NOVEMBER 20, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

IS CONDI RICE HEARING THE MUSIC FROM "JAWS"?

Like the rays emanating from the sun, the connections of Bush administration officials to the Valerie Plame leak go everywhere. David Sirota believes Condi Rice may be in this scandal way over the top of her expensive shoes. This item is at www.workingforchange.com:

Looks like I may have been right about Rice. Back in July I speculated that Condoleezza Rice may be at the center of the Wilson/Plame leak. Now it seems like that speculation may, in fact, have been right on. While she is denying her role - the fact that she feels compelled to offer a public defense today should tell us something: namely, the sharks are circling around her and her former deputy, Stephen Hadley.

Looks like I may have been right about Rice. Back in July I speculated that Condoleezza Rice may be at the center of the Wilson/Plame leak. Now it seems like that speculation may, in fact, have been right on. While she is denying her role - the fact that she feels compelled to offer a public defense today should tell us something: namely, the sharks are circling around her and her former deputy, Stephen Hadley.

If the Times of London today is right and Hadley was Woodward's direct source, that raises a very important question: Was Hadley ordered to leak Plame's name to the press by his boss at the time, Condi Rice? In other words, Rice may not have been Woodward's direct source as she claims - but that doesn't mean she didn't give the order. Remember, as I wrote back in July, Wilson's New York Times op-ed was a direct indictment of Rice, meaning she had a personal motive. And it would be extremely hard to imagine Hadley acting alone with such a coordinated hit job on a CIA officer...Stay tuned.

ABRAMOFF SCANDAL HAS SOME CONGRESSMEN SWEATING

Jack Abramoff, lobbyist of lobbyists and friend to Republicans, may have crossed the line with members of Congress, it turns out. The Justice Department is sending out signals that members of Congress may be caught up in this investigation. Abramoff has strong ties to indicted Congressman Tom DeLay. One White House official, David Safavian, has already been arrested because of his involvement with Abramoff. I wonder if Rubber Stamp Radanovich, the Congressman from my district, is sleeping well these nights. This story by Philip Shenon is at www.nytimes.com:

The Justice Department has signaled for the first time in recent weeks that prominent members of Congress could be swept up in the corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff, the former Republican superlobbyist who diverted some of his tens of millions of dollars in fees to provide lavish travel, meals and campaign contributions to the lawmakers whose help he needed most.

The investigation by a federal grand jury, which began more than a year ago, has created alarm on Capitol Hill, especially with the announcement Friday of criminal charges against Michael Scanlon, Mr. Abramoff's former lobbying partner and a former top House aide to Representative Tom DeLay.

The charges against Mr. Scanlon identified no lawmakers by name, but a summary of the case released by the Justice Department accused him of being part of a broad conspiracy to provide "things of value, including money, meals, trips and entertainment to federal public officials in return for agreements to perform official acts" - an attempt at bribery, in other words, or something close to it.

BUSH HAS FUELED CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ

I guess when God told George W. Bush to attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein He left out a few things. He didn't mention to George that the U.S. would be bogged down in a war that isn't gone to be won. He didn't mention that Saddam Hussein, bad as he was, helped to keep Iraq secular and away from the control of religious extremists. He also didn't mention that the ethnic divides in Iraq would spark civil war among the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. It could be, of course, that God never spoke to George at all. This article by Sabrina Tavernise is at www.nytimes.com:

Two and a half years after the American invasion, deep divides that have long split Iraqi society have violently burst into full view. As the hatred between Sunni Arabs and Shiites hardens and the relentless toll of bombings and assassinations grows, families are leaving their mixed towns and cities for safer areas where they will not automatically be targets. In doing so, they are creating increasingly polarized enclaves and redrawing the sectarian map of Iraq, especially in Baghdad and the belt of cities around it.

The evidence is so far mostly anecdotal - the government is not tracking the moves. In a rough count, about 20 cities and towns around Baghdad are segregating, according to accounts by local sheiks, Iraqi

NOVEMBER 19, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH ADMINISTRATION MIX OF INCOMPETENCE AND LIES

The President of the United States and his administration make policy decisions that affect millions of lives around the globe. Whether those decisions involve economics, the environment, human rights, or issues of war and peace they have far reaching consequences. This country and the world cannot afford an administration that has a first instinct to lie, a first response to launch war, and a mind-boggling incompetence. Richard Cohen examines Bush and company in this column at www.washingtonpost.com:

At the moment, no one can have confidence in the Bush administration. It has shown itself inept in the run-up to the war and the conduct of it since. Almost three years into the war, the world is not safer, the Middle East is less stable, and Americans and others die for a mission that is not what it once was and cannot be what it now is called: a fight for democracy. It would be nice, as well as important, to know how we got into this mess -- nice for us, important for the president. It wasn't that he had the wrong facts. It was that the right ones didn't matter.

THE ELITE DISCONNECT

Whether willfully ignorant, or some combination of callousness and ignorance, the financial and political elites claim we have a "robust" economy. They spin the myth that the United States is the land of opportunity. If you strive here, you're told, you'll be a success. It simply isn't true. This article by Mary Pitt examines the disconnect by elitists such as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who proclaims from on high about how wonderful our economy is doing. The article is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

One ventures at one's peril to impugn the intelligence of such a sage as Mr. Greenspan but he can be excused if his brilliant mind is so consumed with the problems of the money supply that he can be forgiven for not being aware of the social issues involved in the present situation. When he sees the news of the rioting in France, he has not time to ponder the fact that it is caused by the desperation of the people as they suffer from lack of productive employment, the means to establish themselves in society, to provide for their families, and to overcome the ever-present racial discrimination. As the President travels to Argentina to help form the economic future of the two continents, he is met by demonstrations and similar riots as the Argentinian people are faced with the same problems.

The world over, the wealthy are reaping the profits of the labor of the poor while the working class sink more deeply into debt and desperation. While the powerful concentrate on the dangers of nuclear wars and a crashing world economy, they are neglecting to notice a much greater threat to their power and position. The unrest and growing desperation of the poor could cause a world-wide upheaval that would repeat history as demonstrated by the first American Revolution, the overthrow of the monarchy in France, the Communist takeover of Russia, and the South African rebellion which led to the changes in the political landscape there. Political changes are in the wind in every nation of the world as a more intelligent and better educated working class realize that a mere subsistence is not enough and they determine to gain their freedom and opportunities for a better life. Slavery, whether imposed by bond and whip or by starvation and neglect, will not long be tolerated by any living person so long as the breath of God stirs in his body.

NOVEMBER 18, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS WAR

George W. Bush has used a two-pronged attack to rebut critics of his disastrous war in Iraq. The first prong has been the tried and true pack of lies that Saddam Hussein presented a grave threat to the United States, that Saddam had terrorist connections, or that we're doing the Iraqis a big favor by taking out Saddam. The other prong is that Democrats who supported the war saw the same intelligence that Bush and his administration saw. That's a monstrous lie. Democrats should have been more skeptical of Bush. How can you observe this smirking little weasel, knowing his life history, and not be skeptical? Nevertheless, Democrats who voted for the war were doing so because they believed the country was in danger. Joe Conason writes about it in this column at www.workingforchange.com:

The Senate couldn’t know back then that the president and his national-security cabinet had been planning war against Iraq since early 2001. The Senate was not privy to all the same intelligence as the president, nor could its members have known how that information had been distorted and exaggerated by the influence of the vice president and other high White House officials. The Senate didn’t know, as the British intelligence chief learned, that the facts were being “fixed ” to build a case for war.

Without the firm imprimatur of Dick Cheney, no Senator could have claimed to know “without doubt” that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear program. Without the confident endorsement of Donald Rumsfeld, no Senator could have claimed to know “exactly” where the “weapons of mass destruction” were located. Without the jut-jawed insistence of Condi Rice, no Senator could have touted the uranium from Africa and the aluminum tubes that were supposed to make a nuke for Saddam.

It is pitiful indeed to hear the President now pretend that the responsibility for this deadly fiasco somehow falls equally on both parties and both branches of government. As far as the public is concerned, that debate is over—and his administration is guilty.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

The health care system in the United States is a disaster. First, millions of Americans have no health insurance at all. For people with health care, the costs are skyrocketing. If you lose your job, you also lose your health insurance. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, even decreed that a catastrophic health care crisis wasn't reason enough to get bankruptcy relief. In this article Robert Reich points out that the current system of employer-subsidized health care is a backdoor tax writeoff. Once again, the very richest people get most of the benefits. The article is at www.commondreams.org:

Think of employer-provided health care as a kind of back-door, $126 billion-a-year health insurance system. But what a bizarre system it is. First, you’re not eligible for it when you and your family are likely to need it the most – when you lose your job. And these days, that’s happening more and more. Employers are slashing their payrolls. No job is safe. Why add to employees’ anxieties by ending their health insurance just when they’re shown out the door?

Second, the system distorts the whole labor market. It prevents lots of people from changing jobs for fear they’ll lose their health insurance, or won’t get the benefits they do now. And it invites employers to game the system by seeking young, healthy employees who pose low risks of ill-health while rejecting older employees who are likely to have more costly health needs. It also encourages employers to try to push their married employees onto their spouse’s health insurance plan so that the spouse’s employer bears the cost.

Finally, the system is upside down. The lower your pay, the less coverage you’re likely to have. Workers in the lowest paying jobs have no health insurance at all. But the higher your pay, the more health coverage you get – with top executives getting gold-plated plans guaranteeing top-notch medical attention for just about every health risk you can imagine.

NOVEMBER 17, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH AND NIXON, WHAT A PAIR

Until George W. Bush came along Richard Nixon had the most corrupt administration in U.S. history. That other good Republican president, Warren G. Harding, had a few scandals, and so did Ronald Reagan. But Bush parallels Nixon in some eerie ways. This article by THOM SHANKER, DAVID STOUT
and JOHN FILES is at www.nytimes.com:

With an obvious resonance to current events, the National Archives and Records Administration released 50,000 pages of previously classified documents from the Nixon administration today that reveal how all that president's men wrestled with issues that eerily parallel problems facing the Bush administration.

There are many significant differences between the wars in Vietnam and in Iraq - a point that senior Bush administration officials make at any opportunity. But in tone and content, the Nixon-era debate about the impact of that generation's war - and of war crimes trials -- on public support for the military effort and for White House domestic initiatives strikes many familiar chords.

As the Nixon administration was waging a war and trying to impose a peace in South Vietnam, it worried intensively about how the 1968 massacre at My Lai by American troops would hurt the war effort, both at home and in Asia.

MORE RIGHT-WING LOGIC

Today's Fresno Bee features a letter attacking Senator Edward Kennedy for criticizing Bush's Iraq war. Our historian points out that JFK committed troops to Vietnam without an exit strategy. Let's see, that was over forty years ago. JFK also didn't launch a full-scale invasion of Vietnam. He sent the initial troop deployment to Vietnam, it's true, but there is much evidence he was going to withdraw from Vietnam. His murder prevented that from happening. Using our right-winger's logic, if you ever had anyone in your family guilty of murder, then you can't criticize murderers. If you have a drunk driver in the family, you can't criticize drunk drivers. If your ancestors owned slaves, then you just can't criticize slavery. George W. Bush should have learned some lessons from Vietnam, which he obviously did not. Senator Kennedy has to speak to things the way they are in 2005. He has to represent his constituency in Massachusetts and a national constituency opposed to this vile war. I'm sure JFK would agree.

BOB WOODWARD AND THE PLAME LEAK

It seems that famed Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward was privy to information about Valerie Plame's status two years ago, but Woodward never disclosed that information to his editor. Woodward's excuse was that he was afraid of having to testify before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury. Never mind that this leak was illegal, compromised U.S. intelligence, and has possibly cost lives. Never mind that this leak was a part of the whole package of lies leading us into an unnecessary war in Iraq. Woodward has fallen a long way from his days an investigative reporter in the Watergate scandal. This article by Howard Kurtz is at www.washingtonpost.com:

The belated revelation that Woodward has been sitting on information about the Plame controversy reignited questions about his unique relationship with The Post while he writes books with unparalleled access to high-level officials, and about why Woodward denigrated the Fitzgerald probe in television and radio interviews while not divulging his own involvement in the matter.

"It just looks really bad," said Eric Boehlert, a Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of a forthcoming book on the administration and the press. "It looks like what people have been saying about Bob Woodward for the past five years, that he's become a stenographer for the Bush White House."

NOVEMBER 16, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

RIGHT-WING PBS CHIEF BROKE LAW REPEATEDLY

Kenneth Tomlinson, who stepped down as head of PBS, was found to have repeatedly broken federal law in his efforts to turn PBS into a version of FOX News. That's according to a report by the PBS inspector general. It's not enough that right-wingers already own almost all the media in this country. They put "journalists" like Armstrong Williams on the payroll. They have propagandists like Judith Miller masquerading as reporters. They blow hot air all over the AM airwaves with people like Limbaugh and Hannity. They have the repulsive Bill O'Reilly on television advocating a terrorist attack on San Francisco (when he's not sexually harassing women or writing porn). This story by Stephen Labaton is at www.nytimes.com:

Investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting concluded today that its former chairman repeatedly broke federal law and its own regulations in a campaign to combat what he saw as liberal bias.

A scathing report by the corporation's inspector general described a dysfunctional organization that violated the Public Broadcasting Act, which created the corporation and was written to insulate programming decisions from politics.

BUSH TACTICS OF SMEAR AND FEAR

With his approval ratings melting down and scandals exploding like Fourth of July fireworks, George W. Bush and his attack dogs are trying to change the focus. The disaster in Iraq isn't Bush's fault, you see. Poor George was misled by faulty intelligence and,besides, those nasty Democrats saw the same intelligence and voted for the war. So there! The truth is that the Democrats didn't see the same intelligence that Bush saw. The intelligence Bush provided to Congress conveniently left out facts that didn't support the administration case. To demonstrate how little credibility Bush has, just remember how Bush claimed Saddam Hussein wouldn't allow U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraq. That is demonstrably false. In this article Robert Parry looks at the real history, not the Bush version. This is at www.consortiumnews.com:

At Consortiumnews.com, we questioned Bush’s claims about Iraq’s WMD in 2002 as well as the wishful thinking underlying his invasion strategy in 2003. [See, for instance, “Misleading the Nation to War” and “Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down.”]

But we also have noted that perhaps the strongest evidence of Bush’s proclivity to lie about Iraq came after the invasion, when he began falsifying the record – rewriting history – with claims that Saddam Hussein had barred U.N. weapons inspectors from entering Iraq. Hussein’s “defiance” supposedly left Bush no choice but to invade.

So, while it may be impossible to divine whether Bush really believed that Hussein had WMD stockpiles, it is undeniable that Bush knew that his assertion about Hussein barring U.N. inspectors was false. The inspectors returned to Iraq in November 2002 and remained until they were forced out by Bush in March 2003 to let the invasion proceed.

BUSH'S TAX CUTS HAVEN'T PRODUCED BETTER ECONOMY

One of the great myths right-wingers parroted after Ronald Reagan's administration was what a rousing success Reagan's tax cuts for the rich were. The economy just bopped along, according to them. In reality, the economy didn't produce much at all in really good jobs, but we did get huge deficits. Right-wingers promised the apocalypse when Bill Clinton wanted to raise taxes on the wealthy, and we had an economy so successful we were creating budget surpluses. Along came George W. Bush and more tax cuts for the rich and we have mountainous deficits, lousy jobs, stagnant wages, and red ink as far as the eye can see. In this column Molly Ivins talks about the right-wing love affair with tax cuts for the rich. The column is at www.alternet.org:

Lee Price of the Economic Policy Institute points out: "The fact that all major economic indicators are higher today than in early 2001 does not mean the tax cuts have been beneficial. Since the Great Depression, the resilient U.S. economy has always had gains over such four-year periods. The appropriate question to ask is: How well has the economy performed compared to similar periods in the past? If the last four years of tax cuts had worked as promised, the economy should have done better than in previous cycles, when taxes were either not cut or cut much less." We all down for that?

Unfortunately, the EPI concludes, "By virtually every measure, the economy has performed worse in this business cycle than was typical of past ones, including that of the 1990s, which saw major tax increases."

NOVEMBER 15, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

ARNIE'S TRAVELING COMPANIONS

After getting drubbed in last week's election, Governor Groper is in China to supposedly open up Chinese markets for California goods. It's interesting, though, to look at the people accompanying Arnie to China, the usual coterie of high bucks contributors to his campaigns. Right-wingers, who love power and graft, don't have a problem with this, of course, but the rest of us should. This article by Jamie Court is at www.latimes.com:

GOV. ARNOLD Schwarzenegger is making a high-profile trade trip to China this week. It's supposed to benefit you and me by opening up Chinese markets for California goods. But the guest list is a dead giveaway: Of the 80 businessmen, government officials and others accompanying the governor, about two dozen are big-bucks Schwarzenegger supporters who have together contributed more than $2.5 million to his campaign committees.

REPUBS STIFF 9/11 GROUND ZERO WORKERS

The Republican led Congress is stripping $125 million that had been promised to ground zero workers in New York on 9/11. We know that the EPA, under Christine Todd Whitman, lied about the contaminants in the area of the downed World Trade Center. Many of the firemen and others who responded on 9/11 and the days after are suffering ill health from exposure to toxic substances. Bush liked to use firemen as props for his photo-op when he broke out the bullhorn, but we have other priorities now--things like tax cuts for the rich. This article by Devlin Barrett is at news.yahoo.com:

Congressional budget negotiators have decided to take back $125 million in Sept. 11 aid from New York, which had fought to keep the money to treat sick and injured ground zero workers, lawmakers said Tuesday.

New York officials had sought for months to hold onto the funding, originally meant to cover increased worker compensation costs stemming from the 2001 terror attacks.

But a massive labor and health spending bill moving fitfully through House-Senate negotiations would take back that funding, lawmakers said.

BUSH IS REWRITING HISTORY

In two recent speeches George W. Bush has charged that his critics are "rewriting history." Bush's insinuation is that members of Congress voted for the war based on the same intelligence that he, Bush, saw, and that now those same Democrats are charging the administration with misleading Congress and the American people. But the evidence shows that Bush did not share the same intelligence he saw with members of Congress. The administration left out intelligence that didn't support its case. He also doesn't mention that the rush to war was just prior to midterm elections when the issue wouldn't get the attention it properly deserved. This column by E. J. Dionne is at www.workingforchange.com:

The bad faith of Bush's current argument is staggering. He wants to say that the “more than a hundred Democrats in the House and Senate” who “voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power” thereby gave up their right to question his use of intelligence forever after. But he does not want to acknowledge that he forced the war vote to take place under circumstances that guaranteed the minimum amount of reflection and debate, and that opened anyone who dared question his policies to charges, right before an election, that they were soft on Saddam.

By linking the war on terror to a partisan war against Democrats, Bush undercut his capacity to lead the nation in this fight. And by resorting to partisan attacks again last week, Bush only reminded us of the shameful circumstances in which the whole thing started.

NOVEMBER 14, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

PRESIDENT CARTER ON THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

Former President Jimmy Carter is a honorable man, and I think his presidency has often been unfairly maligned. President Carter endeavored to expand human rights; George W. Bush is taking away rights. President Carter respected the environment; George W. Bush thinks the environment is something to be exploited by big corporations. President Carter sought peace by peaceful means; George W. Bush is the world's preeminent bully and has killed thousands of innocent civilians. This article by President Carter is at www.commondreams.org:

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.

Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top U.S. leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.

These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.

BUSH IS LYING AGAIN

The Bush administration is busily trying to trash anti-war critics by claiming that Democrats who question the war are "rewriting history" or are "irresponsible." The Bushies are in a particular snit about charges they misled the nation into war. I believe the evidence is clear and without doubt that Bush misled the country into war. That is a lot of what is driving the Valerie Plame leak scandal. Bush and company wanted to push the idea that Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear weapon. They claimed that Hussein was trying to buy yellowcake from Niger for making that weapon. Joseph Wilson found no evidence supporting that claim. That threw a serious monkey wrench into Bush's war plans. To get revenge against Ambassador Wilson, they outed his wife as a CIA agent. We also have the Downing Street Memos showing that the administration was "fixing" intelligence. We have the record of PNAC, closely associated with Bush, beating the drum for war years before 9/11. In this column David Corn looks at Bush's Veterans Day speech and the lies therein. The column is at www.commondreams.org. Bush said:

Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

This is not the full and accurate explanation of the controversy at hand. The issue of whether the Bush administration misled the nation in the run-up to the war has two components. The first is the production of the intelligence related to WMDs and the supposed al Qaeda-Sadam connection. The second is how the Bush crowd represented the intelligence to the public when trying to make the case for war. As for the first, the Senate intelligence committee report did say the committee had found no evidence of political pressure. But Democratic members of the committee and others challenged this finding. Several committee Democrats pointed to a CIA independent review on the prewar intelligence, conducted by a panel led by Richard Kerr, former deputy director of the CIA . . .

THE DAYS OF WHINE AND ROSES

It's semi-entertaining to read the right-wing letters to the editor of The Fresno Bee after the trouncing their boy Arnold took last week. We hear that the unions "bought" the election. Never mind all the corporate money Arnie used to get the propositions on the ballot and to air the multitude of ads on TV. We hear the propositions described as "common sense"; common sense if you believe in a dictator maybe. We've also got sackcloth and ashes over the failure of proposition 73, which would have eroded freedom of choice. Proponents of minor girls having to give parental notification don't consider that many of these pregnancies are thanks to a parent or stepparent or male relative. We've seen an avalanche of disasters, our lives getting progressively worse thanks to conservatives, so I glad Californians woke up last week.

DOUG THOMPSON ON BUSH'S VETERANS DAY SPEECH

The vitriolic speech George W. Bush gave on Veterans Day was a classless act by a man without class. A man who started an unnecessary war used the occasion of Veterans Day to slam his critics, not acknowledging the sacrifice made by so many in the military under false pretenses. Doug Thompson says it pretty well in this column at www.smirkingchimp.com:

He has, without blinking an eye, sent more than 2,000 American military men and women, along with countless thousands of Iraqi civilians, to their deaths in a senseless invasion based on manufactured "evidence" and outright lies.

Then he has the gall to stand up on the day we set aside to honor those who served and continue to promote his lies and call those who see the truth traitors who aid the enemy.

Sorry George. Your lies don't play here or with the majority of American citizens. It is you who has sold out your country, who is a traitor and who has committed treason against your office, your country and humanity.

God may one day forgive you for your sins but I cannot. Neither can the wives, husbands, parents and relatives of those you sent to die in your dirty little war. Neither can memories of those who served, those we honored on Veterans Day and those whose memory you so callously dishonored with your propagandist pap.

NOVEMBER 13, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

PETULANT BUSH MAKES FOOL OF HIMSELF

I don't consider George W. Bush to be my president. He got into office the first time by stealing the election. He probably stole the 2004 election as well. But if I did consider him my president I would be mortified for my country. The man's constant display of snottiness and arrogance and just plain bad manners is appalling. George wasn't happy about staying up past his bedtime on his recent trip to South America. Then he didn't want to attend all the meetings the next day because he had already spent too much time at the state dinner the previous evening. This item comes from www.ostroyreport.blogspot.com:

Poor President Bush. Over the weekend he was an American fish out of water trapped in an Argentinean nightmare. During the first-leg of his four-day Latin America trip for a trade summit with Western Hemisphere leaders, Bush, normally fed by 7 and in his Doctor Dentons by 9pm and in dreamland shortly thereafter, was at the mercy of his foreign hosts who kept him out till--get this--12:40am Saturday. As is the culture in Latin America and Europe, for example, dinner isn't typically served until at least 10pm. To say Bush was a bit miffed would be an understatement. As such, his aides announced that he'd of course be attending the next day's session, but would miss the scheduled two-hour lunch with these same leaders because of "time served" the night before. An early exit was planned to get Bush on Air Force One by 4:05 to get to his next destination, Brazil.

RIGHT-WING PORN WRITERS

For all the talk of "family values" and the rest of their psuedo-religious schmaltz, prominent Republicans love to write porn. Lynne Cheney, Dick's wife, wrote a torrid lesbian love novel. Newt Gingrich wrote a sleazy novel. The newly-indicted Lewis Libby wrote a thoroughly disgusting novel about a young girl being raped by a bear. Bill O'Reilly, that friend of San Francisco terrorism, wrote a putrid novel about young girls on crack giving oral sex to their provider. The list is extensive. This article by David Rossie is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Consider the GOP gallery of purple prose purveyors:

William Safire, Newt Gingrich, Lynne Cheney, G. Gordon Liddy, William Buckley and Kenneth Starr. And let's not forget Bill O'Reilly, whose unwanted phone sex messages to a female colleague cost him a bundle in an out-of-court settlement.

Some might argue that it is unfair to include Starr in that crowd, but not if they read the pious pornographer's report of his investigation of the Clintons' involvement in Whitewater and Just Plain Bill's sordid romp with Monica Lewinsky and sundry others. According to Lauren Collins, writing in The New Yorker, in 1998 the Starr Report was nominated for consideration in the bad fictional sex writing contest that Britain's Literary Review holds each year.

RESULTS OF RIGHT-WING WAR ON GOVERNMENT

Ronald Reagan once observed that government was the problem and not the solution, conveniently forgetting that government helped out his own family during the Great Depression. Right-wingers have consistently demonized government, saying that government can't do anything right, and once they are in power right-wingers make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. The United States had its greatest prosperity and progress in the years following World War II until the Nixon presidency. Since that time we have seen more right-wing control and influence of the government, and the standard of living for most Americans has declined. This article by Robert Steinback is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

It has been 25 years since Ronald Reagan declared war on the federal government, and five since President Bush and the extremist neo-conservatives took power intending to finish the job.

Is America better off? Are you?

The ranks of the poor are growing. Good jobs are fleeing overseas. Real wages have stagnated, personal debt is climbing and bankruptcies are soaring. Millions more Americans -- children in particular -- are without health coverage. Public schools are gasping for air. The rich are vastly richer -- but sharply higher fuel, tuition, insurance, health care and housing costs, to name just a few, have crippled middle-class progress.

The federal budget -- finally balanced just a few years ago -- is hemorrhaging red ink by the trillions, a burden we've callously dumped on our grandchildren.

NOVEMBER 12, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH REPEATING THE SAME OLD LIES

In his asinine Veterans Day speech George W. Bush attacked critics of his bloody war and claimed that members of Congress who voted for the war had the same intelligence as the administration. That's an outright lie. The intelligence Bush gave to Congress was misleading, inaccurate, or outright false. This item comes from www.thinkprogress.org:

In his speech today, President Bush claimed that members of Congress who voted for the 2002 Iraq war resolution “had access to the same intelligence” as his administration. This is patently false.

Nevermind that much of the intelligence offered to the public and to Congress was inaccurate and misleading, or that according to the Downing Street memo and other documents, such intelligence was likely intentionally “fixed.” It is simply not true to state that Congress received the “same intelligence” as the White House:

FACT — Dissent From White House Claims on Iraq Nuclear Program Consistently Withheld from Congress:

[S]everal Congressional and intelligence officials with access to the 15 assessments [of intel suggesting aluminum tubes showed Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program] said not one of them informed senior policy makers of the Energy Department’s dissent. They described a series of reports, some with ominous titles, that failed to convey either the existence or the substance of the intensifying debate.” [NYT, 10/3/04]

FAILURE OF U.S. ECONOMIC PLANNING

For years now we've heard the virtues of free trade expounded by the political and financial elites. Globalization is a great thing, we're told. There are those vast untapped markets out there and globalization means prosperity for everyone. Well, not quite. We've seen countless jobs exported to other countries and the U.S. standard of living continues to fall as we lose our manufacturing capacity. Service sector jobs don't pay good wages. We have record balance of trade deficits. Other countries, such as India and China, are beginning to develop highly-skilled and highly-educated work forces. In this interview Clyde Prestowitz talks about the cloud hanging over the U.S. economy. The interview is at www.motherjones.com:

Over the last 30 or 40 years we also began to create a global economy. That meant this mass market suddenly became available to other countries. The unique economy of scale that was available only to American producers was available to producers in other countries. And there’s nothing wrong with that; it certain served US consumers. But unless US producers were going to get the same kind of open markets abroad that the foreigners were getting here, then over a period of time there was going to be a disadvantage. In fact, foreign markets weren’t nearly as open as US markets, and to some extent the advantages of economies of scale shifted. If you were a Japanese producer you now had access to the Japanese market and the US market. But US producers didn’t have the same kind of access to the Japanese market. The rest of the world, particularly Asia, developed a growth strategy based on high investment, which requires high saving, and excess production, which meant export-led growth. So while the US was building a consumption machine—via, for example, home equity loans, credit card solicitations, and numerous tax incentives to consume—the rest of the world, particularly Asia, was building a production machine.

JOHN TIERNEY: GLOBALIZATION SHILL

I haven't read John Tierney's columns in The New York Times, but it doesn't sound like I've missed much. Tierney is of one of the elites trumpeting the wonders of globalization and taking shots at leaders such as Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who is not properly on board. Tierney's evidently likes to cite the accomplishments of Chile, once under the brutal regime of Augusto Pinochet, and Pinochet's aggressive pro-market approach to government. In this column Amitabh Pal analyzes Tierney's analysis. The column is at www.progressive.org:

Tierney paints a study in contrast between Venezuela and Chile, writing that in Venezuela, “poverty rate has risen above 50 percent,” allegedly due to Hugo Chavez’s failed policies, while “the poverty rate has declined sharply in Chile, to about 20 percent,” supposedly due to its adoption of free-market principles.

But as Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic Policy Research points out, Venezuela’s poverty rate is not quite an indictment of Hugo Chavez’s statist approach. “From 1970-1998 per capita income in Venezuela fell by 35 percent,” Weisbrot writes. “Since the present government took office, per capita income growth is about flat, and will likely be positive at year's end.”

Weisbrot also points out that rapid growth (17.8 percent) over 2004 will quite likely produce very different poverty rates in the near future, and that “there has been a significant improvement in the lives of the poor—the majority of Venezuelans—in terms of access to health care and other services, as well as subsidized food.”

NOVEMBER 11, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

O'REILLY FAVORS TERRORISM AGAINST SAN FRANCISCO

Right-wing moron Bill O'Reilly didn't like the way San Francisco voted this past Tuesday when voters supported banning guns, so O'Reilly said he didn't care if terrorists blew up the Coit Tower. What a disgraceful example of a human being this guy is. This story by Joe Garofoli is at www.sfgate.com:

Conservative talk-show host Bill O'Reilly is ready to scratch San Francisco off the map of the United States. Gone. Coit Tower? Terrorists can blow it up, and the rest of the country shouldn't care.

The Fox News talk-show host and one-man conservative media juggernaut has concluded that the United States and San Francisco just don't go together anymore. Voting to oppose military recruitment in public schools and to ban handgun ownership, as San Franciscans did Tuesday, means the city should be cut off from federal dollars. And then some.

THE INCREDIBLY BAD PRESCRIPTION DRUG PLAN

The new prescription drug plan rammed through by the Republicans is a disaster for people who need the coverage. It seems good at first. But at a certain point it doesn't cover any drug costs. Then after a person pays thousands in out of pocket expenses the coverage kicks in again. It's designed to hammer people who have to buy a lot of prescription drugs. Paul Krugman writes about it in this column linked at www.topplebush.com:

Once you recognize that the drug benefit is a purely political exercise that wasn't supposed to serve its ostensible purpose, the absurdities in the program make sense. For example, the bill offers generous coverage to people with low drug costs, who have the least need for help, so lots of people will get small checks in the mail and think they're being treated well.

Meanwhile, the people who are actually likely to need a lot of help paying their drug expenses were deliberately offered a very poor benefit. According to a report issued along with the final version of the bill, people are prohibited from buying supplemental insurance to cover the doughnut hole to keep beneficiaries from becoming "insensitive to costs" - that is, buying too much medicine because they don't pay the price.

MR. ANTI-CHOICE STRIKES AGAIN

The guy I called Mr. Anti-Choice wrote another letter to The Fresno Bee. This time he was extolling the virtues of Bush's new Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito. According to Mr. A-C, we've been on a moral slide since the Roe v. Wade decision. He calls the decision "bad law." I would point out that most of that 40 year span has been under Republican administrations, none of whom made a serious effort to overturn Roe. Why not? Most Americans believe in freedom of choice and overturning Roe will set off a political firestorm. It could very well spell the end of the Republican party as a viable force for decades. Mr. A-C is undyingly faithful to a church with pedophile priests and to an administration that tortures and murders people. That's what I call a "moral slide."

BUSH IS DESTROYING THE MILITARY

George W. Bush loves his photo-ops with the military. We all remember the stunt of landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and unctuously proclaiming that major combat operations in Iraq were over. How many thousand maimed and destroyed bodies was that ago? The Bush administration thought they could win the war in Iraq with minimal troop support, minimal supply support, and with no exit plan. Now we have a bloody nightmare with no end in sight and members of the military and National Guard are conscripted to do tour after tour. Bob Herbert writes about the strain on the military in this column at www.topplebush.com:

But the problems of the military go far beyond the casualty figures coming out of the war zone. The Army, for example, has been stretched so taut since the Sept. 11 attacks, especially by the fiasco in Iraq, that it's become like a rubber band that may snap at any moment.

President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld convinced themselves that they could win the war in Iraq on the cheap. They never sent enough troops to do the job. Now the burden of trying to fight a long and bitter war with too few troops is taking a terrible toll on the men and women in uniform.

Last December, the top general in the Army Reserve warned that his organization was "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force" because of the Pentagon's "dysfunctional" policies and demands placed on the Reserve by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

NOVEMBER 10, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH'S NEFARIOUS FINANCES

The GOP was gung ho about investigating Bill Clinton for the Whitewater land deal in which he lost money. You wonder why they're not as enthused about investigating George W. Bush's dealings with the Texas Rangers baseball club. Bush invested around $600,000 and walked off with $14 million. Part of the road to riches involved the use of eminent domain to grab up land to build the new baseball stadium for the Rangers. This article by the Pensito Review is at www.pensitoreview.com:

Last week we reported that when he was an owner of the Texas Rangers George W. Bush used eminent domain to seize private property in Arlington, Texas, in order to build a baseball stadium. Less than ten years later, when he was governor of Texas, Bush sold his interest in the Rangers and profited over $14 million.

Since then, we have learned that there is much more to this story. First, it appears that Mr. Bush evaded paying sufficient taxes on the sale. Second - and, more significantly - he appears to have illegally used political influence as governor of Texas to increase the value of his share - actions that mirror the activities of an Illinois governor who was convicted of income tax fraud for influencing public policy that benefited his holdings in a race track .

WHEN THE WAR BECOMES LOCAL

This is a piece by Jimmy Breslin, who I believe has retired. I miss his commentaries, but I appreciate the ones he still writes. He talks about New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Bloomberg claiming that the Iraq war isn't local. Breslin points out that when any local kid dies in the war it becomes local. This column is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

If the kid who gets killed is local, then - the war is local.

This war continues without an official protest that would call out the will of the people of the City of New York and might count in a nation that by now realizes it has been the victim of a president who is a fake and a fraud and a shill and a sham and now is going around with the blind staggers.

Only the other night, in a television appearance with the opponent, Ferrer, Bloomberg was asked about withdrawing troops from Iraq and - heavens! - you can't do that. Why, that would mean that New York's fallen military would have died in vain. And why you could never say that about the three or four who would be killed on the day after that, and tomorrow and tomorrow.

THE BARBARISM IN FALLUJA

I think of a quote from Nobel Laureate Albert Camus that says something to the effect, "I would like to love my country, and also love what is right." I believe in the United States that is represented in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What is stated in those documents represents the highest ideals and aspirations, not only of Americans, but of the human race. It is heartbreaking and enraging to realize the crimes the Bush administration, in our name, committed against the people of Falluja. The U.S. military cut off food and water, which is a war crime. Our forces bombed the city constantly. We used the vile substance known as white phosphorus. We killed countless women and children. This story by Mike Marqusee is at www.guardian.co.uk:

One year ago this week, US-led occupying forces launched a devastating assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja. The mood was set by Lt Col Gary Brandl: "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him."

The assault was preceded by eight weeks of aerial bombardment. US troops cut off the city's water, power and food supplies, condemned as a violation of the Geneva convention by a UN special rapporteur, who accused occupying forces of "using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population". Two-thirds of the city's 300,000 residents fled, many to squatters' camps without basic facilities.

NOVEMBER 9, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

THE REPUBLICAN SPIN ON THE ELECTION

For the most part Republicans took a drubbing in the off year elections yesterday, but they claim it has nothing do with disaffection with George W. Bush. It's probably coincidence that Bush has lousy poll numbers, that his integrity is being questioned, that the economy is staggering along, that we're mired in bloody Iraq, and that Republicans lost all across the nation. This story by Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey is at www.msnbc.msn.com:

The day after the election, White House aides said Kilgore’s defeat had no connection with national politics. “I don’t think any thorough analysis of the election results will show that the elections were decided on anything other than local and state issues and the candidates and their agendas,” press secretary Scott McClellan said on Wednesday. But that begs the question: why did the president travel to Richmond at all on Monday?

Another line of attack is to suggest that Kaine wasn’t really a Democrat. “In Virginia, for instance, you had a candidate, Democratic candidate for governor who ran on a conservative platform,” McClellan explained, “a platform that was very much out of line with the Democratic National Party.” That may be true. But that’s also what the Democrats said about Bush as he ran for the presidency in 2000. Besides, it’s politically irrelevant. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, is conservative by many Democratic standards--but he’s still a thorn in the side of the administration.

REPUBLICANS ARE CALLOUS AND CORRUPT

Roman Emperors like Nero and Caligula would probably feel at home in today's Republican party. It's a party dedicated to bankrupting the government by slashing taxes for the rich and slashing programs for the poor and the middle class because of all those nasty deficits that result. In effect, Republicans say you really don't count in this country unless you have a big bank account. It doesn't matter that you work hard, obey the law, and try to live up to what is moral and right. You don't deserve better because you aren't rich. This story by Joe Conason is at www.workingforchange.com:

Unmoved by the plight of the poor -- who are growing poorer and hungrier, according to the latest government data -- Congressional leaders last week decided that the best way to pare spending is to reduce the number of families that qualify for food stamps. A bill passed by the House Agriculture Committee on Oct. 28 would make roughly 300,000 Americans ineligible to receive food stamps and cut the program by about $850 million over the next five years.

The fiscal impact of all those cuts will be negligible, especially compared with the subsidies that these same Christian gentlemen insist on providing to energy, agribusiness and other major interests. But these gratuitous acts of unkindness will surely harm the unfortunate children who have less to eat as a result.

By lovely coincidence, the Department of Agriculture released a report the same day showing that the number of people who went hungry last year increased by more than half a million. If anything, those statistics suggest that Congress should be expanding rather than diminishing the food-stamp program. The spectacle of Dennis Hastert, the extra-portly House Speaker, and his well-nourished caucus taking food away from the poor while bragging about their budgetary prowess is beyond disgusting.

WAS WHITE PHOSPHORUS USED IN FALLUJAH?

An Italian documentary provides evidence that the U.S. used white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah last year. White phosphorus is horrific. When it gets onto the skin it burns and burns, melting skin all the way to the bone. The Italian documentary shows pictures of civilians apparently burned by white phosphorus attacks. This stuff shouldn't be used against any targets, military or civilian. This story by Andrew Buncombe is linked at www.commondreams.org:

A leading campaign group has demanded an urgent inquiry into a report that US troops indiscriminately used a controversial incendiary weapon during the battle for Fallujah. Photographic evidence gathered from the aftermath of the battle suggests that women and children were killed by horrific burns caused by the white phosphorus shells dropped by US forces.

The Pentagon has always admitted it used phosphorus during last year's assault on the city, which US commanders said was an insurgent stronghold. But they claimed they used the brightly burning shells "very sparingly" and only to illuminate combat areas.

But the documentary Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre, broadcast yesterday by the Italian state broadcaster, RAI, suggested the shells were commonly used and killed an unspecified number of civilians. Photographs obtained by RAI from the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, show the bodies of dozens of Fallujah residents whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised by the effects of the phosphorus shells. The use of incendiary weapons against civilian targets is banned by treaty.

NOVEMBER 8, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

THE BLACK CLOUD FOLLOWING BUSH

The Bush administration has been so corrupt and done so many things wrong it amazes me it took so long for the public to turn against it. Now Bush has dug himself quite a hole, and there's no escaping. The rest of the world already disdained Bush, and now he's not popular here at home either. But the incompetence of the Bush administration has a real cost in human lives. Thousands are dead or maimed thanks to these power-hungry fools. Bob Herbert writes about the awful reality that is the Iraq war in this column linked at www.topplebush.com:

The ominous news of the president's plummeting approval ratings followed him like a dark cloud. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found that Mr. Bush has never been less popular with the public. On nearly every important measure of character and performance, he was given lower marks than ever before. For the first time, according to the poll, a majority of Americans even questioned the president's integrity. And fully 55 percent of respondents to a new USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll said they believe the Bush administration has been a failure.

The fact that Mr. Bush is struggling in his own political purgatory (for the sin of incompetence) is bad news for the soldiers in Iraq, where the suffering and dying continues unabated. The administration that was so anxious to throw scores of thousands of healthy young Americans into the flames of war now has no idea how to get them out.

Troops are being sent into Iraq for two, three, even four combat tours by an administration in which clowns like Scooter Libby and Karl Rove were playing games with the identity of a C.I.A. agent, and the vice president has been obsessed with his twisted protect-the-torturers campaign.

A GOVERNMENT THIS BAD

A New York Times editorial states that the rest of the world can't handle a government this bad. I agree to that point. Then the Times editorialist posits some suggestions for turning things around, such as keeping Dick Cheney busy with meaningless state functions like attending funerals. The best thing the Bush administration could do for this country and the rest of the world is resign enmasse. This editorial is at www.nytimes.com:

After President Bush's disastrous visit to Latin America, it's unnerving to realize that his presidency still has more than three years to run. An administration with no agenda and no competence would be hard enough to live with on the domestic front. But the rest of the world simply can't afford an American government this bad for that long.

WAL-MART AND PUBLIC SUBSIDIES

Wal-Mart tries to destroy unions, pays its employees lousy wages, breaks labor law on a regular basis, and destroys small business almost everywhere it goes. Now we learn that Wal-Mart is only too glad to stand at the trough and collect taxpayer subsidies. Everyone should stop buying at Wal-Mart. This story by Greg LeRoy is at www.alternet.org:

The phenomenal growth of the world's largest corporation has been supported by taxpayers in many states through economic development subsidies. A Wal-Mart official once stated that the company seeks subsidies in about a third of its stores, suggesting that more than 1,100 of its U.S. stores are subsidized. A national survey by Good Jobs First in 2004 looked at 160 stores and all of the company's distribution centers -- and found that more than 90 percent of them have been subsidized. Altogether, 244 subsidized facilities in 35 states received taxpayer deals of more than $1 billion.

The economic impact of these subsidies on small businesses is given a human face in one powerful segment of Robert Greenwald's new documentary, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price." The sweetheart deals given to two Wal-Mart Supercenters in Hamilton, Missouri undermined Red Esry's four family-owned grocery stores. Esry watched his sales plunge as soon as the Supercenters opened -- he couldn't compete with Wal-Mart's prices and lost almost half of his business virtually overnight.

NOVEMBER 7, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

TERMINATE THE GROPER'S INITIATIVES

November 8 is the special election that Governor Groper wanted to get some pet right-wing initiatives on the ballot. So far the polls show he will lose, and let's hope that comes to pass. Arnold has attacked working class people since he participated in the coup that got him into the Governor's mansion. He attacked former Governor Gray Davis for fund raising, but has raised even more money from corporate interests than Davis did. He once, although denying it, had presidential aspirations. Let's terminate the Groper's political rise tomorrow. This story by John M. Broder is at www.nytimes.com:

A startling change has come over California's larger-than-life governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as voters prepare to head to the polls on Tuesday for an unpopular statewide election. His television advertisements have taken on an uncharacteristic tone of humility. And ordinary people, no longer awed by his Olympian persona, are openly challenging him in public.

The four ballot measures Mr. Schwarzenegger supports are trailing in the polls, and his re-election prospects next year appear, for now, to be dimming. His approval ratings are in a tailspin, and his stage presence has been drained of much of its bombast and bluster.

FOR ROVE, ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER SCANDAL

For years and years Karl Rove got away with smearing political opponents and pulling all kinds of dirty tricks that no one could effectively pin on him. But Karl overreached with the Valerie Plame leak. And now he is implicated in yet another scandal involving the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Right-winger Kenneth Tomlinson resigned as head of PBS after trying to turn PBS into another version of FOX News. Tomlinson and Rove have been chummy for years, so you have to wonder if Rove was up his old tricks in trying to destroy PBS. This story by Andrew Gumbel and Andrew Buncombe is at news.independent.co.uk:

Karl Rove, still under investigation for his alleged role in leaking the identity of an undercover CIA agent, faced possible implication in further scandal yesterday after the resignation of an ally accused of misusing public broadcasting funds for partisan political purposes.

Kenneth Tomlinson, a friend of the powerful presidential adviser for a decade, was forced to resign on Thursday as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), where he set out to correct what he saw as liberal media bias. An internal report found he had overreached in those ambitions.

A REAL LIFE VICTIM OF FBI SURVELLIANCE

Doug Thompson writes for the online publication Capitol Hill Blue. He recently learned that he was one of those people on whom the FBI has been collecting information under provisions of the PATRIOT Act. The law gives the FBI the authority to collect and share data about people not even suspected of wrongdoing. Almost anyone can become a "person of interest." Mr. Thompson was spotted taking photos. This article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

According to a printout from a computer controlled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice, I am an enemy of the state.

The printout, shown to me recently by a friend who works for Justice, identifies me by a long, multi-digit number, lists my date of birth, place of birth, social security number and contains more than 100 pages documenting what the Bureau and the Bush Administration consider to be my threats to the security of the United States of America.

It lists where I sent to school, the name and address of the first wife that I had been told was dead but who is alive and well and living in Montana, background information on my current wife and details on my service to my country that I haven't even revealed to my wife or my family.

NOVEMBER 6, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

FBI'S INVASIVE "NATIONAL SECURITY LETTERS"

The FBI is using a provision from the PATRIOT ACT that allows them to snoop on Americans on the slightest pretext. They're allowed to gather and store private information without authorization from any court. That information can be shared throughout the government and even with private entities. This just screams "unconstitutional" to me. It's the kind of thing totalitarian governments do. This story by Barton Gellman is at www.washingtonpost.com:

The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.

Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.

7 MILLION MORE HUNGRY UNDER BUSH

When the government starts spouting statistics about GDP or job growth maybe they should start adding statistics about the number of poor and hungry in the United States. In this, the richest country the world, where billionaires frolic, seven million more people joined the ranks of the hungry the last five years. Bush and company can find money for their unjustified wars, giving no-bid contracts to corrupt companies, and tax cuts to their rich buddies, but they allow people to go hungry. This story from Brandeis University is at www.sciencedaily.com:

Hunger in American households has risen by 43 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data released today. The analysis, completed by the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University, shows that more than 7 million people have joined the ranks of the hungry since 1999.

The USDA report, Household Food Security in the United States, 2004, says that 38.2 million Americans live in households that suffer directly from hunger and food insecurity, including nearly 14 million children. That figure is up from 31 million Americans in 1999.

"This is an unexpected and even stunning outcome," noted center director Dr. J. Larry Brown, a leading scholarly authority on domestic hunger. "This chronic level of hunger so long after the recession ended means that it is a man-made problem. Congress and the White House urgently need to address growing income inequality and the weakening of the safety net in order to get this epidemic under control." According to the Center on Hunger and Poverty, food insecurity increased by nearly a million households from 2003 to 2004. Rates of hunger increased in almost every single category of household during the same time, with single mothers and those living in or near poverty continuing to suffer from severely high rates of both food insecurity and hunger.

MISUSING THE WORD "LIBERAL"

A few weeks ago in the place where I work the discussion turned to talk radio. But people were only talking about right-wing radio in the mode of Limbaugh and Hannity. I thought it would be a good idea to suggest Randi Rhodes, the firebrand host on Air America, who is far more truthful and more entertaining than any right-wingers. One woman pipes up, "No, I don't like liberals." Since this is a job where no one makes any money, the very epitome of what is wrong with right-wing governance, it makes me wonder if people understand that liberals are responsible for things like the eight-hour day, the 40-hour week, getting paid for overtime, health insurance, paid vacations, health and safety protections, and laws against discrimination. Right-wingers are trying to take all of those things away. It's a little like the techniques used in Brave New World to make babies dislike books. Make them associate something unpleasant with books and they'll dislike books. Right-wingers have done that to liberals for years. In this column Leonard Pitts Jr. talks about the trashing of liberals. The column is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Actually, my aim is to critique what passes for political discourse in this country, particularly insofar as it involves what the first President Bush used to call "the L word."

That was 15 or more years ago. I'd argue that in the intervening years, the L-word has become the new N-word. No, I don't mean that those who use it are bigots, but rather, that it has come to be used in much the way racial epithets are used, connoting not a political philosophy but a state of inherent defect so obvious as to require no further explanation.

What else was meant when talk-show host Michael Savage named his book "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder"?

NOVEMBER 4, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH, HOWARD UNIVERSITY, AND JIM CROW

It was supposed to be another of those classic Bush photo-ops. He would go to Howard University, which is predominantly African-American, and be seen fraternizing with the students long enough to get on camera. But things, as they often do with the Bush crowd, went awry. Students were blocked off from the cafeteria because George and Pickles were eating. Then students were told they had to go to a back entrance, which brings back vivid memories of the Jim Crow era. This occurred when civil rights icon Rosa Parks was being laid to rest. This story by Courtland Milloy is at www.washingtonpost.com:

All he had to do was drop in on Soul Food Thursday, be seen sharing a wing and some collard greens with students -- and score one for the GOP.

But the visit went from bad to worse. On a day when the U.S. Senate passed a resolution paying tribute to civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who died last week, campus security guards were telling students that if they wanted to eat they'd have to come back when the president and first lady were gone, then go to a service door at the rear of the dining hall and ask for a chicken plate to go. Never mind that a student meal plan at Howard can cost as much as $2,500 a semester.

"COMPASSIONATE" CONSERVATISM SAME OLD CRUELTY

The very core belief of right-wingers is ME, ME, ME, and what's best for ME, ME, ME. Back when he was campaigning George W. Bush came along and tried to paste the label "compassionate" on conservatism. But there's nothing compassionate about it. It's about power and money and greed and exploiting the weakest among us. It's about abolishing civil liberties, racism, sexism, white male hierarchy, and giving everything to the very rich. This article by Cathleen Falsani looks at the conservatism practiced by the evil people in power now. The article is at www.suntimes.com:

Mired in political corruption of one variety or another, hamstrung (economically and spiritually) by an unjust war, and publicly shamed by the most despicable display of institutionalized racism since the slave era, as demonstrated in the unforgivably inept early response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration has lost whatever moral voice it might have had.

And this week, as Republican leaders try to force a monstrous $50 billion budget cut designed allegedly to offset the mounting costs (currently in excess of $62 billion) of hurricane-related aid through Congress, it is clear that its moral compass also has been lost.

The proposed budget cuts, part of the so-called "budget reconciliation," would have devastating effects on the poorest, most vulnerable Americans, while allowing tax relief for the rich.

BUSH TAX PLAN GETS CHILLY RECEPTION

Republicans have consistently moved to "simplify" the tax code. What they're really trying to do is move toward a flat tax, which clobbers poor and middle class people. The fairest tax ever devised is the progressive tax, which taxes people according to their ability to pay. Under Republican plans people who earn income from dividends, interest, and other income they don't work for get enormous breaks. Those of us who work for our money get virtually no breaks at all. This story by Joel Havemann is at www.latimes.com:

The loss of the deduction for state and local taxes would hit particularly hard in California, a high-tax state.

"It's not fair to pile a bigger tax load on the backs of middle-class homeowners in the San Fernando Valley in order to preserve tax breaks President Bush has given to the wealthiest Americans," Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) said in a statement.

The exclusion of employer health benefits from taxable income would be limited to the average employer cost — now about $5,000 for an individual policy and $11,500 for a family. For the first time, the exclusion would be available to those who buy their own insurance.

The two plans would also treat investment income differently. Under Plan A, dividends would not be taxed, 75% of capital gains would be excluded from taxes, and all interest payments would be taxed at regular rates. Under Plan B, all three would be subject to a flat rate of 15%.

NOVEMBER 3, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

BUSH'S ALITO PLOY

George W. Bush has used lies, distractions, terror alerts, and any other issue to divide Americans any time his political fortunes go south. The latest example of the Bush strategy is nominating an extremist like Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Bush knows the Alito nomination will please the nutcases on the religious right, but it will alienate most of the rest of the country. Bush also makes a big splash about his "plan" to deal with avian flu, asking for billions more and not saying where the billions will come from. This article by Bart Whiteman is at www.commondreams.org:

It is beyond despicable that the leader of a free democracy who has brazenly decided to preach the virtues of this type of government to the rest of the planet should be willing to sacrifice his own country to try save his own skin. Real democracy implies a form of selflessness that places the common good over the personal good. There is nothing approaching a milligram of the common good in the Alito appointment. Samuel Alito may be a nice guy, but putting his name forward was done purely to pacify the Religious Right insurgency who were threatening to take their big fat ball and go home, leaving George with an approval rating in the single digits. Harriet Miers didn’t last a month before she had to fall on her sword to save George from this fate.

MICHAEL BROWN: BUSH ADMINISTRATION PROTOTYPE

The former head of FEMA, Michael Brown, was once head of an Arabian horse association and in Bush world that qualified him to head FEMA, an agency that must react to life and death crises. We saw the dismal results when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and FEMA was dreadfully incompetent. We've since learned that Mr. Brown was concerned with his dinner rather than dealing with Katrina issues. Now we learn that he was also concerned about his wardrobe. Wonder if he and Condi Rice, the shoe shopper, have a kinship? This article by the Associated Press is at www.sfgate.com:

Newly-released e-mails show former FEMA director Michael Brown discussing his wardrobe during the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina.

A House panel has released 23 pages of internal e-mail offering additional evidence of a confused and distracted government response to Katrina, particularly from Brown, the former head of Federal Emergency Management Agency, at critical moments after the storm hit.

ANOTHER OMINOUS POLL FOR BUSH

A new Washington Post-ABC poll shows Bush's favorability ratings dropping again. More and more Americans are questioning his integrity. He never had any integrity, but it's only now that Americans seem to be realizing that. Now we learn that the Republican-controlled Senate approved cuts to spending for Medicare, mostly impacting poor people once again. How does it feel to be living in a Third World country? This story by Richard Morin and Dan Balz is at www.washingtonpost.com:

For the first time in his presidency, a majority of Americans question the integrity of President Bush, and growing doubts about his leadership have left him with record negative ratings on the economy, Iraq and even the war on terrorism, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

On virtually every key measure of presidential character and performance, the new survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls.

NOVEMBER 2, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

DIVIDING THE COUNTRY 101

Despite his famous appearance in Fahrenheit 9/11 reading a book to elementary school kids, it's hard to imagine George W. Bush as a teacher. But a look at his administration could be a course in Dividing the Country 101. Old "Your with us or against us" has used a variety of strategies to keep Americans on edge, distracted, or at each other's throats. The latest arrogant in your face nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court is just another textbook example of Bush's in-your-face arrogance, no matter how much damage it does to the country. E. J. Dionne writes about it in this column at www.washingtonpost.com:

Bush and his disciples would like everyone to assume that Libby was some kind of lone operator who, for this one time in his life, abandoned his usual caution. They pray that Libby will be the only official facing legal charges and that political interest in the case will dissipate.

You can tell the president worries that this won't work, because yesterday he did what he usually does when he's in trouble: He sought to divide the country and set up a bruising ideological fight. He did so by nominating a staunchly conservative judge to the Supreme Court.

Judge Samuel Alito is a red flag for liberals and red meat for Bush's socially conservative base. Alito has a long paper trail as a 15-year veteran of a court of appeals and a strong right-wing reputation. This guarantees a huge battle that will serve the president even if Alito's nomination fails: Anything that "unites the base" and distracts attention from the Fitzgerald investigation is good news for Bush.

CIVIL WAR INSIDE WHITE HOUSE

It's really surreal that some people describe George W. Bush as a "Godly" man. This coke-snorting, alcoholic, bag of wind who skipped out on his National Guard Service, left various business investors high and dry, presided over a record number of executions in Texas, stole possibly two presidential elections, smeared far more honorable men, lied the country into a war, shafts the poor and middle class every chance he gets, and peppers his vocabulary with the "f" word doesn't strike me as "Godly." This column by Doug Thompson at www.capitolhillblue.com looks at the nasty infighting going on inside the White House as Bush rambles, stares off into space, and screams at his aides:

An uncivil war rages inside the walls of the West Wing of the White House, a bitter, acrimonious war driven by a failed agenda, destroyed credibility, dwindling public support and a President who lapses into Alzheimer-like periods of incoherent babbling.

On one side are the dwindling numbers of die-hard loyalists to President George W. Bush, those who support his actions and decisions without question and remain committed to both Bush and scandal-scarred political advisor Karl Rove.

On the other side are the increasing numbers of those who say Rove must go and who worry about the President's declining mental state and his ability to restore credibility with Congress, our foreign allies and the American people.

DON'T BE BORN POOR IN AMERICA

You know, lots of us should have planned better. We had the temerity to be born to parents who weren't affluent. We just didn't have the foresight of those industrious special people who are rich. In George W. Bush's America Congress is nickel and diming the poor, which has a devastating impact on them and their children, for "savings" that don't amount to much while they continue shoveling money at the rich. It's beyond disgusting. This commentary by Joe Conason is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Indeed, this newfound concern for tight budgetary control seems more like an excuse to inflict pain on those who cannot defend themselves. Meanwhile, the urge to reward those who already have too much continues, unbounded by any fiscal worries.

Unmoved by the plight of the poor--who are growing poorer and hungrier, according to the latest government data--Congressional leaders last week decided that the best way to pare spending is to reduce the number of families that qualify for food stamps. A bill passed by the House Agriculture Committee on Oct. 28 would make roughly 300,000 Americans ineligible to receive food stamps and cut the program by about $850 million over the next five years.

NOVEMBER 1, 2005

IMPEACH BUSH

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

George W. Bush today was outlining his "plan" to address the issue of bird flu. It's interesting to me that Bush is afraid of the virus mutating. Mutation is an integral part of natural selection, and I didn't think Bush and his gang believed in evolution. But talk of viruses makes an interesting metaphor for the endemic corruption in the Bush administration. It's like corruption spreads from official to official and then to the media and to the people who blindly follow the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. The lies about Iraq certainly spread virus-like and grew into a disease that has resulted in thousands upon thousands of unnecessary deaths. Bob Herbert writes about the corrupt Bush gang in this column linked at www.topplebush.com:

The art of Bush-speak is to achieve the effect of a lie without actually getting caught in a lie. That's what administration officials did when they deliberately fostered the impression that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda and thus was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. This is an insidious way of governing, and the opposite of what the United States should be about.

It should tell you something that the administration's resident sleazemeister, Karl Rove, who is up to his ears in this mess but has managed so far to escape indictment, continues to be viewed not as an embarrassment, but as President Bush's most important and absolutely indispensable asset.

MORE REPUBLICAN TAX "REFORM"

A presidential advisory panel is getting set to recommend tax "reforms" that they claim will be make filing taxes simpler. It seems every time Republicans "reform" tax codes, though, middle class people wind up paying more of the bill and the rich pay less. Among the proposed "reforms" would be eliminating the mortgage interest deduction. Who suffers more from that, the middle class or the rich? This story by MARY DALRYMPLE is at news.yahoo.com:

Under the plan, most deductions, credits and other tax breaks would be eliminated along with much of the paperwork and equations that baffle taxpayers under a drastically simplified income tax.

But many, including the nine members of the presidential commission, have said key recommendations will be unpopular.

"The effort to reform the tax code is noble in its purpose, but it requires political willpower," the group said Tuesday in a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow. "Many stand waiting to defend their breaks, deductions and loopholes, and to defeat our efforts."

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

A year ago George W. Bush was telling us that being president was "hard work." His political operatives were busily smearing John Kerry, claiming that Kerry's very real war record wasn't legitimate. What would have happened if Patrick Fitzgerald had been able to indict Lewis Libby a year ago? What would have happened if the Downing Street Memos were common knowledge then? October surprises and cover-ups have been hallmarks of the Republican party. Richard Nixon got away with it, Ronald Reagan got elected in 1980, and George W. Bush squeaked out a victory last year. This column by Thomas Oliphant is at www.commondreams.org:

Obstruction of justice is an elegant legal term for a felony that prosecutors take personally. Fitzgerald noted that the victims of this crime are not just the people who work under the protective shield of anonymity in the world of intelligence, but all of us who are injured when our system is prevented from working.

I would add that the obstruction of justice alleged in this case kept us from knowing material things about our leaders at the moment we were deciding whether to keep them in office. In more common speech, obstruction of justice is a coverup, and the coverup worked -- just as the Watergate coverup in 1972 kept facts from the public that would have guaranteed Richard Nixon's defeat.

By the summer of last year, the indictment makes clear, Fitzgerald already had Libby on the hook. He had testified twice before the grand jury, claiming that his knowledge of Valerie Plame Wilson's classified CIA position and status as former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife had come from reporters. Fitzgerald had already taken a statement from NBC's Washington bureau chief, Tim Russert, flatly contradicting Libby's entire story. Russert had made his statement under ground rules that kept Fitzgerald from asking for anything beyond Russert's end of a phone conversation with Libby, thus protecting what Libby said to him.