April 11, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


MORE ON TEMP WORLD

Another miserable day in temp world. This time it was with a company called Inland Star. They're a big trucking company in Fresno and apparently planning to open some offices on the East Coast.

You have to check in at the "will call" office and get a visitor's badge. The security has to be fairly good because they apparently have explosive chemicals on the premises. I was told some chemicals they handle can't vary more than five degrees, or there will be an explosion.

In my short stay there I saw mostly orders for Sam's Club. The orders were for chemicals for swimming pools. I'm not sure what the great need is for swimming pool chemicals that can be toxic, but they apparently get shipped with regularity.

I learned about something called Chemtrec. It's an organization of chemists who advise fire departments and emergency personnel if there is a chemical spill. Isn't it nice to know that trucks and trains are carrying this deadly stuff?

It was another of those jobs where you're supposed to learn the job immediately. They have a series of screens that lead eventually to printing bills of lading, a "pick" sheet for the warehouse, and shipping labels.

It's what I would describe as an ugly office. Not a job I would recommend for anyone in temp world.

FITZGERALD: ADMINISTRATION SMEARING WILSON

The Bush administration has systematically smeared its critics, used bullying tactics, and outright lies to advance its agenda. We remember the "riot" in Florida during the disputed 2000 presidential election when several "rioters" turned out to be prominent Republicans. We remember the smearing of people like Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke when they revealed the administration's determination to launch a war against Iraq. We remember smears of Senator John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election when aspersions were cast on Kerry's Vietnam war service. And now the smearing of Ambassador Joe Wilson and the outing of his wife as a CIA operative is more proof of the administration's tactics. Bush and his operatives have engaged in loathsome behavior and they have endangered national security for their own purposes. This article by David E. Sanger and David Johnston is at www.nytimes.com:

Mr. Fitzgerald's filing talks not of an effort to level with Americans but of "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson." It concludes, "It is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish Wilson.' "

With more filings expected from Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor's work has the potential to keep the focus on Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney at a time when the president is struggling with his lowest approval ratings since he took office.

HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE

After Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974 the new president, Gerald Ford, issued a pardon for Nixon. Ford was held accountable in the 1976 presidential election when he lost to Jimmy Carter. But we've had a way since then of letting Republicans slide when they betray their public trust. The Reagan administration was not held to account for the Iran-Contra scandal. George H. W. Bush was able to pardon several criminals in his administration before they could be brought to justice. For the sake of history and decency we need to hold the current Bush administration and this Republican Congress accountable for countless crimes against the Constitution, the American people, and the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. This item comes from digby at digbysblog.blogspot.com:

Get ready to hear a lot of this whining now that the Republicans may be at the end of their looting spree. They made their money, got their judges, their tax cuts and their wars. Now it's time to put the past behind us and make nice nice. We're supposed to end to all this nastiness and forgive and forget. For the good of the country, of course.

I have written this before, and I'm sure everyone is tired of reading it, but the Republicans must be held accountable for their actions or they will come back like the undead and do this again. We failed as a country to properly discipline this corrupt rogue faction when they tried this executive power grab in the 70's and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and others came back to try it again. We need to drive a figurative stake through the heart of this pernicious philosophy.

April 10, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


THE TREASON GENE

When you look at the rather sordid history of the Bush family in the 20th century and how they've made their millions by betraying the interests of Americans you almost have to wonder if there is a treason gene. Prescott Bush was a financier to Adolf Hitler. George H. W. Bush was deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, subverting the law and the Constitution. His sire, the current president, has admitted outing the name of a CIA operative and trashing the Bill of Rights. This commentary by Tony Hendra is at www.huffingtonpost.com:

Prescott Bush (Senator (R) Conn. 1952-1963)

Like many US and UK bankers, Prescott Sheldon Bush, patriarch of the Bush clan, and partner in Brown Brothers Harriman, self-described as 'the world's largest private bank', grew rich in the 1930s, profiteering from Hitler's rise. His closest contact inside the Nazi war-machine was one Fritz Thyssen director (and scion) of a coal-and-steel empire central to the rearmament of Germany.

WHAT'S THE STORY WITH JEFF GANNON?

Some time back we learned about a fake journalist inhabiting the White House press corps. The "journalist," a guy named Jeff Gannon, is a male escort, but he appeared to have a function at White House press conferences; namely, to throw softball questions favorable to the administration to Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Secret Service logs shows lots of visits by Jeff Gannon to the White House. It's interesting that this White House, which has so inflamed tensions against gay people, has allowed such access to Gannon. This story by Jeff Byrne is at www.rawstory.com:

In what is unlikely to stem the controversy surrounding disgraced White House correspondent James Guckert, the Secret Service has furnished logs of the writer’s access to the White House after requests by two Democratic congressmembers.

The documents, obtained by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal Guckert had remarkable access to the White House. Though he wrote under the name Jeff Gannon, the records show that he applied with his real name.

April 9, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


INCONVENIENT SCIENCE

Down through the ages science and religion have frequently clashed, and science invariably comes out on top. There was an episode of "Star Trek" where Mr. Spock spoke of trying to work with stone knives and bear skins. That's the crux of much religious belief. There was a mini-scandal in Waco, Texas, when a lecturer told an audience that the moon reflects light, but doesn't create light of its own. That offended some religious people, who chose to interpret Genesis 1:16 as saying that the moon is a light creator. This item comes from www.sploid.com:

Bill Nye, the harmless children's edu-tainer known as "The Science Guy," managed to offend a select group of idiot adults in Waco when he suggested that the moon does not emit light.

As even most elementary-school graduates know, the moon reflects the light of the sun but produces no light of its own.

But don't tell that to the good people of Waco, who were "visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence," according to the Waco Tribune.

BUSH'S AVALANCHE OF LIES

As if telling "Scooter" Libby to leak Valerie Plame's name wasn't bad enough, we learn now that many senior administration officials didn't believe that Saddam Hussein was acquiring nuclear weapons. But Bush was hellbent on war and he had a media ready, willing, and able to cheerlead the war. Now we have tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed and maimed, we have thousands of U.S. military killed and maimed, and we have spent billions of dollars on this hideous war. The war profiteers have done nicely, though. This story by DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID BARSTOW is at www.nytimes.com:

President Bush's apparent order authorizing a senior White House official to reveal to a reporter previously classified intelligence about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain uranium came as the information was already being discredited by several other officials in the administration, interviews and documents from the time show.

A review of the records and interviews conducted during and after the crucial period in June and July of 2003 also show that what the aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., said he was authorized to portray as a "key judgment" by intelligence officers had in fact been given much less prominence in the most important assessment of Iraq's weapons capability.

SCRAP THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Elites are often afraid of the "rabble," which is part of the reason the Founding Fathers created the Electoral College to elect the President of the United States. When we vote in a presidential election we're actually voting for "electors" who will then cast their votes in the Electoral College for president. The big problem with the Electoral College is that it allows the guy with less votes to win the election. We saw that occur in the 2000 presidential election, and we've been suffering the bad karma ever since. In this column Jonathan Chait talks about a way we can get around the very difficult process of amending the Constitution, and elect the president by popular vote the way we should. This column is at www.latimes.com:

IMAGINE THAT the Constitution devised by the founders decreed that the presidency went to the winner of the popular vote. Now imagine that some reformers came along and proposed to scrap the popular vote and replace it with a convoluted process involving an electoral college that, among other bizarre flaws, gave the citizens of some states far more voting power than others and allowed for the candidate who didn't get the most votes to win the presidency. Would anybody take them seriously? No, they'd be laughed out of the room.

With the passage of time, the loopiest ideas can obtain the veneer of plausibility, even wisdom. No sane person would choose the electoral college if we were devising the system from scratch today. The main reason we still have it is that we would need a constitutional amendment to elect our presidents by popular vote, and passing such an amendment would be nearly impossible.

April 8, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


AMY GOODMAN VS. KATIE COURIC

The corporate media were abuzz this week with the news that “Today Show” personality Katie Couric was shuffling over to CBS to anchor the “CBS Evening News.” Katie Couric has long been a bubbly, perky personality on “Today,” doing the kind of vapid, fawning interviews with celebrities and politicians that is supposed to pass for news, but is really more fit for tabloids. Amy Goodman, on the other hand, has hosted “Democracy Now,” which does stories of real import. Goodman gets nowhere near the attention of Couric, which shows just how debased television “news” has become. This story by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman is at www.commondreams.org :

We haven't done the poll, but our guess is that most Americans recognize the name Katie Couric.

And they wouldn't know Amy Goodman from a hole in the wall.

NBC Today Show co-anchor Katie Couric said this morning that she is leaving the show to become the anchor for the CBS Evening News.

Amy Goodman is the anchor of the award winning one-hour television and radio news program, Democracy Now.

THE WAL-MART MONSTER

I'm beginning to think that one thing that shows us who the bad guys are is who can hire big public relations firms. Public relations were born back around the beginning of the 20th century when muckraking journalists like Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell began exposing the sins of the big and powerful. The counterattack by the big and powerful was to to put out a positive message about their nefarious dealings. With the growth of big media and the access to the media by the big and powerful the influence of public relations has only grown. Wal-Mart has consistently destroyed small businesses, paid lousy wages to its employees, dumped health care costs for its employees onto taxpayers, and intimidated its vendors. But from the commercials you'd think Wal-Mart was like something out of Norman Rockwell. This editorial comes from The Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com :

Tired of being blamed for the destruction of small-town businesses, pilloried for underpaying workers, and run out of cities such as Inglewood when it tries to open urban stores, Wal-Mart, an erstwhile family business started by Sam Walton in 1962, has launched a campaign to convince mom-and-pop stores that it's their friend. Really.

Wal-Mart has pledged to donate $500,000 to local chambers of commerce in 10 urban "zones," the first in Chicago. The company has hired local minority firms to help build its new stores, and it says it also will offer bonus goodies for mom-and-pops, such as free in-store advertising, opportunities to become suppliers and advice from consultants on "how to thrive with a Wal-Mart in their community."

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BENEFITS SOME

Republicans are the wedge issue party. Their strategy is to divide and conquer. Bamboozle people into voting against their own self interest by calling something “socialist” or hoodwink working people into hating unions or use code words like “big government” and some people fall into line like little lemmings. We've see wedge issues like flag burning, gay rights, school prayer, and abortion consistently employed by Republicans. Another potent wedge issue is race and ethnicity. We've seen welfare used as a hammer against African-Americans, for example, and now we're seeing illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexican, made the scapegoats for the current election season. As this article points out, a few simple steps by the government could address many of the problems with illegal immigration, but illegal immigrants are beneficial to many of the rich and powerful in this country. This article by Cynthia Tucker is at www.smirkingchimp.com

To understand the inherent and willful contradictions in the laws that govern workers and their legal status, consider this: The Social Security Administration is able to identify companies that routinely employ large numbers of workers using fake numbers. But by law, Social Security is forbidden from forwarding the names of those companies to Homeland Security. That law could be changed in a heartbeat, but Congress hasn't done it.

Congress could also appropriate money for a nationwide computer system that would allow all employers to get instant verification of a worker's Social Security number and then require all employers to use it. If Bloomingdale's can give me approval for a credit card in three minutes — while I'm still trying samples at the perfume counter — then the feds can create a system for instantaneous verification. Congress hasn't set aside money for that, either.

April 7, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

BRAINWASHED AMERICAN WORKERS

I've never understood why so many working class people will vote for Republicans or voice antipathy toward unions. You'll hear working class people even rail against the progressive income tax, or suggest that a minimum wage is a bad thing. As this article points out, though, we get barraged with propaganda from a variety of right-wing sources, including the media and right-wing think tanks, that inculcates the belief that what is best for us is what is best for the very rich. This article by Don Monkerud is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Americans spout the anti-government beliefs fed to them by hundreds of think tanks supported by the richest of the rich, corporations seeking to avoid government regulation and taxes, churches seeking a return to the Dark Ages, and other right-wing forces that promote agendas to control the country. Every week they release hundreds of op-eds, reports, TV shows, commentaries and well-honed arguments to convince people to identify themselves as independent, laissez faire individualists who oppose any government program to regulate workers trading their time for a paycheck.

It's a wonder that American workers support the 18th century robber baron agenda of the Republican Party, a party that constantly votes against their interests: tax cuts for the rich; judges who support monopolies and almost always rule in favor of corporations; destruction of the environment; deregulation of rules that protect consumers and workers; support for an avaricious military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex; rampant business and Congressional corruption; and a Congress that refuses to raise the minimum wage, while raising its own pay seven times in eight years.

INTENTIONALLY DYSFUNCTIONAL

When you examine the horrid presidency of George W. Bush you have to ask the question, like this author, is Bush is deliberately pushing the envelope in an attempt to be impeached. The list of high crimes and misdemeanors is growing daily and getting more serious. Nothing could be more serious, of course, than lying the country into a war, but the assaults on civil liberties, deliberately outing a CIA agent, ignoring the impact of global climate change, wrecking the economy, and making us beholden to foreign investors such as the Chinese suggest a supreme arrogance or a desire to bring everything crashing down. This article by Cenk Uygur is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

My theory is that President Bush is trying to get impeached. He's tired and he just wants to go home. His bed in Crawford seems so enticing now. All this presidenting has worn him out.

After Katrina he hasn't even been able to take his signature five week vacations. So, he's subconsciously trying to get kicked out of school so he doesn't have to do the homework anymore.

Why else would you break so many laws?

Even if he thought he could get away with a couple of illegal or grossly incompetent acts -- with the Republican Guard protecting him at all times in Congress and a press that had slipped into a Fox induced coma -- he couldn't possibly think he could get away with all this.

April 06, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


ANOTHER BOMBSHELL SCANDAL

The outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name in a newspaper column by right-winger Robert Novak compromised an operation gathering intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. "Scooter" Libby has been indicted in connection with the leak, and it appears that Scooter got his authorization from George W. Bush. The outing of Valerie Plame's name was in retaliation for the outspokenness of Ambassador Joe Wilson, who said that administration claims that Iraq was purchasing yellowcake uranium in Niger were bogus. The list of major scandals in this administration is growing exponentially. It's time for Bush, Cheney, and this administration to be peacefully and lawfully removed from office. This article by the Associated Press is at www.nytimes.com:

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney authorized Cheney's top aide to launch a counterattack of leaks against administration critics on Iraq by feeding intelligence information to reporters, according to court papers citing the aide's testimony in the CIA leak case.

In a court filing, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stopped short of accusing Cheney of authorizing his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the CIA identity of Valerie Plame.

But the prosecutor, detailing the evidence he has gathered, raised the possibility that the vice president was trying to use Plame's CIA employment to discredit her husband, administration critic Joseph Wilson. Cheney, according to an indictment against Libby, knew that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA as early as June 12, 2003, more than a month before that fact turned up in a column by Robert Novak.

RECORD INSURANCE COMPANY PROFITS

The way the system is rigged these days insurance companies and credit card companies would probably make a profit during the Seven Plagues of Egypt. Despite disasters like Hurricane Katrina, insurance companies enjoyed record profits last year. We know that oil companies also have reaped record profits. Who's not getting ahead? The middle class and the working poor. This article by Peter G. Gosselin is at www.latimes.com:

The companies that provide Americans with their homeowners and auto insurance made a record $44.8-billion profit last year even after accounting for the claims of policyholders wiped out by Hurricane Katrina and the other big storms of 2005, according to the firms' filings with state regulators.

Top executives described the profit — an 18.7% increase over the previous year — as a fluke, the product of gains in other lines of insurance besides homeowners and a very good year for their investments.

April 04, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


AT ECONOMIC GROUND ZERO

It's really amazing that some media pundits trumpet the growth of the economy and are puzzled that most Americans don't believe the economy is doing well. Some pundits, such as George Will, even blame the media for the perception of a lousy economy, even though most of the media are fully on board with the Bush administration's claims that the economy is doing well. You wish these ivory tower elitists had to come down to where most of us reside to deal with the falling incomes, the rising health care costs, the soaring energy costs, and the unemployment rate that is far higher than stated in official statistics. This story by Janine Jackson is at www.fair.org:

The Bush administration made a concerted effort to trumpet a “booming” U.S. economy in early December, widely understood as an attempt to reverse what polls indicate to be the public’s largely negative views on the matter.

There are, of course, obvious reasons the majority of Americans dissent from the White House’s rosy presentation of the economy: Most American households are not, in fact, seeing their economic fortunes improve. GDP is up, but virtually all the growth has gone into corporate profits and the incomes of the highest economic brackets. Wages and incomes for average workers, adjusted for inflation, are down in recent years; the median income for non-elderly households is down 4.8 percent since 2000 (Economic Policy Institute, 8/31/05). The poverty rate is rising, as is the number of people in debt.

TOMATO PICKERS AND MCDONALD'S

Pressure from Florida tomato pickers on Taco Bell finally forced the company to pay more for tomatoes and give the farm workers a much deserved raise. Now similar pressure is being applied to McDonald's. Back in the 1950s Edward R. Murrow did a documentary called "Harvest of Shame" about the abysmal conditions endured by migrant farm workers. Things haven't changed much in the intervening decades. Instead of telling us about the "great" economy, why doesn't the media concentrate on people like migrant farm workers, ordinary people whose wages are getting slashed, and the very hard and rocky road most working people are facing these days? This article by Abid Aslam is at www.commondreams.org:

Florida tomato pickers converged on McDonald's Corp.'s flagship Chicago restaurant over the weekend to protest poor working conditions and wages they say have stagnated for 30 years.

The farm hands, members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, want a penny-per-pound pay raise from their employers, growers based in and around Immokalee, Florida. And they want Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald's to finance the wage hike by paying more for their tomatoes. The company said it is studying the issue.

April 03, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


NEW MOVIE ABOUT 9/11

A new movie called "Flight 93" deals with the plane that was hijacked by terrorists on 9/11 and crashed in Pennsylvania after the passengers and crew fought back. I saw the trailer on Saturday when I went to see another movie. Anyone who has ever flown can readily identify with the images. You see people moving through the airport towing their baggage. You hear the pilot telling the passengers that there will be a slight delay because of the heavy traffic that morning. You hear the pilot telling the flight attendants to prepare for takeoff. But you're all too aware that this flight and its passengers are doomed. I don't think I could handle this movie emotionally right now after losing my brother this past December. But I think it's an important statement about what happened on that terrible day. This article by Sean Smith and Jac Chebatoris is at www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12112802/site/newsweek

If movie trailers are supposed to cause a reaction, the preview for "United 93" more than succeeds. Featuring no voice-over and no famous actors, it begins with images of a beautiful morning and passengers boarding an airplane. It takes you a minute to realize what the movie's even about. That's when a plane hits the World Trade Center. The effect is visceral. When the trailer played before "Inside Man" last week at the famed Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, audience members began calling out, "Too soon!" In New York City, where 9/11 remains an open wound, the response was even more dramatic. The AMC Loews theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side took the rare step of pulling the trailer from its screens after several complaints. "One lady was crying," says one of the theater's managers, Kevin Adjodha. "She was saying we shouldn't have [played the trailer]. That this was wrong ... I don't think people are ready for this."

THE FINANCIAL RATHOLE IN IRAQ

Billions of dollars have been poured down the rathole in Iraq. Billions of dollars are unaccounted for. Members of the military have dealt with insufficient supplies, no body armor, unarmored vehicles, lousy food, and other issues. Where is all the money going? One place it's going is to private contractors who fail to live up to their contractual agreements. This article by Ellen Knickmeyer is at www.washingtonpost.com:

A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.

The contract, awarded to U.S. construction giant Parsons Inc. in the flush, early days of reconstruction in Iraq, was expected to lay the foundation of a modern health care system for the country, putting quality medical care within reach of all Iraqis.

IT'S ABOUT EXPLOITATION

People who want to justify illegal immigration often use the argument that illegal immigrants do work that Americans won't do. One way to cure that problem would be to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. Many jobs that go begging go begging because they don't pay enough for Americans to live on. It's a disgrace that the federal minimum wage has been locked at $5.15 an hour for years. Contrary to the propaganda, it's not only students and kids who work for minimum wage. On the other hand, illegal aliens get exploited because they get paid substandard wages with no benefits, and they face the constant threat of being deported. This article by Earl Ofari Hutchinson is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The young black in Los Angeles and other cities that anti-illegal immigration opponents cite as proof that illegal immigration is ruinous for the economy and the urban poor may or may not have lost out in his job hunt to an illegal immigrant. But he also might have lost out in his job search because of discrimination, poor education, government budget slashes and the flight of manufacturers to other countries. That is no excuse not to ensure that American workers have the right to work in any and all industries. That would do much to calm the fury of many Americans who worry that illegal immigration sledgehammers at least some American workers. Congress and the Bush Administration must not ignore that worry.

April 02, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


MISSILE DEFENSE A MASSIVE BOONDOGGLE

The idea of a missile defense system that could intercept and destroy hostile missiles directed against the United States emerged somewhere from the consciousness of Ronald Reagan, and since then we've spent billions trying to make it work. The problem is that it just isn't feasible. The science shows it doesn't work, but science is never an obstacle to the Bush administration. They deny the science that supports the reality of global warming, they deny the science that supports evolutionary theory, and now they deny the science that doesn't fit with their idea of Star Wars. This story by William J. Broad is at www.nytimes.com:

A senior Congressional investigator has accused his agency of covering up a scientific fraud among builders of a $26 billion system meant to shield the nation from nuclear attack. The disputed weapon is the centerpiece of the Bush administration's antimissile plan, which is expected to cost more than $250 billion over the next two decades.

The investigator, Subrata Ghoshroy of the Government Accountability Office, led technical analyses of a prototype warhead for the antimissile weapon in an 18-month study, winning awards for his "great care" and "tremendous skill and patience."

MILITARIZING NATURE

The big thinkers in the Pentagon are working on an idea to make insects a weapon. They are also talking about sharks. If we could only concentrate on finding ways to work toward peace. Maybe the big thinkers should try that. This article by Lynda Hurst is at www.commondreams.org:

DARPA's current big idea is to implant tiny microsystems into insects at the pupa stage of their development, when they can be "integrated" into their internal organs.

A step or three later, they could be turned into miniature unmanned vehicles for use on military missions "requiring unobtrusive entry into areas inaccessible or hostile to humans." Osama Bin Laden's cave, say.

But first things first.

In its call for proposals from university researchers and private firms last month, DARPA said the immediate goal is "the controlled arrival of an insect within five metres of a specified target located 100 metres away. It must then remain stationary indefinitely, unless otherwise instructed ... to transmit data to sensors providing information about the local environment."

Dragonflies and moths are "of great interest," but "hopping and swimming insects could also meet final demonstration goals."

WAGES GOING DOWN, DOWN, DOWN

It takes an incredible amount of gall for George W. Bush and his supporters to claim there is a robust economy and that his tax cuts for the rich are working. They're working for the rich and no one else. I personally have been laid off twice during the Bush years. My income is well below what it would have been if I had stayed at the level I was at in 2000 and gotten normal raises. We're seeing health care and energy costs soar, so our standard of living is quickly sliding downhill. This story by Dave Zweifel is at www.commondreams.org:

You probably saw the story the other day that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that real wages in 2005 had dropped 0.9 percent from the year before.

That was big news because in 2004 overall real wages were flat. For the first time as long as wage records have been kept, American workers' income had not increased in two straight years.

There was other disturbing economic news that came at about the same time but didn't get as much publicity.

For instance, the Federal Reserve not so surprisingly found that "growing numbers of American households face mounting debt and financial instability."

April 01, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


THOMAS JEFFERSON ON RELIGION

There are a few mantras you hear repeatedly from right-wingers. You hear about the "liberal media" or "political correctness" or the truly astonishing claim that we're a "Christian nation" and that the Founding Fathers based the Constitution on Judeo-Christian beliefs. Even though he wasn't a part of the Constitutional Convention, there was probably no more important Founding Father than Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson took a jaundiced eye toward the religious fundamentalists of his day. He was so skeptical of accounts of miracles in the Bible that he produced an edited Bible called "The Jefferson Bible." This item by Morbo is at www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com:

In a remarkable 1819 letter to William Short, Jefferson discoursed at length upon the dogma of conventional Christianity. In this letter, Jefferson lists specifically what he does not accept from that faith. He called these features "artificial systems, invented by ultra-Christian sects."

These include, in Jefferson's own words:

"The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders or Hierarchy, etc."

Yikes! Tom, there go the red states!

Jefferson was a fundamentalist Christian? Sure — he was just the type of fundamentalist Christian who rejects the immaculate conception, the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity.

MARCH OF THE CORPORATE GHOULS

In right-wing land privatization is the way to go. Privatize roads, privatize streets, privatize water, lakes, streams, air, mail delivery, forests, love, peace, happiness, and building nuclear weapons. Iraq has been a laboratory for right-wing ideas such as a flat tax as much as it has been a grab for oil and hegemony. And we can see the dismal results. Now we learn that even the function of nuclear weapons development is being turned over to private corporations. This article by Frida Berrigan is at www.commondreams.org:

"Privatization" has been in the news ever since George W. Bush became president. His administration has radically reduced the size of government, turning over to private companies critical governmental functions involving prisons, schools, water, welfare, Medicare, and utilities as well as war-fighting, and is always pushing for more of the same. Outside of Washington, the pitfalls of privatization are on permanent display in Iraq, where companies like Halliburton have reaped billions in contracts. Performing jobs once carried out by members of the military -- from base building and mail delivery to food service -- they have bilked the government while undermining the safety of American forces by providing substandard services and products. Halliburton has been joined by a cottage industry of military-support companies responsible for everything from transportation to interrogation. On the war front, private companies are ubiquitous, increasingly indispensable, and largely unregulated -- a lethal combination.

Now, the long arm of privatization is reaching deep into an almost unimaginable place at the heart of the national security apparatus --- the laboratory where scientists learned to harness the power of the atom more than 60 years ago and created weapons of apocalyptic proportions.

MIXED BAG ON IMMIGRATION REFORM

There are lots of reasons for legitimate immigration reform. One of the most important is to prevent the exploitation of poor people, mostly from Mexico. Some of the illegals pay people called "coyotes" thousands of dollars to cross the U.S.-Mexican border with dreams of finding streets of gold in the United States. Many illegals die or get sexually abused in their trek to the United States. When they get here they live in constant fear of deportation. Since they have no rights, they get paid substandard wages or live in substandard conditions. Yet the agricultural economy in California is very dependent on the labor provided by illegals. This is an interesting article that shows some of the major concerns about the current legislation in Congress. The article by David Streitfeld is at www.latimes.com:

These changes — which are also endorsed by organized labor, most Democrats and some Republicans — are described by supporters as benefiting just about everyone. The undocumented will no longer have to live in fear. Companies will get a more stable workforce. Society as a whole will be helped when the underground economy emerges into daylight. Tax revenue will rise.

Yet this prediction of good times all around rests on the most slender of assumptions, economists say.

It presumes that the flow of illegal immigrants will shrink from a torrent to a trickle, they say. It takes for granted that the government will have the resources to find the illegal workers who get through as well as the money and political will to enforce the laws that forbid their hiring.

March 31, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


MONEY FLOWING TO THE TOP

Capitalism has always been a system that tends to reward a few at the expense of the many. The reforms enacted during the New Deal helped to mitigate some of the worst excesses of capitalism, but since the Reagan presidency we've been running full speed in reverse. We're seeing income gaps on a par with what we saw during the Gilded Age. Globalization is giving corporations the perfect excuse for depressing wages at home and abroad. This item by David Sirota is at www.huffingtonpost.com:

As I noted last week, media pundits like Sam Donaldson simply cannot understand why polls show the public is so down on the economic direction of our country. These commentators - who are supposed to reflect the true pulse of America - look at today's Wall Street Journal headline blaring that "Corporate Pretax Profits Jump 14.4% - Strongest Gain Since 1992" and wonder: why, oh dear god why, aren't ordinary Americans aren't jumping with joy?

The answer, as I note in my upcoming book Hostile Takeover, is simple: if you take the five seconds it takes to actually look at the underlying data, you see that those profits aren't actually benefitting ordinary workers - they are increasingly benefitting only those at the very top of the economic ladder. The Journal notes that "Corporate profits accounted for 11.6% of gross domestic product in the fourth quarter -- the biggest share of the nation's income companies have taken since 1966." In other words, the amount being pocketed by corporations - as opposed to being shared with their employees - is the highest its been in 40 years - a situation we already knew was occurring thanks to earlier stats showing workers wages are stagnating.

ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALISM

Foaming-at-the-mouth right-wingers usually spit out the word "socialist" like an epithet. Social Security is socialist. Redistribution of wealth in the form of a progressive income tax is socialist. Almost any social program is socialist, according to them. When you look at the reality of global capitalism you have to wonder if socialism is so terrible. I believe a mixed economy, the kind we had from FDR through the Nixon years, is the best system. It lets capitalism do what it does best and it reins in the worst parts of capitalism. This article by Ronald Aronson is at www.commondreams.org:

Successful ideological and political campaigns close up the space in which imagination might conceive of a world different from the status quo. Alternatives become "unthinkable." In contrast, for two generations, between 1917 and 1989, the prospect of social change and political action worldwide were nurtured by the competition between two different world-embracing economic systems. Ugly as it was in so many ways, the Soviet Union not only spurred imitators but stimulated and sometimes supported resistance movements and, more relevant to us, along with the presence of vigorous socialist movements and ideas it encouraged thinking and acting toward alternatives that would be neither capitalist nor Communist. The 1930s through the '70s saw important and still relevant efforts at social change led by anarchists (Spain), social democrats (Scandinavia), non-Stalinist Communists (Yugoslavia, Italy), coalitions of socialists and Communists (Chile), and coalitions of leftists and less ideological forces of national liberation (Nicaragua, South Africa). Until the end of the cold war, alternatives to capitalism and Communism seemed both thinkable and possible.

REMEMBERING CESAR CHAVEZ

Today is a state holiday in recognition of the birthday of farm labor leader Cesar Chavez. Back in the 1960s Cesar Chavez led an active effort to unionize farm workers, mostly Latino. It's hard to believe that at one time things like the short-handled hoe were in common use, or that such basics as water and restroom facilities were denied to farm workers. It's an interesting twist that Latino workers have been marching against a Draconian immigration law being debated in Congress. It's too bad Cesar Chavez isn't here now. This article by Rachel Uranga is at www.commondreams.org:

Marches, walkouts and calls for a boycott.

The immigrants-rights protests of the past week have sparked Latinos' passion like nothing since the farm workers marches and grape boycotts led by Cesar Chavez in the 1960s and '70s - drawing political parallels and generational ties.

Considered by many to be the first to attract Latinos to a massive U.S. social-justice movement, the legacy and tactics of Chavez - whose birthday is being celebrated today across the state - has been invoked by organizers of the recent rallies, from calls for boycotts to chants of "Si, se puede" - "Yes, we can."

"This is the formation of a new civil-rights movement," said labor leader Delores Huerta, who worked with Chavez. "Nothing would have changed for farm workers unless we hadn't marched and lobbied, and that is the same thing that is happening."

March 29, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


ALL THE UNANSWERED 9/11 QUESTIONS

When you step back from the attacks on 9/11 you start to wonder how this tragedy occurred. We know about all the failures to stop the terrorists from hijacking the planes. We know about Bush ignoring a Presidential Daily Briefing that flatly stated Osama bin Laden was prepared to strike inside the United States. But why, when it became obvious that four airliners were evidently hijacked, were military aircraft not there to intercept and force down the planes? It gets even more ominous when you examine the unusual trading in airline stocks just prior to 9/11 or when you look at the way the World Trade Center buildings collapsed as though they had been blown up from within. Some would immediately dismiss this is a crackpot conspiracy theory. But is it? Mark Morford writes about it in this column at www.sfgate.com:

But there is also a very smart, grounded, intelligent and surprisingly large faction -- which includes eyewitnesses, Sept. 11 widows, former generals, pilots, professors, engineers, WTC maintenance workers and many, many more -- who point to a rather shocking pile of evidence that says there is simply no way 19 fanatics with box cutters sent by some bearded lunatic in a cave could have pulled off the most perfectly orchestrated air attack of the century. Not without serious help, anyway.

Whose help? This, of course, is the biggest question of all, one which many of the more well-researched theories go a surprisingly long way toward answering.

You have to sift and sort. There are disturbing questions about collapse speeds and controlled demolitions and why the towers fell when the all-steel infrastructure was designed to easily withstand the temperatures of any sort of fire, even burning jet fuel. There are questions of the mysterious, media-documented blasts deep in the WTC towers that took place after the planes hit. There are questions of why there was such a short-selling spree on shares of American Airlines and United Air Lines the day before the attack, huge doubts about the failures of NORAD and the FAA, the bizarre case of the missing plane in the Pentagon crash, and also the downing of Flight 93 where, according to the coroner, no blood or major plane wreckage was actually found. There is, ultimately, the stunning failure of the entire multi-trillion-dollar American air-defense system. Just for starters.

WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO RECALL PRESIDENTS

I didn't support the recall of California Governor Gray Davis, and I don't believe our new Governor Groper has done a good job. But the disaster that is the Bush administration makes me believe that some sort of recall mechanism should be made a part of the Constitution. Impeachment is a slow and cumbersome process, very much subject to politics. As bad as George W. Bush is, there is very little support in the highest levels of government to impeach him. His scant support in the polls, however, would give voters a chance to make a judgment about his fitness to remain in office. In this column Kevin Phillips discusses the problems with impeachment and the reasons for a recall. The column is at www.huffingtonpost.com:

Which bring me to the remedy sought a few years back when Californians got tired of their governor, Gray Davis. Under state law, they were able to mount a recall effort that took away his job. To set up a similar federal mechanism, a constitutional amendment would seem necessary, and that could not happen overnight. Still, with impeachment losing credibility as a constitutional remedy, the possibility of having an "incompetent" president with a 35% job approval rating in office for almost three more years represents enough of a threat to an unhappy and beleaguered United States that a wide-ranging debate is in order.

PATRIOTS PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION

George W. Bush and his minions have used the rhetoric of "You're either with us or against us." If you buy into this rhetoric, you believe that criticism of Bush is unpatriotic. But real patriotism is protecting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Bush has consistently run roughshod over the Constitution and international law. He attacked Iraq illegally. He has violated human rights by authorizing torture. He has detained people and deprived them of the right of habeas corpus. Paul Craig Roberts has a column at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Loyalty to country means allegiance to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the separation of powers. It does not mean blind support for a president, an administration, or a political party.

The separation of powers and civil liberties that were bequeathed to us by the Founding Fathers are the protectors of our liberty. Bush, who swore on the Bible that he would defend and uphold the Constitution, has made it clear that he will not let the Constitution get in the way of expanding the powers of his office.

March 28, 2006

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


IRAQ WAS IN THE CROSSHAIRS

Prior to launching the attack on Iraq, George W. Bush was proclaiming his support for a second United Nations resolution calling for Saddam Hussein to disarm or face war. But in private Bush had already decided on war. We know this from a new memo that has surfaced. The memo details a conversation Bush had with British Prime Minister Tony Blair seven weeks before the war started. The memo also shows that weapons of mass destruction weren't that much of an issue. Bush would get his war no matter what. This article by Don Van Natta Jr. is at www.iht.com:

In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Bush, Blair and six of their top aides.

"The start date for the military president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Bush, Blair and six of their top aides.

"The start date for the military president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Bush, Blair and six of their top aides.

HERE COME CHINA AND INDIA

The policies of George W. Bush, both economically and militarily, have weakened the country and have set the stage for the growing economies of India and China to overtake us. Bush and the neocons around him have overreached in their foreign policy. They made a fundamentalist group of nuts like al-Qaeda the center of their foreign policy when al-Qaeda should have been treated as a criminal group. They have created massive deficits, they are bleeding the treasury dry with the spending on Iraq, and they have made it difficult to maintain and grow a middle class with the thrust toward globalization. This article by Martin Jacques is at www.commondreams.org:

It is clear that the US occupation of Iraq has been a disaster from almost every angle one can think of, most of all for the Iraqi people, not least for American foreign policy. The unpicking of the imperial logic that led to it has already commenced: Hyde's speech is an example, and so is Francis Fukuyama's new book After the Neocons, a merciless critique of Bush's foreign policy and the school of thought that lay behind it. The war was a delayed product of the end of the cold war and the triumphalist mentality that imbued the neocons and eventually seduced the US. But triumphalism is a dangerous brew, more suited to intoxication than hard-headed analysis. And so it has proved. The US still has to reap the whirlwind for its stunning feat of imperial overreach.

In becoming so catastrophically engaged in the Middle East, making the region its overwhelming global priority, it downgraded the importance of everywhere else, taking its eye off the ball in a crucial region such as east Asia, which in the long run will be far more important to the US's strategic interests than the Middle East. As such, the Iraqi adventure represented a major misreading of global trends and how they are likely to impact on the US. Hyde is clearly thinking in these terms: "We are well advanced into an unformed era in which new and unfamiliar enemies are gathering forces, where a phalanx of aspiring competitors must inevitably constrain and focus options. In a world where the ratios of strength narrow, the consequences of miscalculation will become progressively more debilitating. The costs of golden theories [by which he means the worldwide promotion of democracy] will be paid for in the base coin of our interests."

WHAT WOULD JEFFERSON WRITE NOW?

Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, laid out the case against British King George III. If Jefferson were writing the Declaration today, there would be a long list of crimes by George W. Bush. This article by Sam Newlund is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

On July 4, 1776, a rebellious group of colonists adopted America's historic Declaration of Independence, lambasting England's King George III for "a long train of abuses and usurpations." One by one they succinctly listed the offenses, such as:

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people." Twenty-six other charges made the list.

That was nearly 230 years ago. Now it's time for a bill of particulars on another George -- President George W. Bush. Items ripe for this list have been rolling out with numbing consistency since he took office just over five years ago. Impeachment is now openly discussed.

MARCH 27, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


BUSH'S POWER GRAB

Among the goals of George W. Bush and the people around him was restoring the imperial presidency. They felt that the presidency lost too much power after the Watergate scandal. They saw the attacks on 9/11 as the perfect opportunity to expand presidential powers. Just say you're at war and that the commander-in-chief has expanded powers and there you have it. The problem is that there really isn't a "war on terrorism." Terrorists are criminals, not affiliated with a political state. A "war on terror" could exist into infinity. The other problem is that the powers Bush claims are not recognized under the Constitution. This article by Joyce Appleby and Gary Hart is at http://hnn.us/articles/23297.html:

George W. Bush and his most trusted advisers, Richard B. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, entered office determined to restore the authority of the presidency. Five years and many decisions later, they've pushed the expansion of presidential power so far that we now confront a constitutional crisis.

Relying on legal opinions from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Professor John Yoo, then working in the White House, Bush has insisted that there can be no limits to the power of the commander-in-chief in time of war. More recently the president has claimed that laws relating to domestic spying and the torture of detainees do not apply to him. His interpretation has produced a devilish conundrum.

WHY AM I SKEPTICAL?

New documents show that the FBI has been spying on groups that feed vegetarian meals to the homeless, and other activist groups. The FBI claims that their surveillance isn't ideological. Why am I skeptical? This is another throwback to the Nixon years when the government was actively monitoring and infiltrating antiwar groups. This article by Nicholas Riccardi is at www.latimes.com:

The FBI, while waging a highly publicized war against terrorism, has spent resources gathering information on antiwar and environmental protesters and on activists who feed vegetarian meals to the homeless, the agency's internal memos show.

For years, the FBI's definition of terrorism has included violence against property, such as the window-smashing during the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization. That definition has led FBI investigations to online discussion boards, organizing meetings and demonstrations of a wide range of activist groups. Officials say that international terrorists pose the greatest threat to the nation but that they cannot ignore crimes committed by some activists.

MARCH 26, 2006


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IMPEACH CHENEY


THE RACIST GOP

Since the time of Richard Nixon the Republican party has used the race card. Nixon devised a "Southern strategy" to win over white Southerners who were angry about forced integration. Ronald Reagan talked about mythical "welfare queens." "Welfare queen" was a coded reference to African-American women. In recent years the GOP has used the race card against Hispanics. We saw a dramatic version of that with Proposition 187 in California during the administration of Pete Wilson. Now the GOP Congress is trying to play the race card again by going after immigrants, mostly Hispanic. But it may be boomeranging on them. In this piece Max Blumenthal writes about the reaction to the latest Republican piece of hate legislation. The article is at www.huffingtonpost.com:

A leading researcher of the neo-Confederate movement, Ed Sebesta, submitted an illuminating analysis of the GOP's immigration quandary to me by email yesterday. Here are some excerpts:

In regards to Hispanics and the GOP I think the big development is that Hispanics are immigrating in large numbers now into the Southeast, or I should say the former Confederate states, excepting Texas and Southern Florida. It isn't something largely confined to the Southwest and major urban centers outside the South. This is where the base of the Republican party is. There has developed a reaction against this immigration in these areas. The Neo-Confederate movement and a lot of other movements have taken up this issue...

These reactionary elements and others see immigration as an issue to take control of conservatism in the South, if not the nation...

Suddenly the Republican party is going to have to try to get votes from two groups that will be increasingly at odds with each other. Also, what happens to Hispanics in Alabama will get back to Hispanics in California.

WE'LL MISS YOU, BUCK

Buck Owens, one of my favorite musicians ever, died yesterday morning at the age of 76 in Bakersfield. My late brother was a huge Buck Owens fan and some of my best memories revolve around hearing Buck Owens music. I had the pleasure of going to the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield last July. I'll always remember that because my brother was there and alive and Buck Owens was up on stage performing. The "Bakersfield Sound" is my favorite music and Buck Owens was a major innovator and contributor to the Bakersfield Sound. I keep thinking of a song called "Sweethearts in Heaven" that Buck recorded. You wish that people like Buck Owens had more influence over world events than the likes of George W. Bush.

SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS

I'm getting the feeling Americans are living in a locked down society. The anti-immigration moves by Republicans are just an indication of how much control they want over all of our lives. A good example these days is the misuse of Social Security numbers. The Social Security system was originally designed to build pensions for retirees. It was never meant to be used as an ID system. Now you constantly get asked to provide your Social Security number to open bank accounts, to get a job, to get unemployment benefits, or whatever.

We've heard talk of a national ID card. All the centralization of data on each of us is dangerous. It's the worst combination of Big Brother government and fascism. If things continue as they are, the government will have dossiers on us that include our educational histories, our employment histories, our medical histories, our credit histories, what we purchase at the grocery store, what we read, what we watch, and what we look up on the Internet. It's time for government to get out of our private lives.

MARCH 25, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

IMPEACHMENT CRIES GROWING

The Washington Post has an article about the possible impeachment of George W. Bush and why some Democrats don't think it's a good idea. We hear the argument that Republicans will use impeachment to energize their base this November. Isn't there the possibility that impeachment might also get more people out to vote for Democrats to impeach this incompetent liar? There is even an argument that maybe Bush hasn't committed "high crimes and misdemeanors," that maybe he invaded Iraq in good faith and even that his unconstitutional spying on Americans without warrants may not be impeachable. If that's the case, just what is impeachable? I think the evidence is clear that Bush lied about Iraq. In any case, an impeachment is a trial. It's an opportunity to present all the facts without all the sound bites, the right-wing blather, and the spin. This article by Michael Powell is at www.washingtonpost.com:

To drive through the mill towns and curling country roads here is to journey into New England's impeachment belt. Three of this state's 10 House members have called for the investigation and possible impeachment of President Bush.

Thirty miles north, residents in four Vermont villages voted earlier this month at annual town meetings to buy more rock salt, approve school budgets, and impeach the president for lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and for sanctioning torture.

BUSH NOT MORALLY FIT FOR PRESIDENCY

George W. Bush is the most corrupt man to ever occupy the Oval Office. He lied us into war and members of his own family benefit from war profiteering. He has ignored the dangers of global climate change, even though we got horrendous evidence with Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans. He has rammed through massive tax cuts for his friends, and created mountainous deficits. Our economic security is in extreme peril. He has presided over the loss of millions of jobs. He has tried to destroy Social Security, a bulwark of our society since the New Deal. He signed a prescription drug bill into law that is massive giveaway to drug companies. He has illegally spied on American citizens. He failed to prevent the attacks on 9/11, even though there were numerous warnings. This article by Doug Thompson is at www.capitolhillblue.com:

Americans who tuned in for one of President George W. Bush's rare press conferences saw a cornered animal trying to squirm his way out of trouble by doing what he has always done - evading the truth.

Bush's attempt to showcase himself as a leader who could handle tough questions from the press corps fell just as flat as his unscripted town-meeting style appearance in Cleveland the day before.

MARCH 24, 2006

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IMPEACH CHENEY


STUCK IN IRAQ

I never believed what Bush and his administration were saying about Iraq. I didn't believe the phony presentation by Colin Powell before the United Nations. I thought we could have pursued Osama bin Laden without killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan. But lots of people in this country bought into the whole Bush case for war against Iraq. Iraq was a danger to us, Bush said. Saddam was a bad man who had to be removed. The war would be quick and cheap and the oil from Iraq would pay for the war many times over. Now here we are three years later, countless dead and maimed bodies later, billions of dollars from our treasury squandered, the world alienated from us. And we're stuck. That's the theme of Mark Morford's column at www.sfgate.com:

Bush is still immune, blind and dumb and still refusing to admit a single mistake, and yet he cannot be punished or impeached, if for no other reason than those who would do the impeaching are of his own party and they are simply loathe to admit how very severely wrong they were about just about everything. Hey, that sort of thing is what costs you elections.

The bad news is, even the most liberal estimate says we are locked in. We cannot leave Iraq, not now, not in a few months, perhaps not for years and years, not if we don't want the region to instantly devolve into a worse hell pit than it already is. The quagmire is too deep, the mess too wide, our supposed allegiances too shaky and the region sliding so quickly to the precipice of civil war that to exit now would be disastrous beyond even what Saddam could've accomplished on his worst day.

All we are left with is the larger question: Can we possibly learn anything from this? Is it possible to mature and progress as a nation, as a humanitarian force, as a result of our horrible mistakes, of our ability to be so easily misled and beaten down by a cabal of sneering neocon leaders who would just as soon shoot you as give you a handshake and a cigar?

LIFE IN TEMP LAND

I've gone through two layoffs in the "robust" Bush economy. One of the ways you deal with sudden layoffs is to go through a temporary agency in hopes you can get a job and transition into a more permanent job with benefits. But as a temp you are very, very expendable. I rediscovered that yesterday. I got an assignment with a big workman's comp insurance company called Zenith Insurance. They have a building in Fresno about the size of an aircraft hangar. You need an electronic key to move almost anywhere in the building. You have to read and agree to a massive document that covers all kinds of things like insider trading, software, violence in the workplace, harassment issues, and all the rest.

What struck me the most was the disorganization. They had requested my services through the temp agency, but when I got there they had no clue what I was going to do. First, you learn "lien pulling," but the person training you has to go to lunch, so you go to lunch, come back, and the trainer is in a long meeting. Then you do make work stuff like assemble or disassemble claim packets, which are things like brochures. At the end of a boring, depressing day you come home to get a call that you're not a "good fit" for the workman's comp stuff, even though you didn't get a chance to even learn it. Somehow this seems very emblematic of the Bush administration and its economic policy and corporatism in general. What is so all fired wonderful about capitalism?

TRAITS OF REPUBLICANS

We should have a list of adjectives that are synonymous with "Republicans." Words like greedy, predatory, selfish, uncaring, ruthless. This article by Bob Burnett looks at the character traits of Republicans. The article is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

As a public service, here are the ten telltale signs of Republican plague:

1. You keep lying, even when it's apparent to everyone that you're lying: Insist that the situation in Iraq is not a civil war; Bush tax cuts are good for the economy; Republicans are fostering Democracy. Repeat things that are not only untrue, but are absurd: George W. Bush cares about civil rights. You can't stop; you're sick; you're a Republican.

2. No matter how bad things get, assert that President Bush is doing a great job. Even when there are obvious screw-ups--the reaction to 9/11, the occupation of Iraq, and the response to Katrina--block all meaningful investigations, no matter how impartial. Steadfastly maintain that Dubya knows what he's doing, even when it's apparent to most of the public that he not only doesn't have a plan to fix the problem, he doesn't get that there is a problem. You're inflexible; you're stuck; you're a Republican.

MARCH 22, 2006

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IMPEACH CHENEY



YES, HE DID WANT WAR

In a rare press conference yesterday George W. Bush asserted that he didn't want war with Iraq, but the evidence is overwhelming that he did want war and was just looking for an excuse. We know about the infamous PNAC plan, of course, for the "new American century." The centerpiece of PNAC's plan was control of Middle Eastern oil. We know from administration insiders such as Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill that the administration had plans to attack Iraq even before 9/11. This article is at thinkprogress.org:

Bush appears to be the only person left who believes his own myth that he went to war with Iraq as a last resort. The evidence is overwhelming to the contrary:

British Memo — Bush, Blair Agreed to Invade In Late Jan. 2003:

A memo of a two-hour meeting between [Bush and Blair] at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme. [Guardian, 2/3/06]

WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU BREAK THE RULES

George W. Bush has made the world infinitely more dangerous. His doctrine of "preemptive war" is among the most dangerous ideas to come out of any U.S. administration. By stating that the U.S. has the right to preemptively attack any perceived enemy, Bush has opened the door for other countries to adopt a similar policy. North Korea is stating that it has the right to preemptively attack the United States. This article by Jae-Soon Chang is at www.commondreams.org:

North Korea suggested Tuesday it had the ability to launch a pre-emptive attack on the United States, according to the North's official news agency. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the North had built atomic weapons to counter the U.S. nuclear threat.

"As we declared, our strong revolutionary might put in place all measures to counter possible U.S. pre-emptive strike," the spokesman said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. "Pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States."

INTO THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Sometimes I expect Rod Serling to pop up on my TV screen, cigarette in hand, and talk about how we've entered the Twilight Zone. It has felt that way since the Supreme Court handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. Things have gotten more surreal ever since. Bush, who didn't even win the popular vote, governed as though he had a massive mandate and the Democrats in Congress went along. We got the attacks on 9/11 that should have been prevented, but weren't, and Bush wasn't held accountable. Instead, we got the "rally round the leader" syndrome and Bush used the attacks to justify everything in his onerous agenda, including massive tax cuts for his rich friends. It makes you wonder if we really have moved into the Twilight Zone. This article by Paul Craig Roberts is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Readers tell me that Americans don't live here any more. They ask what responsible American citizenry would put up with the trashing of the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers, with wars based on deception, and with pathological liars in control of their government? One reader recently wrote that he believes that "no element of the U.S. government has been left untainted" by the lies and manipulations that have driven away accountability. So-called leaders, he wrote, "talk a great story of American pride and patriotism," but in their hands patriotism is merely a device for "cynical manipulation and fraud."

MARCH 21, 2006

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THE MORIBUND U.S. MEDIA

One of my favorite movies is "All the President's Men" about the investigation by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein into the unfolding Watergate scandal. That investigation ultimately led to the resignation of Richard M. Nixon, and it was one of the highest points in American journalism. Things have changed since 1974. The press, mostly corporate owned and controlled, has become largely a stenographer for the government, not the watchdog it once was. We have seen a glaring example in the way the press has covered the Iraq war. This story by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:

In this climate of fear and fawning, U.S. journalists knew intuitively that to question Bush’s leadership could be fatal to one’s career. News organizations and individual journalists concluded that their corporate and personal financial interests were best served by waving the Red-White-and-Blue, instead of raising red warning flags.

As the Iraq War hysteria built in 2002, the New York Times published false stories about Iraq building a nuclear bomb. The Washington Post’s opinion pages virtually excluded skeptical commentary and its own editorials cited Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction as a fact, not a point in dispute.

The U.S. news media’s “group think” reached its zenith on Feb. 6, 2003, the day after Secretary of State Colin Powell detailed the supposed U.S. evidence of Iraqi WMD before the United Nations Security Council.

LOOKING AT THE REAL HISTORY

Almost all of us got a sanitized version of U.S. history when we went to school. We get that sanitized version enhanced by the major media. You rarely see an honest depiction of slavery, or of genocide against Native Americans, or the subjugation of women, or the beating down of the working class. We're told we're the home of the brave and the land of the free, but we don't get a look at the American foreign policies that have propped up vicious dictators or exploited the natural resources of other nations. This article by Howard Zinn is at www.commondreams.org:

What is the idea of our moral superiority based on? Surely not on our behavior toward people in other parts of the world. Is it based on how well people in the United States live? The World Health Organization in 2000 ranked countries in terms of overall health performance, and the United States was thirty-seventh on the list, though it spends more per capita for health care than any other nation. One of five children in this, the richest country in the world, is born in poverty. There are more than forty countries that have better records on infant mortality. Cuba does better. And there is a sure sign of sickness in society when we lead the world in the number of people in prison—more than two million.

A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world. It might also inspire us to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars and killers who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join the rest of the human race in the common cause of peace and justice.