Iraq reaffirms the lesson that there is no such thing as a good crusade. This was true a thousand years ago when European Christian knights tried to impose their faith and way of life on the Holy Land, pillaging the region in the process, and it is equally true today. Divine missions and sensible foreign policy just don't mix.
For President Bush and his neoconservative supporters, the invasion of Iraq was from the outset about much more than dismantling (as we now know nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction, cutting Hussein's (also nonexistent) ties to Al Qaeda and removing a murderous and unpredictable dictator from power. They also sought to depose an Iraqi regime hostile to the United States and Israel — and to demonstrate to Arabs and others in the greater Middle East who was the real master of the region.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?
Supporters of George W. Bush's war in Iraq, complete with a new "surge," must believe in magic. There is no rational reason to believe another infusion of U. S. troops will produce anything but more casualties. This column discusses the failure of the crusades in the Middle Ages and how the modern day crusade is also destined for failure. The column by Dimitri K. Simes is at www.latimes.com:
But sending more brigades to pursue the same crusade is unlikely to bring success — at least not on an American political timetable. The problem is not just the incompetent management of the war's aftermath. The problem is that the crusade to reshape the Middle East that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq precludes anything that could be legitimately called victory.
The debacle that is Iraq reaffirms the lesson that there is no such thing as a good crusade. This was true a thousand years ago when European Christian knights tried to impose their faith and way of life on the Holy Land, pillaging the region in the process, and it is equally true today. Divine missions and sensible foreign policy just don't mix.
For President Bush and his neoconservative supporters, the invasion of Iraq was from the outset about much more than dismantling (as we now know nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction, cutting Hussein's (also nonexistent) ties to Al Qaeda and removing a murderous and unpredictable dictator from power. They also sought to depose an Iraqi regime hostile to the United States and Israel — and to demonstrate to Arabs and others in the greater Middle East who was the real master of the region.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
January 09, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
TIME TO REPRESENT WORKING PEOPLE
Since the early 1970's the working class in the United States has been hammered by the economic policies of the federal government. Right-wingers have often screeched about "class warfare" and offer up statistics about the percentage of taxes paid by the rich. You would think, from their rhetoric, that the rest of us are just getting a free ride on taxes and sailing merrily along. Instead, we've seen a growing economic gulf between the very rich and everyone else. Despite rising productivity, most working people aren't getting ahead. The social contract has been thrown overboard and left to drown. It's time for the Democratic party to represent its core constituency, working people, and push policies that will benefit the vast majority of us who work for wages. This article by Bob Burnett is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
For the past six years, the ultra-conservative Bush Administration waged war on America's working families. Monday's New York Times provided fresh evidence of this: Tax Cuts Offer Most For Very Rich reported what most of us already knew: "Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush's tax cuts." Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert noted that in 2006, "the top five Wall Street firms (Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley) were expected to award an estimated $36 billion to $44 billion worth of bonuses to their 173,000 employees." Herbert reported these bonuses - for one year - overwhelmingly exceeded the pay increases received by America's 93 million production and nonsupervisory workers for the last six years. The rich have benefited from the policies and ethics of the Bush Administration; everyone else has gotten the shaft.
Samuel Coleridge's Ancient Mariner famously lamented: "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink." America's workers are in a comparable situation: all around them are indications of prosperity, yet it's not available to them. For twenty-five years, conservatives promised that a market stimulated by Federal tax-cuts would take care of America's problems: "A rising tide would lift all boats." Yet, the conservative tide lifted only the yachts of the rich.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
TIME TO REPRESENT WORKING PEOPLE
Since the early 1970's the working class in the United States has been hammered by the economic policies of the federal government. Right-wingers have often screeched about "class warfare" and offer up statistics about the percentage of taxes paid by the rich. You would think, from their rhetoric, that the rest of us are just getting a free ride on taxes and sailing merrily along. Instead, we've seen a growing economic gulf between the very rich and everyone else. Despite rising productivity, most working people aren't getting ahead. The social contract has been thrown overboard and left to drown. It's time for the Democratic party to represent its core constituency, working people, and push policies that will benefit the vast majority of us who work for wages. This article by Bob Burnett is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
For the past six years, the ultra-conservative Bush Administration waged war on America's working families. Monday's New York Times provided fresh evidence of this: Tax Cuts Offer Most For Very Rich reported what most of us already knew: "Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush's tax cuts." Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert noted that in 2006, "the top five Wall Street firms (Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley) were expected to award an estimated $36 billion to $44 billion worth of bonuses to their 173,000 employees." Herbert reported these bonuses - for one year - overwhelmingly exceeded the pay increases received by America's 93 million production and nonsupervisory workers for the last six years. The rich have benefited from the policies and ethics of the Bush Administration; everyone else has gotten the shaft.
Samuel Coleridge's Ancient Mariner famously lamented: "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink." America's workers are in a comparable situation: all around them are indications of prosperity, yet it's not available to them. For twenty-five years, conservatives promised that a market stimulated by Federal tax-cuts would take care of America's problems: "A rising tide would lift all boats." Yet, the conservative tide lifted only the yachts of the rich.
Monday, January 08, 2007
January 08, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
POLICY DRIVEN BY EGO
It takes a tremendous ego to claim that God speaks to you, and that God wanted you to be president of the United States. It takes an enormous ego to deny reality because reality proves you desperately wrong. George W. Bush combines some pretty bad traits. He has boundless arrogance, no conscience, and no problem with causing the deaths of other people. Paul Krugman writes about it in this column linked at www.roziusunbound. blogspot.com:
Mr. Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon recently argued in Foreign Policy magazine that the administration’s unwillingness to face reality in Iraq reflects a basic human aversion to cutting one’s losses — the same instinct that makes gamblers stay at the table, hoping to break even.
Of course, such gambling is easier when the lives at stake are those of other people’s children.
Well, we don’t have to settle the question. Either way, what’s clear is the enormous price our nation is paying for President Bush’s character flaws.
I began writing about the Bush administration’s infallibility complex, the president’s Captain Queeg-like inability to own up to mistakes, almost a year before the invasion of Iraq. When you put a man like that in a position of power — the kind of position where he can punish people who tell him what he doesn’t want to hear, and base policy decisions on the advice of people who play to his vanity — it’s a recipe for disaster.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
POLICY DRIVEN BY EGO
It takes a tremendous ego to claim that God speaks to you, and that God wanted you to be president of the United States. It takes an enormous ego to deny reality because reality proves you desperately wrong. George W. Bush combines some pretty bad traits. He has boundless arrogance, no conscience, and no problem with causing the deaths of other people. Paul Krugman writes about it in this column linked at www.roziusunbound. blogspot.com:
Mr. Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon recently argued in Foreign Policy magazine that the administration’s unwillingness to face reality in Iraq reflects a basic human aversion to cutting one’s losses — the same instinct that makes gamblers stay at the table, hoping to break even.
Of course, such gambling is easier when the lives at stake are those of other people’s children.
Well, we don’t have to settle the question. Either way, what’s clear is the enormous price our nation is paying for President Bush’s character flaws.
I began writing about the Bush administration’s infallibility complex, the president’s Captain Queeg-like inability to own up to mistakes, almost a year before the invasion of Iraq. When you put a man like that in a position of power — the kind of position where he can punish people who tell him what he doesn’t want to hear, and base policy decisions on the advice of people who play to his vanity — it’s a recipe for disaster.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
January 07, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
RIGHT WING PUNDITS REVISE THEIR RECORD
It reminds you of the way Big Brother worked in 1984. When things don't go your way you just go back and change the record. See, you were right all along! That is the tactic many right-wing pundits are using now. They were cheerleading Bush's war in Iraq until it became the disaster we see now. Now the same pundits are claiming they never supported this war, or they try to blame the Iraqis for the failure. This article by Glenn Greenwald is at www.amconmag.com:
Yet there seems to be no accountability for these pro-war pundits. On the contrary, they continue to pose as wise, responsible experts and have suffered no lost credibility, prominence, or influence. They have accomplished this feat largely by evading responsibility for their prior opinions, pretending that they were right all along or, in the most extreme cases, denying that they ever supported the war.
Michael Ledeen, a Freedom Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor to National Review, chose the boldest option. In response to a Vanity Fair article about the swarms of neoconservatives abandoning the administration and the war as both become increasingly unpopular, Ledeen emphatically denied that he backed the invasion in the first place. Writing on National Review’s blog, The Corner, Ledeen claimed, “I do not feel ‘remorseful,’ since I had and have no involvement with our Iraq policy. I opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place.”
It is difficult to overstate the audacity—and the mendacity—of Ledeen’s claim. In August 2002, he wrote a scathing article in National Review following an appearance by Brent Scowcroft on “Face the Nation,” in which the former national security adviser argued against the invasion. Ledeen devoted his entire column to mocking Scowcroft’s concerns:
ANOTHER BIG BROTHER PROPOSAL
The federal government supposedly wants to track down child sex predators and stop child pornography on the Internet. So, naturally, they want Internet service providers to keep records of every website we visit. This is part of the pattern this administration has shown in snooping into our personal lives. They want to listen to our phone calls, open our mail, and track our Internet activity. How long before we have a video screen in our homes that can be monitored by some government bureaucrat? This article by John Reinan is at www.grandhaventribune.com:
"I don't think it's realistic to think that we would create this enormous honeypot of information and then say to the FBI, 'You can only use it for this narrow purpose,'" said Leslie Harris, executive director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington, D.C.-based group that promotes free speech and privacy in communication.
"We have an environment in which we're collecting more and more information on the personal lives of Americans, and our laws are completely inadequate to protect us."
So far, no concrete proposal has emerged, but U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has made it clear that he'd like to see quick action.
In September testimony before a Senate committee, Gonzales painted a graphic and disturbing picture of child pornography on the Web, which he called an urgent threat to children. The production and consumption of child pornography has exploded as the Internet makes it easier to exchange images, Gonzales said.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
RIGHT WING PUNDITS REVISE THEIR RECORD
It reminds you of the way Big Brother worked in 1984. When things don't go your way you just go back and change the record. See, you were right all along! That is the tactic many right-wing pundits are using now. They were cheerleading Bush's war in Iraq until it became the disaster we see now. Now the same pundits are claiming they never supported this war, or they try to blame the Iraqis for the failure. This article by Glenn Greenwald is at www.amconmag.com:
Yet there seems to be no accountability for these pro-war pundits. On the contrary, they continue to pose as wise, responsible experts and have suffered no lost credibility, prominence, or influence. They have accomplished this feat largely by evading responsibility for their prior opinions, pretending that they were right all along or, in the most extreme cases, denying that they ever supported the war.
Michael Ledeen, a Freedom Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor to National Review, chose the boldest option. In response to a Vanity Fair article about the swarms of neoconservatives abandoning the administration and the war as both become increasingly unpopular, Ledeen emphatically denied that he backed the invasion in the first place. Writing on National Review’s blog, The Corner, Ledeen claimed, “I do not feel ‘remorseful,’ since I had and have no involvement with our Iraq policy. I opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place.”
It is difficult to overstate the audacity—and the mendacity—of Ledeen’s claim. In August 2002, he wrote a scathing article in National Review following an appearance by Brent Scowcroft on “Face the Nation,” in which the former national security adviser argued against the invasion. Ledeen devoted his entire column to mocking Scowcroft’s concerns:
ANOTHER BIG BROTHER PROPOSAL
The federal government supposedly wants to track down child sex predators and stop child pornography on the Internet. So, naturally, they want Internet service providers to keep records of every website we visit. This is part of the pattern this administration has shown in snooping into our personal lives. They want to listen to our phone calls, open our mail, and track our Internet activity. How long before we have a video screen in our homes that can be monitored by some government bureaucrat? This article by John Reinan is at www.grandhaventribune.com:
"I don't think it's realistic to think that we would create this enormous honeypot of information and then say to the FBI, 'You can only use it for this narrow purpose,'" said Leslie Harris, executive director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington, D.C.-based group that promotes free speech and privacy in communication.
"We have an environment in which we're collecting more and more information on the personal lives of Americans, and our laws are completely inadequate to protect us."
So far, no concrete proposal has emerged, but U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has made it clear that he'd like to see quick action.
In September testimony before a Senate committee, Gonzales painted a graphic and disturbing picture of child pornography on the Web, which he called an urgent threat to children. The production and consumption of child pornography has exploded as the Internet makes it easier to exchange images, Gonzales said.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
January 06, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
SADDAM NOW A MARTYR
George W. Bush's orgy of death and destruction featured Saddam Hussein as the embodiment of all evil. Bush, who appears to have had a personal grudge against Hussein, launched an evil and unprovoked war against Iraq because of his hatred for Hussein and because the neocons in his administration wanted Iraq. There is a so-called "Reverend" who writes hateful and mouth-foaming screeds to The Fresno Bee. The "Reverend" talked about what a butcher Hussein was. He conveniently ignored the complicity of the Reagan-Bush administration in supporting Hussein during the Iraq-Iran war. If Hussein was such a symbol of evil, it would have been better to keep him in prison as a reminder of the regime he led. Instead, Bush and company have made Hussein a martyr. This article by Hassan M. Fattah is linked at www.sfgate.com:
In the week since Saddam Hussein was hanged in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his public image in the Arab world, formerly that of an imprisoned dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe.
On the streets, in newspapers and over the Internet, Hussein has emerged as a Sunni Arab hero who stood calm and composed as his Shiite executioners tormented and abused him.
"No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed," President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt remarked in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot published Friday. "They turned him into a martyr."
In Libya, which canceled celebrations of the feast of Eid al-Adha after the execution, a government statement said a statue would be erected depicting Hussein in the gallows.
In Morocco and the Palestinian territories, demonstrators held aloft photographs of Hussein and condemned the United States.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
SADDAM NOW A MARTYR
George W. Bush's orgy of death and destruction featured Saddam Hussein as the embodiment of all evil. Bush, who appears to have had a personal grudge against Hussein, launched an evil and unprovoked war against Iraq because of his hatred for Hussein and because the neocons in his administration wanted Iraq. There is a so-called "Reverend" who writes hateful and mouth-foaming screeds to The Fresno Bee. The "Reverend" talked about what a butcher Hussein was. He conveniently ignored the complicity of the Reagan-Bush administration in supporting Hussein during the Iraq-Iran war. If Hussein was such a symbol of evil, it would have been better to keep him in prison as a reminder of the regime he led. Instead, Bush and company have made Hussein a martyr. This article by Hassan M. Fattah is linked at www.sfgate.com:
In the week since Saddam Hussein was hanged in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his public image in the Arab world, formerly that of an imprisoned dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe.
On the streets, in newspapers and over the Internet, Hussein has emerged as a Sunni Arab hero who stood calm and composed as his Shiite executioners tormented and abused him.
"No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed," President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt remarked in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot published Friday. "They turned him into a martyr."
In Libya, which canceled celebrations of the feast of Eid al-Adha after the execution, a government statement said a statue would be erected depicting Hussein in the gallows.
In Morocco and the Palestinian territories, demonstrators held aloft photographs of Hussein and condemned the United States.
Friday, January 05, 2007
January 05, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
HIDING BEHIND THE TROOPS
Right-wingers have tried to frame the Iraq war in terms of "supporting the troops." If you opposed the war, according to the frame, you weren't supporting the troops. You were a terrorist supporter and a hater of America. Now, as Iraq has turned into total chaos, right-wingers still want to hide behind the troops. In column Dean Baker talks about the lies of the right. The article is at www.truthout.org:
The latest version of the "hide behind the troops" mode of argument is to claim that Congress lacks the ability to end the war. The story goes that President Bush is commander in chief of the armed forces, and that if he does not want to end the war, then Congress cannot force his hand. According to this argument, if Congress were to use its control of the budget to restrict funding, it would jeopardize our troops stationed in Iraq by denying them the supplies and ammunition needed to defend themselves.
This argument is garbage. Congress has the authority to require the top military commanders in Iraq to produce a plan for safely withdrawing our troops from the country. It can also require these commanders to give their best estimate of the cost of this plan. It can then appropriate this money, specifying that the funds be used for the withdrawal plan designed by the military.
President Bush would then have the funding required to safely withdraw our troops from Iraq. He would not have the money to continue his war. If he chose to defy Congress by misusing the funds (and thereby jeopardizing the lives of our troops), then the law provides a simple and obvious remedy: Impeachment. While it is possible that Bush would choose to violate the law, jeopardizing both the lives of our troops and his presidency, it is reasonable to assume that he would comply with the law and not exceed his authority as president.
Reasonable arguments could be made that this sort of decisive measure from Congress is not desirable. It could be argued that allowing President Bush more discretion in the conduct of the war would be the better route. But it is important to understand that Congress does have the authority to shut down the war without abandoning our troops. If Congress does not pursue this option, then it is because it has chosen not to. President Bush cannot continue to wage a war in Iraq if Congress is really determined to stop him.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
HIDING BEHIND THE TROOPS
Right-wingers have tried to frame the Iraq war in terms of "supporting the troops." If you opposed the war, according to the frame, you weren't supporting the troops. You were a terrorist supporter and a hater of America. Now, as Iraq has turned into total chaos, right-wingers still want to hide behind the troops. In column Dean Baker talks about the lies of the right. The article is at www.truthout.org:
The latest version of the "hide behind the troops" mode of argument is to claim that Congress lacks the ability to end the war. The story goes that President Bush is commander in chief of the armed forces, and that if he does not want to end the war, then Congress cannot force his hand. According to this argument, if Congress were to use its control of the budget to restrict funding, it would jeopardize our troops stationed in Iraq by denying them the supplies and ammunition needed to defend themselves.
This argument is garbage. Congress has the authority to require the top military commanders in Iraq to produce a plan for safely withdrawing our troops from the country. It can also require these commanders to give their best estimate of the cost of this plan. It can then appropriate this money, specifying that the funds be used for the withdrawal plan designed by the military.
President Bush would then have the funding required to safely withdraw our troops from Iraq. He would not have the money to continue his war. If he chose to defy Congress by misusing the funds (and thereby jeopardizing the lives of our troops), then the law provides a simple and obvious remedy: Impeachment. While it is possible that Bush would choose to violate the law, jeopardizing both the lives of our troops and his presidency, it is reasonable to assume that he would comply with the law and not exceed his authority as president.
Reasonable arguments could be made that this sort of decisive measure from Congress is not desirable. It could be argued that allowing President Bush more discretion in the conduct of the war would be the better route. But it is important to understand that Congress does have the authority to shut down the war without abandoning our troops. If Congress does not pursue this option, then it is because it has chosen not to. President Bush cannot continue to wage a war in Iraq if Congress is really determined to stop him.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
January 04, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH THE PEEPER
George W. "The Peeper" Bush has struck again. Bush has used so-called "signing statements" to make end runs around parts of laws he doesn't like. The latest signing statement deals with a postal reform act. Bush claims that he has authority to open mail without a warrant. This goes with previous claims that the government could listen in on our phone calls or read our email. I wonder if Bush will claim he has the right to stand outside our bedroom windows and peep in. This article by James Gordon Meek is at www.nydailynews.com:
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.
"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH THE PEEPER
George W. "The Peeper" Bush has struck again. Bush has used so-called "signing statements" to make end runs around parts of laws he doesn't like. The latest signing statement deals with a postal reform act. Bush claims that he has authority to open mail without a warrant. This goes with previous claims that the government could listen in on our phone calls or read our email. I wonder if Bush will claim he has the right to stand outside our bedroom windows and peep in. This article by James Gordon Meek is at www.nydailynews.com:
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.
"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
January 03, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BIG MYTHS ABOUT IRAQ
George W. Bush is getting ready to escalate the debacle in Iraq by sending 20,000-30,000 more troops there. It means more death, more destruction, more depletion of our treasury and our military, and finally defeat. Iraq, a war that should never have been launched, is not going to be won. This article by Juan Cole is at www.alternet.org:
1. Myth number one is that the United States "can still win" in Iraq. Of course, the truth of this statement, frequently still made by William Kristol and other Neoconservatives, depends on what "winning" means. But if it means the establishment of a stable, pro-American, anti-Iranian government with an effective and even-handed army and police force in the near or even medium term, then the assertion is frankly ridiculous. The Iraqi "government" is barely functioning. The parliament was not able to meet in December because it could not attain a quorum. Many key Iraqi politicians live most of the time in London, and much of parliament is frequently abroad. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki does not control large swathes of the country, and could give few orders that had any chance of being obeyed. The US military cannot shore up this government, even with an extra division, because the government is divided against itself. Most of the major parties trying to craft legislation are also linked to militias on the streets who are killing one another. It is over with. Iraq is in for years of heavy political violence of a sort that no foreign military force can hope to stop.
The United States cannot "win" in the sense defined above. It cannot. And the blindly arrogant assumption that it can win is calculated to get more tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and more thousands of American soldiers and Marines badly wounded or killed. Moreover, since Iraq is coming apart at the seams under the impact of our presence there, there is a real danger that we will radically destabilize it and the whole oil-producing Gulf if we try to stay longer.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BIG MYTHS ABOUT IRAQ
George W. Bush is getting ready to escalate the debacle in Iraq by sending 20,000-30,000 more troops there. It means more death, more destruction, more depletion of our treasury and our military, and finally defeat. Iraq, a war that should never have been launched, is not going to be won. This article by Juan Cole is at www.alternet.org:
1. Myth number one is that the United States "can still win" in Iraq. Of course, the truth of this statement, frequently still made by William Kristol and other Neoconservatives, depends on what "winning" means. But if it means the establishment of a stable, pro-American, anti-Iranian government with an effective and even-handed army and police force in the near or even medium term, then the assertion is frankly ridiculous. The Iraqi "government" is barely functioning. The parliament was not able to meet in December because it could not attain a quorum. Many key Iraqi politicians live most of the time in London, and much of parliament is frequently abroad. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki does not control large swathes of the country, and could give few orders that had any chance of being obeyed. The US military cannot shore up this government, even with an extra division, because the government is divided against itself. Most of the major parties trying to craft legislation are also linked to militias on the streets who are killing one another. It is over with. Iraq is in for years of heavy political violence of a sort that no foreign military force can hope to stop.
The United States cannot "win" in the sense defined above. It cannot. And the blindly arrogant assumption that it can win is calculated to get more tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and more thousands of American soldiers and Marines badly wounded or killed. Moreover, since Iraq is coming apart at the seams under the impact of our presence there, there is a real danger that we will radically destabilize it and the whole oil-producing Gulf if we try to stay longer.
Monday, January 01, 2007
January 01, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
FORD'S ROTTEN FOREIGN POLICY
When someone dies it shouldn't mean their life gets whitewashed. Give them credit for the good they did and their accomplishments. But also acknowledge what was not so good. That is particularly true for people in power. Their lives should serve as object lessons for future generations. So we should take a look at the truly despicable foreign policy of the late President Gerald R. Ford. The most egregious part of Ford's record is allowing Indonesian dictator Suharto to invade East Timor and slaughter a third of the country's population. This article by Stephen Zunes is at www.commondreams.org:
Despite brutal repression, massive corruption and widespread violations of the Paris Peace Agreement, President Ford continued to send billions of dollars of aid to prop up the tottering dictatorship of General Nguyen Van Thieu in South Vietnam. This support needlessly prolonged the war until the Communist-led uprising finally ousted the regime in April 1975.
The following month, Cambodian naval forces seized the Mayaguez. The civilian U.S. merchant ship and its 40-member crew was sailing in a shipping lane that the Cambodians claimed to be within their international maritime boundaries. Without even attempting negotiations for their release, Ford ordered air strikes on the port city of Kompong Som and a Marine assault on the heavily fortified Koh Tang Island. This operation took the lives of 44 American servicemen and scores of Cambodian soldiers and civilians.
Despite reports that the Mayaguez crew had already been released before the U.S. military assault began, the media and leaders of both parties praised Ford for his “decisive” action. The failure of Congress to enforce the recently passed War Powers Act served to severely weaken subsequent efforts to challenge unilateral presidential war-making authority.
In November 1975, President Ford pushed the Spanish government to renege on its promise of independence for Western Sahara. As a result, Morocco seized the territory with Spanish support and in violation of a ruling by the International Court of Justice and a series of UN resolutions. To this day, Western Sahara remains under a Moroccan military occupation that brutally suppresses pro-independence activists and has sent much of the population into exile.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
FORD'S ROTTEN FOREIGN POLICY
When someone dies it shouldn't mean their life gets whitewashed. Give them credit for the good they did and their accomplishments. But also acknowledge what was not so good. That is particularly true for people in power. Their lives should serve as object lessons for future generations. So we should take a look at the truly despicable foreign policy of the late President Gerald R. Ford. The most egregious part of Ford's record is allowing Indonesian dictator Suharto to invade East Timor and slaughter a third of the country's population. This article by Stephen Zunes is at www.commondreams.org:
Despite brutal repression, massive corruption and widespread violations of the Paris Peace Agreement, President Ford continued to send billions of dollars of aid to prop up the tottering dictatorship of General Nguyen Van Thieu in South Vietnam. This support needlessly prolonged the war until the Communist-led uprising finally ousted the regime in April 1975.
The following month, Cambodian naval forces seized the Mayaguez. The civilian U.S. merchant ship and its 40-member crew was sailing in a shipping lane that the Cambodians claimed to be within their international maritime boundaries. Without even attempting negotiations for their release, Ford ordered air strikes on the port city of Kompong Som and a Marine assault on the heavily fortified Koh Tang Island. This operation took the lives of 44 American servicemen and scores of Cambodian soldiers and civilians.
Despite reports that the Mayaguez crew had already been released before the U.S. military assault began, the media and leaders of both parties praised Ford for his “decisive” action. The failure of Congress to enforce the recently passed War Powers Act served to severely weaken subsequent efforts to challenge unilateral presidential war-making authority.
In November 1975, President Ford pushed the Spanish government to renege on its promise of independence for Western Sahara. As a result, Morocco seized the territory with Spanish support and in violation of a ruling by the International Court of Justice and a series of UN resolutions. To this day, Western Sahara remains under a Moroccan military occupation that brutally suppresses pro-independence activists and has sent much of the population into exile.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)