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The 2010 Election: Debate - A Glimpse At the Local Level

2010-11-06T00:12:00.000-04:00

The 2010 Election: Debate - A Glimpse At the Local Level

Crucifying Pelosi

2009-05-19T11:12:00.005-04:00

This email to Scarborough was modified for readers to the extent that I changed the order of appearance for links 1 and 2 to make more sense to readers.

Otherwise, nothing else was changed.

To: Joe Scarborough

Subject: Stop being lazy and do your damn job! Read this stuff about Nancy Pelosi! Your ignorance is causing an injustice!

Body:

Greg Sargent

Who Runs Government

The Plum LineGreg Sargent's blog

Fox News: Focus On Pelosi Changes Subject From Whether To Prosecute Bush Officials
Check out this surprisingly candid moment on Fox, where a top network correspondent says that the GOP’s attack on Nancy Pelosi over what she knew about torture is a winner for the GOP because it changes the subject from whether Bush officials should be prosecuted:

The Fox correspondent, Jonathan Hunt, says the Pelosi focus is a distraction from a real debate about torture:

“Instead of this debate being about national security, what is and isn’t torture, what the Bush administration should and shouldn’t have allowed and whether anybody in that administration should now be prosecuted, the Republicans are now able to frame this debate as to whether Nancy Pelosi is fit to continue as Speaker. So they are not about to let their foot off the gas in any way, shape, or form.”

This mirrors what many Republicans, excited about the way this one is going, are saying privately. It’s also interesting that this level of candor is only likely to fire up the GOP base, which is hungry for a display of GOP aggressiveness and a win at all costs.

Media out of touch on Pelosi-CIA flap

The Huddle: Changing conversation
By MARTIN KADY II | 5/18/09 7:27 AM
Recess can't come fast enough for Pelosi and her staff and Republicans are enjoying the implosion.
Wow, this Nancy Pelosi-vs-CIA story must be really awful for Pelosi, huh? Sounds like people just aren't buying her statement that the CIA misled her.

But wait, what's this? Polling shows that more people do think it's likely the CIA misled Pelosi?

How likely is it that the CIA misled Pelosi about the use of waterboarding when interrogating prisoners?
20% Very likely
23% Somewhat likely
19% Not very likely
22% Not at all likely
16% Not sure

Media Matters

TOPICS Torture
Diggs

Sen. Bob Graham backs up Pelosi and says he was never briefed on waterboarding by the CIA
By John Amato Friday May 15, 2009 2:00pm

DOWNLOADS: (1579)

PLAYS: (2371)

This is a block buster. Former Sen.(D)Bob Graham, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee told David Shuster that he never was briefed about waterboarding by the CIA on MSNBC. He also said that he was never allowed to take real notes about the CIA briefings, but he did log the topics and the amount of times he was briefed. They don't match up with the CIA's version. And of course, George "Slam Dunk" Tenet's outfit never was wrong or misled us before. James Fallows backs up Graham's honesty and integrity by the way. And Graham also sees the real motives behind the smearing of Pelosi. As he says it's an attempt to shift the blame away the Bush administration and their use of torture.

Graham: David, when I was briefed about three weeks after The Speaker, the subject "waterboarding" never came up. Nor did the treatment of Abu-Zubaydah or any other specific detainee.

Shuster: And that's significant because by the time of your briefing and the Speaker's briefing we now know that Zubaydah had been waterboarded 83 times, so again was their a requirement, was it incumbent on the CIA to tell you as the Chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee or a ranking member, was there an obligation on them to tell you what was going on?

Graham: Yes, they're obligated to tell the full Intelligence Committee not just the leadership. This was the same time, within the same week in fact that the CIA was submitting their National Intelligence Estimate or NIE report on WMD's in IRAQ which proved so erroneous that we went to war and that have had thousands of persons killed and injured as a result of misinformation.

David, I think fundamentally what's happening is there's an attempt underway to try and shift the discussion away from what's really important and that is did the US use torture? Was that within the law? Who authorized and what were the consequences of that. Those are the important issues. Whether The Speaker or anybody else knew about it is frankly sort of off on the edges.

Graham blasts the CIA for also misleading us in the IRAQ WAR, but they would never try to mislead Pelosi or smear her now. He also calls for a Truth Commission on Torture. Can Republicans now keep denying that we need a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of all this torture business?

Crooks and Liars

Scarborough, you pop off as if you know the facts when you know nothing! You say that the people are more favorable to the CIA, well here's the Rassmussen view! Rassmussen!

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/pt_survey_toplines/may_2009/toplines_pelosi_and_cia_may_16_17_2009

3* How likely is it that the CIA misled Pelosi about the use of waterboarding when interrogating prisoners?
20% Very likely
23% Somewhat likely
19% Not very likely
22% Not at all likely
16% Not sure

Rush Limbaugh and the GOP Nervous Breakdown

2009-03-16T17:40:00.002-04:00

It seems that the Republicans are suffering from a nervous breakdown.

It's cause is deep insecurity, which manifests itself in denial, as exhibited for example, by the attempt to obstruct the American Rescue and Recovery Act, and congratulating themselves for being irrelevant regarding it's passage.

A symptom is confusion, loss of self identity. What direction do they go in? Who is the leader? Do they go in a direction that puts them more in touch with the majority of people? Or do they retreat inward and hold on for dear life to the one core constituency they have left, and risk consigning themselves to a doctrinaire niche? Do they follow the lead of a chairman who wants to reorganize the party, and show some backbone, or do they turn into little lemmings and follow a pompous overinflated blowhard "with talent on loan from God," over the narrow cliff of their doctrines?

Well, the Republicans chose the latter of each set of choices.

Instead of choosing to at least not commit to a policy, they have no choice but to shore up their base of their ultraconservative hard right core.

And the hard right core is now one twitching ball of nerves!

Anyway you poke them they give a galvanic response.

Obama's election, let alone the union of a Democratic Presidency with a Democratic Congress at a time of dire economic crisis is the Republican 9/11.

And now they are given to all sorts wild imaginings when we are finally addressing all of the wrongs of a flawed system that still works, but needs to be made responsive to the people.

And so, the Right is drawing up all kinds of paranoid barricades, pulling wagons in a circle, waiting for some imaginary version of the Left to impose it's dark ideology on these United States.

So scared are they that they aren't just on full vigil for any large movements in general, but they perceive the "real" treachery, and "true liberal agenda" in the smallest most insignificant anecdotes ever.

On March 3, on Larry King Weekend, radio talk show host Stephanie Miller was simply stating that when Rush Limbaugh said about the President: "I hope he fails," he was behaving with incendiary irresponsibility, and all to get himself more attention. Miller then gave this analogy:

If I could say something tonight that gets me that kind of attention, like maybe Rush Limbaugh should be executed for treason. How about that?

But the Right Wing blogoshere, eager to pounce on anything that proves their point, misread the quote, and then missed the point.

CNlN, the Right Wing blogsite came out with this on March 6:

This is the real face of the left and it is one that they rarely expose in public. This is the LIBERAL FASCISM that I always speak about.

Rush Limbaugh should be executed? Because he does not want socialism in America?

NOW you know why Socialism always leads to revolution. Communism has killed 120 million people and NOW you know why.

Just imagine if Rush Limbaugh said that Keith Olbermann or Christiane Amanpour should be executed for their treasonous reporting of the Iraq War.

On March 6, World Net Daily said this about Miller:

Radio talker Stephanie Miller, outraged that Rush Limbaugh wants Barack Obama's policies to fail, has called for the nation's top talk host to be charged with treason and executed.
She made the call, not on her rather obscure radio program but on CNN's "Larry King Live" show Tuesday.
King seemed unfazed by the suggestion, neither following it up with a challenge or a question.
"To me that seems treasonous," Miller said. "If I could say something tonight that gets me that kind of attention, like maybe Rush Limbaugh should be executed for treason. How about that?"

Red State perpetuates the self-delusion:

It never surprises me when an angry Liberal spews hate and hostility. They call us haters, racists, and a variety other harsh adjectives, when they are the hostile, angry ones. They are so misguided and uninformed and confused by an unsatisfying ideology. It is so sad.

What is sad is that the hideous truth that the author of this last diatribe is unwilling to concede is that it was his own party's "unsatisfying ideology" that lead us to this dire situation, and that people are now open to the new and untried.

In their highly fragile state, the Republicans have manifested their self-delusion in choosing an extremist for a leader.

Which leads us to the de facto chairman - Rush Limbaugh and the entailing embarrassment for the party and Michael Steele.

Nothing could make me happier than to crown El Rushbo king of the Republicans!

When Limbaugh said twice on the air and once in a speech for CPAC that he hopes that the President fails, and the Republican leadership apologized to Limbaugh for attempting to admonish him, that made me see that if we can keep King Rush on his absolute throne, the Democrats can effectively neuter the opposition by tying this odious, unpopular can to their tails.

And the beauty is, El Rushbo doesn't care. In fact, he's more than happy to take the job!

In this case, the egg definitely preceded the chicken.

The Right was definitely cultivating the Bible Belt, but could not control the one man on secular radio who made himself the spokesman for all ultra-conservatives.

And what perfect fit for angry hate-filled Right Wingers Rush is!

He's bombastic, narcissistic, arrogant with an inflated sense of importance and delusions of both godhood and martyrdom!

On March 9, Limbaugh himself said on his show:

I must present an obstacle. if I had no impact, if I had no influence, if, if, I was such an extremist appealing to such a small number of people, why then what they'd be doing is laughing. And what they'd be do … or ignoring. But they are running TV ads against me! Newt Gingrich wishes they'd be running TV ads against him! But they're running TV ads against me! So, I love it. I'm up for it. I raise my hand. I'm the last man standing. I'm not going to back down. I'm not going to stop saying what I say, or what I believe, 'cause I'm a American, I'm a citizen, and I happen to have the good fortune of having a microphone to blare what I believe, and I'm … I happen to have the opportunity to be able to do it very well, with talent on loan from God. And I know that if we just keep plugging away hard enough, we're going to break through.

As for being pompous and arrogant, well, this year at CPAC he could merely manage some false modesty as illustrated by this joke.

One of the things that is totally erroneous about me -- and I just want to get this up front -- is that I'm pompous. [Laughter]

And that I am arrogant. Neither of these things are remotely true. I can tell you a joke to illustrate this. Larry King passed away, goes to heaven. He's greeted by Saint Peter at the gates. Saint Peter says, 'Welcome, Mr. King, it's great to have you here. I want to show you around, give you an idea of what's here, maybe you can pick a place that you'd like to reside.' King says, 'I just have one question: Is Rush Limbaugh here?'

'No, he's got a lot of time yet, Mr. King.' So Saint Peter begins the tour. Larry King sees the various places and it's beyond anything we can imagine in terms of beauty. Finally, he gets to the biggest room of all, with this giant throne. And over the throne is a flashing beautiful angelic neon sign that says 'Rush Limbaugh.' [Laughter]

And Larry King looks at Saint Peter and says: 'I thought you said he wasn't here.'

He said, 'He's not, he's not. This is God's room. He just thinks he's Rush Limbaugh.

Well, if this is the person a desperate GOP wants to cling to as flotsam, with Steele, Gingrey et al. kowtowing to him, then maybe Pelosi and Reid should negotiate new legislation with him and forget all the bit players.

Obama's Inauguration - A New Day For Hate

2008-12-09T01:17:00.000-05:00

I don't want to scare anyone, but I am concerned.

Think that Progressives and Center Lefties are the only ones celebrating the election of Barack Obama? Think again. The Lunatic Right is overjoyed! And that makes me nervous!

I'm not talking about loudmouths like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, or Limbaugh. They are crying in their beer. I'm talking about the true nut cases who espouse violence in the name of "racial purity."

The Nazis, the White Nationalists and the Klansmen are still here friends.

Too much prejudice and narrow mindedness has been ingrained into our psyche to be wiped out in my lifetime. When I was born, the Civil Rights movement was only three years old. In 1964, the Voting Rights Act was signed, but on the way, Schwerner, Cheney, Goodman, Medgar Evers and Viola Liuso were murdered. Four years later, Martin Luther King was martyred. As I recall, a massive cultural effort was needed to make white America confront it's prejudices.

And always there was that violent paranoid extremist element that stubbornly refused to open their minds.

Tom Metzger, David Duke and Thomas Robb all started their careers in hate early under the John Birch Society and George Lincoln Rockwell.

My point is this: We lost Abraham (Lincoln,) Martin (Luther King,) and John (F. Kennedy,) to the bullets of ignorance. Let's not lose Barack.

Am I talking nonsense? The ban on assault weapons was repealed. Anyone with money and know - how can acquire weapons for a small army. And calling an act of domestic terror a hate crime doesn't make it any less lethal. Anyone who doesn't believe that can ask the ghosts of Oklahoma City if it's nonsense!

We as a people are capable of violence. All we need to do is get on our high-horses to feel we have the right to do almost anything. That is the nature of most kind of extremism. The ultra-extremist, the revolutionary goes beyond that.

That person deals in totalities. They want to create "new societies." In order to do that you must regiment society. Democracy is tiresome to the White Aryan.

But the White Aryan / Nationalist must also defend the purity of the race, and this, as far as the racist revolutionary is concerned, can only be done with revolution and radical action.

The problem is as far as the racist is concerned, it is the white race that is being oppressed, not the "so called" (by them,) minorities! And to make matters worse, white people don't know they've lost power, and are duped into participating in their own pollution!

So now the Nazis, Klansmen and White Supremacists are overjoyed at the election of Barack Obama!

In their eyes, now has come the right time to expose the "oppression of the white race."

In the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, Mark Potok writes:

Even before the campaign was over, racial rage, clearly driven by fear of a black man in the White House, began to break out around the country. Effigies of Obama appeared hanging from nooses on university campuses. Angry supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin shouted "Kill him!" at a campaign rally and even screamed "nigger" at a black cameraman, telling him, "Sit down, boy!" The head of the Hillsborough County, Fla., Republican Party sent an E-mail warning members of "the threat" of "carloads of black Obama supporters coming from the inner city to cast their votes." A reporter who has covered every presidential election since 1980 told me he had never seen such fury. Similar scenes were reported nationwide.

Improbable in the era of Cumbaya? Not for Dave Stancliff of the Eureka Times-Standard:

How far have we come? I'd say we've come a long way. We've elected the first African-American/Caucasian president. There are a lot of hate laws on the books now. Most people seem more aware of our diversity and are more respectful of different skin color.
We should celebrate the upcoming changes we expect President-elect Barack Obama to bring about for the good of all, but that soft underbelly of hatred and intolerance shows signs of new growth.
White supremacist anxieties over a black leader in the White House have grown rapidly with the worsening economic crisis and demographic trends that indicate whites will cease to be a majority of Americans within a generation, according to the FBI.

Thomas Robb's Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a case in point In a post for his blog, the author states:.

The president elect now stands as a symbol to our people throughout this nation that change is indeed coming. What will it mean for those who are being disenfranchised from the very nation purchased by the blood of their forefathers? It could mean an awakening of our spirit and blood. Every time the television shows an image of Obama it will be a reminder that our people have lost power in this country. We actually lost that power 40 years ago, but with a white president people would go to sleep thinking at least white people were still running things. Now there is no reason to believe this. The betrayal will stare them in the face each time they watch the news and see little black children playing in the rose garden.

The author goes on to state:

So we have to admit that this may be the best thing that has happened to us. It perhaps comes as a wake-up call to the sleeping giant deep in the heart of our people.

So don’t despair! Don’t be discouraged! We have been saying this would happen. We have said that there is a growing subtle hatred for our people. This has not been a battle between Republicans or Democrats. This was not a battle between liberals and conservatives. This is a race war - a culture war - being waged against white people. As more and more non-whites come into this country the hatred for the founding people will grow.

.

Now Robb sees himself as a non-violent person and he may be right:

We are not asking you to hate anyone! We are not asking you to commit an illegal act. We are not asking you to hurt anyone. We just want you to love your people and do that which your forefathers did - give your children a bright future.

But there is no denying the gist of his message - racial conflict is coming.

Unfortunately, if it were simply a matter of propaganda vs. propaganda I'd say fine, bring it and let democracy decide, but not everyone on the extreme Left or Right are civil.

And trust me, neither Commie or Nazi understand civil.

They know guns though.

Greg Evensen seems to think a civil war in the U.S. is inevitable.

Even before Election Day, Evensen said he must begin to view neighbors, co-workers as potential enemies. In his article for News with Views, THE NEXT CIVIL WAR FOR HISTORIC AMERICA: ARE YOU MY ENEMY? he states:

I am faced with the certain realization that no matter how I may try to sugar coat it, this time -- those who voted or supported the socialist left, the democrats, the liberals, the “elitists” in the universities and business, the apostate “liberation theology” or do nothing church, and politics everywhere--are my enemy. It can be stated in no other terms. That’s a fact, Jack.

But what he says a little later is chilling:

Minutemen and the militia were responsible for their own arms, ammunition and supplies. Can you muster with others and provide the essentials? Can you carry all that you need for two to three days at a time? Can you sleep with your back to a tree on cold, wet ground? Can you be still for an hour or two just watching and listening? How will you communicate with your fellow patriots—safely? When the bad guys start shooting, what will you do? Will you give away your position by firing randomly to “scare” them off? Will you remain defensive and not set yourself up for being killed? Will you learn how to move with stealth? Can you disarm someone and take them as a prisoner?

These are but a few examples of the rabid paranoia that is out there. But we are now in a new era, in new territory that most everyone in America but an ignorant, bigoted minority wants to explore. Mostly everyone in that minority won't act, but there is that militia fringe. All it took was one Lee Harvey Oswald to kill Kennedy, and one Timothy McVeigh to bomb Oklahoma City.

The SPLC's Mark Potok is quite clear about this problem.

David Duke, the former Klan leader and convicted felon who is the closest thing the radical right has to an intellectual leader these days, believes this could all work to his benefit. In an essay this summer, the neo-Nazi ideologue argued that an Obama victory would serve as a "visual aid" to white Americans, provoking a backlash that Duke believes will "result in a dramatic increase in our ranks."
Even as we embark on a new national adventure, the signs are worrying. It may be that the hate mongers are wrong, that Americans' better angels will prevail and the changes that are sweeping America will not result in a growing rage on the right. But experience tells us that while we hope for the best, we also must prepare for what could be a dangerous, racially motivated backlash of hate.

Look, we have to be vigilant ourselves. Use my links. Monitor the sites. Read what those people are writing, and what they are reading. Talk to whomever it is you must talk to if you hear something. I've already lived through the assassination of one President. I don't need another.

John McCain's Glass House Part 3

2008-10-21T20:13:00.006-04:00

MR. MATTHEWS: If you have liberal views, does that mean you have anti-American views? What's the connection? I don't get the connection. What's the connection between liberal and leftist and anti-American?

REP. BACHMANN: Anti-American is the point, because --

MR. MATTHEWS: I mean, if you're liberal, are you anti-American?

REP. BACHMANN: Well, the liberals that are Jeremiah Wright and that are Bill Ayers, they're over-the-top anti-American. And that's the question that Americans have. Remember, it was Michelle Obama who said she's only recently proud of her country. And so these are very anti-American views.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay.

REP. BACHMANN: That's not the way that most Americans feel about our country. Most Americans, Chris, are wild about America, and they're very concerned to have a president who doesn't share those values.

And now we have the latest episode of Republicans shooting themselves in the foot with their attempts at slander as Michelle Bachman gets her Joe McCarthy on.

This is the same person who blamed the Minnesota Democrats for failing to pass a bill that she herself voted against - The Protect America Act.

She also has this fetish for old-fashioned light bulbs, introducing a "Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act" to combat the government intrusion of phasing out conventional light bulbs! Will the A.C.L.U. back her? Will the onslaught of incandescent bulbs lead to communism? Stay tuned!

Anyway, her jaunt into McCarthyism will cost her her job now that the RNC has pulled out of her campaign, and people incensed by her remarks have contributed enormously to her opponent's campaign.

John McCain's Glass House Part 2

2008-10-19T16:31:00.013-04:00

This Bill Ayers situation thats been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign, Powell said. But Mr. McCain says that hes a washed-out terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him?

Colin Powell just gave his endorsement of Barack Obama. The above quote illustrates that he considered the behavior of his long-time friend McCain to be unconscionable.

What McCain & Co. have done is paint themselves into a corner, and now that they have run out of any talking points with any hint of verisimilitude, they have been reduced to a dog and pony show.

The loss of Powell for John McCain betrays another weakness in him that we don't want in a President, an inability to adapt.

He has been called on the matter of negative campaigning, calumny and slander for weeks now. Wouldn't that have warned him that an icon of moderate Republicans like Powell might be inspired to bolt?

John McCain's Glass House Part 1

2008-10-14T20:31:00.014-04:00

The nerve! Last week, we heard cries of "Terrorist!" and "Kill him!" when McCain or Palin rhetorically asked who Obama was, or what to do about him. It wasn't just that the crowd yelled these things, it was also that neither candidate repudiated, or even mildly corrected the crowd until three days later. Instead, McCain stood there with his stupid smile. And Palin? Her accusing a political opponent of "palling around with terrorists," not only crossed a line, it shows a tremendous lack of understanding and intellect. Then there are the McCain surrogates who feel free to slander and insult their opponent with the seemingly tacit approval of the principals.

Which makes the crocodile tears and false indignance of McCain over John Lewis's protest all the more galling.

John Lewis lived through the era he is comparing McCain's campaign with. I know that McCain's absence from the Freedom Rides or Mississippi's Freedom Summer was excusable, but didn't the public schools of Wasilla, or the five colleges that Sarah Palin attended teach about those things?

The brutal reception by the Klan of the Freedom Riders at every stop was a result of the atmosphere created by men like George Wallace, Orville Faubus and Lester Maddox. In the South, many politicians gave a wink and a nod to Klan activities. With the atmosphere that the McCain / Palin ticket is creating, such politicians may soon be returning.

McCain accuses Obama of having more negative ads than him, but answer me this Johnny, did Barack ever associate McCain any characters of ill repute? No! Obama took the high road in his attacks, and did not engage in innuendo and character assasination!

And yet to listen to John McCain's whine over John Lewis's written words, you'd think that Lewis was some Democratic Sarah Palin claiming that McCain was "palling around with Klansmen."

John McCain: Meet Hank Martin - And Morris Dees: Part Five

2008-10-12T11:32:00.002-04:00

The pattern is this: You have a clunker to sell, so you distract your mark with the bells and whistles when they want to kick the tires, or look under the hood. And if all else fails, yell "Hey! Look over there!" will work as you cover the grease spot.

But the McCain campaign is ready for Prime Time. It's like an inferior version of "I Love Lucy, only we all get to play Ricky, and McCain has some 'splaining to do!

McCain's story is not unlike those old black and white political satires where the honest idealistic candidate is corrupted by the campaign process, only unlike Spencer Tracy's Grant Mathews in "State of The Union," he hasn't awakened at the last minute to confess his sins in public. Rather, like James Cagney's Hank Martln in "A Lion is in The Streets," he has quit his conscience altogether, perpetrated the most grotesque demagoguery,and allowed the basest race baited mob behavior to occur in his name.

And now McCain's chickens are being counted. They are coming home to roost! All that innuendo and race baiting demagoguery are creating a mob mentality in his "base." And, make no mistake, he was letting it happen. I say thls despite his cosmetic attempt at crowd control yesterday. Review the tape. Did he try to control the crowd on the day they yelled "Terrorist!" or "Traitor!"? No! In fact he was smiling!

The implications this has for the future is disturbing. McCain has attracted the lunatic fringe of the Right. That faction already has many established venues for action. There is the militia movement just under the surface. Extremist groups like White Aryan Resistance, the Klan or the Nazis are undoubtedly hanging around the edges of McCain rallies looking for recruits.

Time to get re-acquainted with Morris Dees,the SPLC and Klan Watch.

John McCain: Meet Hank Martin - And Morris Dees: Part Four

2008-10-12T11:03:00.006-04:00

And of course, that meant that the showmanship had to start. It started with the stunt casting of Sarah Palin as his running mate. My what a feminist our Johnny is! Of course, it pleased McCain's adopted by necessity base that she was against taxes, pro-drilling and pro-life! Well, I'm sure the base enjoys Sarah's endless verbatim repetition of the same stale talking points.

The desperate game-changers didn't end there. No sooner did the liquidity crisis begin than did our dear Johnny do his Mighty Mouse routine, and swoop into D.C. and crash land into a done deal rescue and delayed it's passage. How queasy it must have felt after Monday's bragging and chicken counting to watch the House Republicans stomp on the eggs! And this after Grumpy had to bomb in the first debate with Barack!
The economy's tanking. Anyone not peeing in their pants is doing the two-step. And McCain bombs on economy! Quick! We need another game-changer! And so, McCain brings in William Ayers.

Never mind the fact that Obama was only eight years old when Ayers was active in the Weather Underground, or that he condemned their acts as "reprehensible." Never mind that Obama was acquainted with Ayers, a tenured professor whose underground past was behind him, a man honored by many, only through various boards that he sat on, or that one of those boards was chaired by Lenore Annenberg, whose brother worked for Richard Nixon! Ayers is a terrorist! Ayers is unrepentant!

John McCain: Meet Hank Martin - And Morris Dees: Part Four

2008-10-12T11:03:00.000-04:00

John McCain: Meet Hank Martin - And Morris Dees: Part Three

2008-10-12T10:53:00.003-04:00

You see, if you don't have thought one on how to change the country, you have to follow the old magician's rule of misdirecting the audience in order to scam them. Now, a magician only wishes to entertain the audience with his illusions. McCain wants to pull the Presidency out of his magic hat.

Out came Sarah Palin with all the beauty and superficiality of a Miss Alaska runner-up. As she cheerleaders her way around the lower 48, with her Stupid Smile and her script of tired catchphrases, has stoked up the base, some of whom wish that she'd run for the top of the ticket, instead of that tired old man hiding behind her!

That brings me to the worm in this apple. The real inner insecurity of John McCain.

McCain is competing against a younger, more energetic opponent called Barack Obama, not old Kankles Clinton. He is afraid that when people compare him to Obama, they will see a decrepit old man, devoid of possibities, trying to beat a younger man - who is out to change the world. This makes him desperate. And in an election that's favoring the Democrats, a desperate Republican feels rotten and mean.

It didn't take long for the mean to come out. No sooner did the Republican National Convention end, then did the broad brush lies about how Obama would raise taxes on "you" came out. Never mind that only one percent of the people would feel the pinch, McCain had buttons to push. At the time, he was twenty points ahead of Obama. There was no earth - shattering economic crisis then. McCain's insecurity was showing.

John McCain: Meet Hank Martin - And Morris Dees: Part Two

2008-10-12T10:41:00.003-04:00

And so, in 2007, John McCain, the maverick who in 2004 opposed Bush's wartime tax cuts for the upper 1%, decided in 2007 that it just as "maverick-y" to suddenly be for them!

Again regarding the Iraq War, McCain showed his convenient ambivalence. Though he wasn't against the war, he made noises like he was reluctant to go to war. The U.N. was to referee the end game, and the pitiful few troops in lraq had to be reinforced. But after the Surge, McCain was all ready to jump into the war bandwagon. Suddenly it wasn't important that we rendered the U.N. helpless, and were continuing a military adventure that was bleeding our economy. We needed "victory!" Despite that, people are still unmoved about the war, and want it to end.

And the economy continued to fail. While people and yes, mortgage and investment banks continued to gorge themselves on the high cholesterol of subprime mortgage loans, McCain said "OK" to continued deregulation of the securities market.

With this bankruptcy of ideas, McCain has sought to lead his soulless party to four more years of Bush's madness. Only how to do it? His campaign, his party and his allies were going to be out organized, outspent and outproduced by Obama and the Democrats.

The answer? Free publicity! How to get it? Stunts!

You see, if you don't have thought one on how to change the country, you have to follow the old magician's rule of misdirecting the audience in order to scam them.

John McCain: Meet Hank Martin - And Morris Dees: Part One

2008-10-12T09:45:00.005-04:00

And Now The Flailing Begins:

Now the comedy known as the McCain / Palin campaign is in it's last stages - that of flailing about incoherently.And Now The Flailing Begins:

No wait, wasn't that the condition it was in throughout the general election?

It seems only a year ago that the Republicans were fighting a primary over who is best suited to beat the Democratic Opponent and keep the White House in G.O.P. hands.1

Only they were counting on the Democratic Opponent to be Hillary Clinton. What they got was Barack Obama. That plus the damaged Republican brand.

And then they got John McCain.

He was the best of a bad lot. All of them bear the taint of Republican misrule. Most, like Huckabee and Romney were so in the Bush tank that they almost said "Sieg Heil" Grover Norquist's tax cut pledge during their Youtube debate. Fred Thompson doddered around in a manner appropriate to his age. They played so far to the Right that you just knew that in a year when Republicans were expected to lose in the House and Senate, it would suicide for the G.O.P. to use them in an attempt to bridge the gap.

McCain seemed like only one who could talk the middle class's language. After all, wasn't he the "maverick?" Didn't he always speak his mind, especially on matters of civil rights, social justice, and other things that ruffled the feathers of the party elite? And yet, he was certainly no "tax and spend" Liberal! Just a moderate Conservatlve. He even hated fundamentalist evangelicals, and had no truck with the "Culture War!"

But then something happened in the 2000 elections that changed McCain. Honest John got beaten in the primaries by an upstart governor from Texas who used sleazy smear tactics and had no shame. He became the victim of smear tactics and innuendos. The lesson he took from that was: a conscience is an inconvenience to a man with high ambitions. And, in order to win the Oval Office, he had to play to the base of hls party.

To All the PUMAs And Their Would-Be Pied Pipers:

2008-09-07T19:53:00.001-04:00

For a long time I, like you was dispirited. Like you, I felt that Hillary was robbed of her rightful place as the party standard bearer.

But then I began to ask what did I want more? Was it to sulk like Achilles in his tent over an insult while fellow Greeks died around him? Or was it to remember why I became active, and return to face the real enemy that is before us, a continuation of the past eight years of corrupt administration, an unnecessary war, the ruination of my country and the endless war on the middle class?

I look upon it as a cost-benefit analysis. On the one hand, I could seek revenge by supporting McCain if I were that vindictive. But that would make me a hollow person. McCain betrayed me a long time ago.

One the other hand, I could remember that this is nothing less than a battle between good and evil. In war you can't always choose your leaders, but you can remember what the struggle is about and whose side you are on.

Last week I saw a party that understands this, and a Republican so out of touch that he insults all Hillary supporters, PUMAs, and all.

At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, everyone there pledged at least on paper, to put aside their differences and fight for the common good. First, the Obama’s have acknowledged the importance of Hillary's campaign. Everyone recognized the achievement of bringing 18 million votes into the picture. Next, Hillary, then Bill Clinton declared their support of and their confidence in Barack Obama. In addition, nobody whined about snubbing Hillary when they realized how strategic the choice of Joe Biden was for a running mate.

Hillary was the one who put it best:

I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack Obama.

My friends, it is time to take back the country we love.

Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines.

This is a fight for the future. And it's a fight we must win.

And later she said:

I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend of American confidence and optimism that has enabled generations before us to meet our toughest challenges. Leaders who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit, there are no limits to what is possible in America.

This won't be easy. Progress never is. But it will be impossible if we don't fight to put a Democrat in the White House.

So there it is. Your own leader, my Senator, supporting her party's choice for President. Would you sulk in your tent while your friends pay the price?

And who is Sarah Palin?

Well for one thing, Palin is no Hillary clone! Any Clintonista who has heard anything Hillary said cannot mistake Sarah Palin for someone you knew and loved for years.

I recognize that Palin may be an honest person in her own right, and maybe a good governor for Alaska. As mayor, she reduced her own salary. She then proceeded to cut wasteful spending. She resigned her position as chairperson of the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission to protest what she termed "lack of ethics." She challenged Alaska Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into financial dealings.

She opposed Frank Murkowski's wasteful spending and sold his big vanity jet.
Nevertheless, being mayor of a town smaller than the Town of Onondaga, NY where I live is barely a prerequisite for becoming a governor, or state senator, not President! (Yes, I said something similar about Obama, but it's all about issues and ideologies now!

Sarah Palin is not Hillary Clinton, let alone Barack Obama!

Hillary would be appalled at Palin's stand on the environment.

Here's Hillary on ANWR:

Ratify Kyoto; more mass transit. (Sep 2000)

Voted YES on disallowing an oil leasing program in Alaska's ANWR. (Nov 2005)

Voted YES on banning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Mar 2005)

And Palin's position on ANWR? Let's let her answer that!:

Convince the rest of the nation to open ANWR

The standard should be no different for industry. Ironically, we're trying to convince the rest of the nation to open ANWR, but we can't even get our own Pt. Thomson, which is right on the edge of ANWR, developed! We are ready for that gas to be tapped so we can fill a natural gas pipeline. I promise to vigorously defend Alaska's rights, as resource owners, to develop and receive appropriate value for our resources.

Source: State of the State Address Jan 17, 2007

On health care, Palin and Hillary are as different as night and day.

Here's Hillary on the subject:

Health care initiatives are her first priority in Senate. (Feb 2001)
• Voted NO on means-testing to determine Medicare Part D premium. (Mar 2008)
• Voted YES on requiring negotiated Rx prices for Medicare part D. (Apr 2007)
• Voted NO on limiting medical liability lawsuits to $250,000. (May 2006)
• Voted YES on expanding enrollment period for Medicare Part D. (Feb 2006)
• Voted YES on increasing Medicaid rebate for producing generics. (Nov 2005)
• Voted YES on negotiating bulk purchases for Medicare prescription drug. (Mar 2005)

Sarah Palin's position is nothing less than feudal:

Health care must be market-and business-driven. (Jan 2008)
Take personal responsibility for personal health & all areas. (Jan 2008)
Doctors should manage health care, not bureaucracies. (Jan 2008)
Personal responsibility & choices key to good health. (Jan 2008)
Flexibility in government regulations to allow competition. (Nov 2006)
More affordable health care via competition. (Nov 2006)

However, what really strips bare the total bankruptcy of the Republicans in general and Pallin in particular is this statement Pallin made at the beginning of her acceptance speech.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities.

Excuse me? Every politician on earth depends on community organizers! Who will "organize" events for Sarah McBush?

Martin Luther King Jr. was a community organizer, as was Mahatma Gandhi, César Chavez, Jayne Addams.

Community organizers are the people who look into the human condition and try to empower people to fix it. Are there broken sewers that are overdue for repair? Not enough cops on the street? Are anyone's civil liberties violated? Community organizers rally the people to fight for themselves.

And who becomes a community organizer? Is it a position that requires a degree? Has there been a hierarchy imposed upon it? Or does it simply take someone sufficiently motivated like a disgruntled parent, or teacher, or sanitation worker who saw injustice, or squalid conditions, and tried to fix them?

So who is Sarah Palin to take on the mantle of "The Female Candidate?" That was Hillary's place, and could belong to no other. Now we will unite for Obama to help bring sanity, not the McBush/Palin dystopia into this world.

Setting a Few Matters Straight_ Why I'm for Hillary and not Obama. Part 3: Why I'm Not Sold on Obama.

2008-02-15T13:02:00.000-05:00

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Obama, as I have pointed out in Part 2, is one of the good guys. However, if Hillary isn't the Devil, then Obama is not Jesus.

But he is closer to Dionysus, and he has his Maenads.

Apparently he has been Dionysus for a long time in Illinois. An April 3, 2007 New York Times article has this to say about Obama's fundraising skills:

Improbably, Mr. Obama, running as something of an outsider, wound up raising $15 million and winning that 2004 Senate race. Now that he is running for president, his fund-raising prowess has helped make him the chief rival to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

And later:

A look at his 2004 Senate race shows how he laid the foundation for his current fund-raising drive. Even as he cultivated an image as an unconventional candidate devoted to the people, not the establishment, he systematically built a sophisticated, and in many ways quite conventional, money machine.

The article goes on to say that Obama drew early support from Chicago's black professional class "using it as a springboard to other rainmakers within the broader party establishment."

His popularity increased soon after he gave his famous speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention bigtime fundraising soon followed. According to the article, though Obama wrote that he felt uncomfortable early on asking for money, he learned how to cultivate donors the same way he cultivates voters on the campaign trail. Good for him. No one is impugning his integrity. I'm just proving that he puts his political pants on one leg at a time - like everyone else.

For instance the Times article states that for the 2004 Senate race, faced with a self-financed opponent, Obama's donors weren't above exploiting campaign financing loopholes like giving up to $12,000 per donor:

As a result, nearly half of the more than $5 million that Mr. Obama raised in the primary came from just 300 donors. In a stroke of luck, he had just enough money to pay for a television advertising blitz in the final weeks as Mr. Hull’s campaign crumbled amid accusations that he had abused a former wife.

Well, lucky Barack! He impresses people with his directness and intelligence and aw shucks modesty. And he does know how to sell himself during a campaign. According to the Times Obama has a hold so strong on Chicago that Hillary, who grew up in Chicago, didn't even think of having a fund-raiser there during the all important first quarter of '07.

After losing the Congressional race in 2000 against former Panther Bobby Rush, he had to pay back a $9,500 personal loan and questions from FEC. He had to lend his own campaign committee $11,100 more to get back refunds to donors who overdonated.

Yet no sooner than the two years it took to repay himself, he was back on the hustings. At first, donors demured, but soon Obama worked his boyish charm, and soon Obama's support increased so that even the Pritzker family, founders of the Hyatt Hotel chain.

The Bacchanalia continued as heretofore Clinton supporters like Jesse Jackson, David Geffen and Michael Froman of Citigroup went to Obama.

Now that the Obama charm may also be viewed as a sales technique as much as a characteristic, let us see how plausible Obama really is well he sells his message to the public at large.

When we listen to our politicians get all eloquent about their own positions and strident about those of their opponent's, we often do not hear the unsaid omissions, indicators that have all the volume and pitch of dog whistles to our uncomprehending ears.

Thank heavens we have a few bloodhounds, setters and pointers who make it their job to sniff out the unseen, and hear the unsaid. Folks like the ones at Factcheck.org are very impartial in uncovering the innaccuracies and sins of omission committed by both Hillary AND Obama. In this article I won't get into Hillary's mistakes. There are plenty of people more than willing to do that job. I'm here to point out where Factcheck shows Barack is less than honest.

Here is an excerpt from Factcheck on January 3, 2008 called "Obama's Creative Clippings:"

• Obama's ad touting his health care plan quotes phrases from newspaper articles and an editorial, but makes them sound more laudatory and authoritative than they actually are. //
• It attributes to The Washington Post a line saying Obama's plan would save families about $2,500. But the Post was citing the estimate of the Obama campaign and didn't analyze the purported savings independently.

• It claims that "experts" say Obama's plan is "the best." "Experts" turn out to be editorial writers at the Iowa City Press-Citizen – who, for all their talents, aren't actual experts in the field.

• It quotes yet another newspaper saying Obama's plan "guarantees coverage for all Americans," neglecting to mention that, as the article makes clear, it's only Clinton's and Edwards' plans that would require coverage for everyone, while Obama's would allow individuals to buy in if they wanted to.

Analysis
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama's ad on his health care plan has been running in Iowa. A hat-tip to The Washington Post for first revealing some of the twists in this 30-second spot.

Obama Writes His Own Reviews

The ad flashes a line credited to The Washington Post that says the Illlinois senator's health care plan would cut costs, "saving $2,500 for the typical family." But the Post didn't say that; the Obama campaign did, and the Post reported it as the campaign's estimate. The fuller citation from the May 30, 2007, article reads:

Washington Post:The senator's aides estimated that his plan would save the average family $2,500 per year and would allow those without insurance to buy it through a new health-care option that would resemble the one federal employees can choose.

Obama Strengthens His Own Reviews

The ad also says that "experts" called Obama's health care plan "the best," words that are attributed to the Iowa City Press-Citizen. We found the citation in an editorial from Dec. 19, 2007. With all due respect to the paper's editorial writers, they aren't "experts" in the same sense as, say, full-time health care researchers at think tanks or university professors who teach the subject. Editorial writers are paid to give their opinions, and in this case no actual experts were quoted.

But that wasn't the only time that Obama warranted special attention from Factcheck. Enter Obama's Creative Clippings Part Deux

On January 17, Factcheck again found it necessary to correct a new ad run by the Obama team, saying "The ad may be new, but we've seen this tactic, from this candidate, before:"

Analysis
This is the second time in as many weeks that we've written about Democratic candidate Barack Obama's misleading use of quotes pulled from newspapers. This ad is running in Nevada in advance of Saturday's caucus.

Obama for America Ad: "President"
Obama: I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message.

Obama: I'll be a president who finally makes health care affordable to every single American by bringing Democrats and Republicans together. I'll be a president who ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and put a middle class tax cut into the pockets of working Americans. And I'll be a president who ends this war in Iraq and finally brings our troops home. We are one nation and our time for change has come.

Universally Wrong About
Health Care Plan

The ad flashes the quote "Obama offers universal health care plan." That was a headline on a May 29, 2007, Associated Press story.

Correction, Jan. 17: We originally reported that the AP story didn’t include the quote used in the ad. We were looking at the final version sent on the AP wire that day. But the Obama campaign contacted us to point out, correctly, that an earlier version of that story included those words as a headline.

However, the story merely reported that Obama said he would sign a universal health care plan. The article goes on to cast doubt on the universality of his own plan:

AP: Obama's first promise as a presidential candidate was that he would sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of his first term in the White House. But there is some dispute over whether his plan would provide universal care. It's aimed at lowering costs so all Americans can afford insurance, but does not guarantee everyone would buy it.

It's an important distinction we've raised a few times. Obama's plan wouldn't guarantee that every individual had health insurance, just that everyone would have the opportunity to obtain it. The AP story also includes a quote from a representative of Families USA, a liberal group that pushes for expanded government health coverage, who says, "It's not totally clear that it would result in universal coverage." The ad even shows video of Obama using more accurate language when he says he wants to make "health care affordable."

But is that the most questionable creative editing on the part of Obama's handlers? No.

Obama's ad makes a big thing about being the first to oppose the war in Iraq. Once again it quotes AP when it says "Obama opposed the war from the start." But just as Factcheck points out AP does say this:

Nobody can dispute that Barack Obama opposed the Iraq war from the start and, with striking prescience, predicted U.S. troops would be mired in a costly conflict that fanned "the flames of the Middle East."

But nobody should accept at face value the Illinois senator's claim that he was a "courageous leader" who opposed the war at great political risk.

The truth is that while Obama showed foreign policy savvy and an ability to keenly analyze both sides of an issue in his October 2002 warnings on Iraq, the political upside of his position rivaled any risk.

And, once elected to the U.S. Senate two years later, Obama waited months to show national leadership on Iraq.

I could have used Factcheck's version of the quote, but they do make the originals accessible, so I went straight to the horse's mouth, read the article, and found a few more paragraphs Obama's ad omitted:

Courageous or calculating? These are the facts:

In 2004, while getting ready for his star-making address to the Democratic National Convention, Obama gave presidential nominee John Kerry and other leading Democrats a pass for backing Bush on Iraq.

Noting he was not privy to intelligence reports shown to Kerry and others, Obama told The New York Times, "What would I have done? I don't know."

Once elected, Obama didn't force the issue in the Senate. His first floor speech encouraged Democrats to drop challenges to the 2004 presidential election "at a time when we try to make certain we encourage democracy in Iraq."

His first major address on Iraq came in November 2005, when he said U.S. forces remained "part of a solution."

And even Factcheck missed this one:

Seven months later, he was voting in step with Clinton for a middle-of-the-road approach. On June 22, 2006, they both backed a nonbinding resolution to pull troops out of Iraq.
More meaningfully, they also rejected a bill backed by the force of law that would have required the troops to come home by a date certain.

Interesting that Obama's ad should fail to mention that part of AP's article.

And I suppose Obama's people also found it inconvenient to mention the article states that in his run for Senate nomination his opponents were also against the war.

A lot of footage on the cutting room floor.

A look at their advertising is one thing, but a look at their money trail offers more interesting examples of Obama's disingenuousness.

Once again I'll leave it too others to expose Hillary's bundlers. They are there at Public Citizen's White House For Sale site You'll find them right next to Obama's bundlers.

So let me just give you a small list of Obama's more interesting. Obama says he won't play any games, but some of his donors are players:

David Geffen

State
CA

Employer
Dreamworks SKG

Amount Raised.
Bundler for Barack Obama, raised at least $50,000.00

Cycle
2008

Name Disclosed by Candidate
Y

Mark D. Gilbert

State
FL

Employer
Lehman Brothers

Amount
Bundler for Barack Obama, raised more than $200,000.00

Cycle
2008

Name Disclosed by Candidate
Y

David Heller

State
NY

Employer
Goldman Sachs

Amount
Bundler for Barack Obama, raised more than $100,000.00

Cycle
2008

Name Disclosed by Candidate
Y

All I set out to point out is that:

• Hillary is NOT the Devil

• There is really very little daylight between both candidate's views

• Obama's "politics of hope" is at best unattainable, and since he's really still playing the game, how much does he really believe in it?

The man still puts his pants on one leg at a time, like the rest of us.

Here are a few graphics from Opensecrets.com that illustrate my point:

'
.

Setting a Few Matters Straight: Why I'm for Hillary and not Obama. Part 2.

2008-02-12T21:49:00.001-05:00

In my previous post, I enumerated the various reasons why I feel that Hillary is not the ogre that most people feel that she is, and why she's presidential timber. The trouble is, can honestly say the same for Obama? I don't know. The trouble with that is, now is not the time for an Obama learning curve. How much do we really know about him?
For the past 7 years this country has been brutalised by an idiot who has brought us war, threatened our civil liberties, abused our economy, and destroyed our reputation around the world. His reign was the culmination of a way of thinking that has been entrenched among Conservatives for the past 30 years. It is a way of thinking that threatens our future socially, economically. And ecologically, the survival of the human race. We need someone at the helm that we can rely on to fight that entrenchment. Someone who is vastly experienced in fighting Right Wing onslaughts. I don't think the politics of "coming together" is going to work on the likes of John O'Neill's Swift Boaters, Karl Rove, or Fox News. Already Obama has to contend with false rumors concerning his religion, and his upbringing. And now, the Rezko business will come up.

But what is at the core of my objections to an Obama candidacy? Not only do I find myself questioning the feasibility of his "new style" of politics, but I question whether he can possibly pursue it given today's circumstances.

• His positions are really not that different from Hillary's.

• He strives to set himself apart from most politicians yet his very history suggests otherwise.

• In particular, his relationship with Antoin Rezko calls into to question his judgement of character. Not only that, but his very criteria on what constitutes a friend can be questioned. Is a friend someone you like and trust, or is a friend merely someone who is "usefull" to you?

On the issues, Clinton and Obama differ only on. the details. According to
Wikipedia:

In a 2004 fundraising speech in San Francisco, she was highly critical of George W. Bush's tax cuts, saying that "Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."[2] Clinton has sponsored legislation designed to reduce the deficit by reinstating some taxes that had been cut. She has co-sponsored legislation related to debt and deficit reduction. On the other hand, she has advocated for federal spending that advocates of less government spending deem nonessential, such as funding a museum commemorating the Woodstock Music Festival.[3]

Obama's stand two years later wasn't that much different:

Obama spoke out in June 2006 against making recent, temporary estate tax cuts permanent, calling the cuts a "Paris Hilton" tax break for "billionaire heirs and heiresses."[18] Speaking in November 2006 to members of Wake Up Wal-Mart, a union-backed campaign group, Obama said: "You gotta pay your workers enough that they can actually not only shop at Wal-Mart, but ultimately send their kids to college and save for retirement."[19] Obama has also proposed his own tax plan, including $80 billion in tax cuts for the poor and middle class.[20]

On health care the only difference between the two front runners is how they define "universal.":

In September 2007, as part of her presidential campaign, Clinton revealed her new American Health Choices Plan, an "individual mandate" universal health care plan that would require health care coverage for all individuals. Clinton explained individuals can keep their current employer-based coverage, or choose an expanded version of Medicare or federal employee health plans.[18][19] The projected cost of the plan is $110 billion annually and will require all employers to cover their employees' health insurance or contribute to the costs of their employees' health insurance coverage; tax credits will be provided to companies with fewer than 25 employees to help cover costs.[18][20]

And Obama said:

On January 24, 2007 Obama spoke about his position on health care at Families USA, a health care advocacy group. Obama said, "The time has come for universal health care in America [...] I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country." Obama went on to say that he believed that it was wrong that forty-seven million Americans are uninsured, noting that taxpayers already pay over $15 billion annually to care for the uninsured.[15] Obama cites cost as the reason so many Americans are without health insurance, and claims his health care plan would cut the cost of insurance more than any of his Democratic rivals' plans in the 2008 Presidential race. [16]

The list goes on and on. In foreign policy, both Hillary and Obama favor a tough approach to terrorism with Obama assuring people he will escalate the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He would even go into Pakistan despite warnings that such a move could further destabilize the situation.

On the Arab-Israeli situation, both candidates meet at the center from different viewpoints agreeing that the Palestinian leadership must be more responsible. Obama wants more dialogue with the Arabs while Hillary is still in favor of the wall, and concentrates more on Israel's security.

According to Associated Press:

When asked who the United States' top allies are, Senator Barack Obama said the European Union and Japan, but failed to mention Israel.

The debate moderator NBC News anchor Brian Williams interrupted Obama, drawing his attention to the omission and quoting Obama as having once said, "No one suffers more than the Palestinians."

Obama, unperplexed, explained that the Palestinians suffer because of their leadership. "I said that no one suffers more than the Palestinian people because of their leadership's failure to recognize Israel, denounce violence and be serious about peace negotiations and regional security," he said.

"Israel is one of our most important allies in the world. It is the only democracy in the Middle East," Obama added. He even noted that if he was elected, he intended to increase American involvement in the region.

But Obama comes to this point of view from the standpoint that we must have a dialogue with the Palestinians. According to AP at the National Jewish Democratic Council this was his (highly commendable) position:

Obama said while he was committed to protecting Israel’s security, he would also reach out to Arab leaders who were committed to recognizing Israel and renouncing violence.

And according to Wikipedia Obama is no friend of terrorism:

Referring to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in January 2006, Obama denounced Hamas while praising former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. At a meeting with then Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom on the eve of Hamas' sweeping election victory,[33] Obama stated that Sharon's role in the conflict had always been "absolutely important and constructive."[34] At a meeting with Palestinian students two days later, Obama stated opposition to Hamas in favor of rival party Fatah, noting his desire to "consolidate behind a single government with a single authority that can then negotiate as a reliable partner with Israel." In a comment aimed at Hamas, he said that "the US will always side with Israel if Israel is threatened with destruction."[35]

On Iran there is considerably less daylight between Clinton and Obama. While Hillary accuses Iran of having a nuclear weapons program, and supports UN sanctions against Iran, she believes that diplomacy is necessary, and has criticized Dubya for refusing to talk to the mullahs.

And while Obama is all for talking to Iran, and has criticized Hillary for voting to declare the Quds Force a terrorist organization, he wants all military options on the table.

On the issue of Iraq, again there are only a few variations on the same stance. Let us dispense with the fact that Hillary voted to give authorization for the war. I had already touched on her reasons for that vote in Part 1 of this series. However, she did charge Dubya with rushing to war, and pulling the rug out from under the UN inspectors, and came out for an international solution to the problem. However, to quote from Wikipedia:

On June 15, 2006, Clinton charged that President Bush “rushed to war” and “refused to let the UN inspectors conduct and complete their mission ... We need to be building alliances instead of isolation around the world ... There must be a plan that will begin to bring our troops home.” But she also said, “I do not think it is a smart strategy either for the president to continue with his open-ended commitment which I think does not put enough pressure on the Iraqi government, nor do I think it is a smart policy to set a date certain.”[63][64]

Hillary voted for the USA PATRIOT ACT in 2001, but helped to filibuster the bill for its renewal when enough money wasn't apportioned to New York for anti-terrorism efforts. She also stood up for some of the civil liberties concerns with it. She voted in favor of the compromise bill.

FISA and warrantless wiretapping were a different matter though:

Regarding the December 2005 NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Clinton stated that she was 'troubled' by President Bush's 2002 actions. In a statement, she said: 'The balance between the urgent goal of combating terrorism and the safeguarding of our most fundamental constitutional freedoms is not always an easy one to draw. However, they are not incompatible, and unbridled and unchecked executive power is not the answer.'[83]

Clinton didn't take the American Freedom to stop the military commissions, end torture, or restore habeas corpus, but then as President, she can end the former and sign into law the other.

Obama wants to restore American prestige all over the world:

Obama is also right that resetting the world's view of the U.S. begins with making our government more transparent. As a senator, he's worked to visibly link members of Congress to their roads to nowhere and to their Iowan rain forests. As president, he will hold large-scale, open discussions on the issues facing Americans in the 21st century: health care, climate change, comprehensive immigration reform, border security, tax policy, education and economic development.

Both Hillary and Obama take a rather tortured path concerning same sex couples. Obama...

• Voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment

• And yet, he believes that marriage is between a man and a woman.

• Supports civil union that carries legal standing equal to marriage, but believes that the appellation of marriage should be left up to the states.
• Feels that homosexuality is not immoral.

To confuse things all the more, for the all-important South Carolina primary, Obama invited anti-gay people like Reverend Donnie McClurkin, Mary Mary and Hezekiah Walker to his 3 day "Embrace the Courage" campaign tour. After a whole lot criticism, he added openly gay pastor Andy Sidden.

Hillary has an equal amount of 'splaining to do Lucy:

Senator Clinton expressed her opposition to same-sex marriage while affirming her support for some form of civil unions for homosexual couples: 'I think that the vast majority of Americans find [same-sex marriage] to be something they can't agree with. But I think most Americans are fair. And if they believe that people in committed relationships want to share their lives and, not only that, have the same rights that I do in my marriage, to decide who I want to inherit my property or visit me in a hospital, I think that most Americans would think that that's fair and that should be done."'[115]

And yet:

• She opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment like Obama.

• She admitted the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" was a failure and that gays should be allowed to serve openly.

Lastly the environment. Hillary wants:

• energy conservation

• to release oil reserves

• no drilling in ANWR

• to ratify the Kyoto Protocol

• a Strategic Energy Fund to put $ 50 billion into R&D and deployment of renewable energy, clean coal, ethanol, and homegrown biofuels.

I think Wikipedia says everything I'd say for Obama's views on environment:

Obama has taken the stance that global warming is human-caused, and that it must be addressed. He has a record of supporting environmentally friendly bills.

The issue of climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril. There may still be disputes about exactly how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return. And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe.[64]

He has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 by creating a market-based cap-and-trade system.[65] Obama also has plans for improving air and water quality through reduced pollution levels.[citation needed]

And so, there doesn't seem to be much daylight between Hillary and Obama's positions.

And yet, Obama says he won't "play the Washington game." We'll see.

In Part 3 of this series, I shall examine the feasibility of the "politics of hope," and whether Obama is sincere or a fool.

Obama: Reagan Changed Direction; Bill Clinton Didn't

2008-01-22T15:28:00.001-05:00

Setting a Few Matters Straight: Why I'm for Hillary and not Obama.

2008-01-14T13:31:00.001-05:00

Part One: She's Not the Devil!

Maybe it's just a gut feeling, but Hillary Clinton inspires confidence in me, and I'm just not sold on Barack Obama.

It could be that she's just been known to me for much longer than Obama. Or that I was pulling for the first Democratic First Lady in twelve years since Rosalyn Carter in the Clinton's fight for survival against neocons and spoiled Reaganites who were pining for their "good old days.

Maybe I saw at that time a toughness, an indomitable spirit of a person who became an expert at fighting that "vast Right Wing conspiracy" that we now know really existed and wasn't a figment of her imagination. All I know is that she became my Senator, I met her once, "Cackles" wasn't there at the time either. It was at our State Fair, and Cold Hillary never came. She was warm with everyone, and everyone felt proud just to be near her. She even posed for a picture for me.

Now, can someone explain to me why the Clintons are coldly calculating and Obama is not? According to MediaMatters.com,Hillary has consistently maintained the same positions that she had as First Lady. One example is on abortion:

Critics often cite Clinton's views on reproductive choice as an example of her repositioning. For instance, Chris Matthews has described Clinton as purportedly shifting her stance on abortion in a "transparent" effort to recover the so-called "values vote." He has also accused her of "trying to play it safe" on the issue by taking a "poll-tested path." Matthews has pointed to her assertion in a July 25, 2006, speech that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare" as an example of her changing position on the issue. But far from representing a point of departure from earlier statements, Clinton's remarks in July were consistent with those she made in a January 22, 1999, speech. While first lady, she said: 'But all too often, generally because of the loudest voices, the American people don't hear explained the efforts that we're engaged in to continue to work with people from all different walks of life to make abortion safe, legal, and rare.'

As for the controversial vote to give Dubya war powers, I will not join the rest by bashing Hillary for it. The country was in no mood for peace after 9-11. I was full of vengeance myself at that time.

To call Hillary a staunch supporter of the Iraq War as a hypothesis is very widely off the mark.

But the claim that Clinton was once one of the 'staunchest" backers' of the Iraq war does not withstand scrutiny -- nor does the claim that her criticism of the war is recent. While Clinton did vote in favor of the 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, less than seven months after the war began, she expressed doubt about President Bush's leadership in the war, saying in an October 17, 2003, floor statement, that her 'yes' vote for an $87 billion supplemental appropriation 'was a vote for our troops, it was a vote for our mission. ... [I]t was not a vote for our national leadership.' During the same statement, Clinton accused the Bush administration of having "gilded the lily" on pre-war Iraq intelligence at 'the cost of perhaps not being able to take actions in the future that are necessary to our well-being and our interests because we may look like the nation or at the least the administration that cried wolf.'

Now we come to the "deviousness" question. First of all, if we learned anything from the past seven years, it's hard to slip one by diligent opposition researchers. Sooner or later, someone will check the source, listen to some disgruntled ex-employee, or check some coincidence and expose it. Someone who isn't drinking the Kool-Aid will notice the details that True Believers overlook or deny.

Then why has nothing stuck to Hillary? Time and again for the entire Clinton administration Right Wing s spent millions of taxpayer dollars trying to bring them down, through Whitewater, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and impeachment. They only succeeded in self-destructing à la Newt Gingrich and Robert Livingston. And yet back then they learned nothing! And they still know nothing. To date, the stupidest thing they could do was to try to pin their own crimes on someone else. Someone like Hillary. Attempts to accuse Hillary of the madrassa slander backfired according to Mediamatters when the datelines of some Right Wing articles on the matter came to the fore. And mindlessly the Right Wing kept sticking it's head into the mouth of it's own lion. Now any Progressive blogger can close that beast's mouth on Limbaugh's neck by simply right-clicking on any link to the articles in question.

Conservative efforts to raise questions about Obama's Muslim heritage had, in fact, begun days earlier. Indeed, on January 9 -- a week before the InsightMag.com article -- Chicago Tribune metro columnist Eric Zorn wrote on the Tribune's Change of Subject weblog, "The crazies are sending around an e-mail that attempts to establish that Barack Obama is actually a Muslim who masquerades as a Christian for political advantage." But following the publication of the InsightMag.com article, numerous right-wing media figures repeated the entirely unsubstantiated accusation that Clinton's campaign staff was responsible for spreading the madrassa allegation against Obama. Several Fox News hosts repeated the claim that Clinton had "outed Obama's madrassa past." Rush Limbaugh declared, "This is Hillary's team doing this." And conservative radio host Melanie Morgan asserted that Clinton "is going to try to derail the [Obama] train before it gets out of the station." As recently as January 30, Fox News political analyst Dick Morris persisted in leveling this baseless accusation.

A similar attempt to slander Hillary was made (though sadly compounded by an erstwhile Clinton operative,) that Hillary was behind a supposed leak about the ancient history of Obama's drug use.

Sadly, it’s not only the Right that is unfairly treating the Clintons. In her latest column, Maureen Dowd carries forth much of the mistaken impression that all of Hillary's actions are in part motivated by self interest, calculation, and cynicism.

She became emotional because she feared that she had reached her political midnight, when she would suddenly revert to the school girl with geeky glasses and frizzy hair, smart but not the favorite. All those years in the shadow of one Natural, only to face the prospect of being eclipsed by another Natural?

Even if you agree with this, which I do not, Dowd, whom I usually respect, gets it wrong when she concludes that:

Her argument against Obama now boils down to an argument against idealism, which is probably the lowest and most unlikely point to which any Clinton could sink. The people from Hope are arguing against hope.

However, she inadvertently contradicts that point with a preceding paragraph. in it she attempts to deride Hillary's allusion to Martin Luther King Jr. and LBJ and in so doing, opens the backdoor for every supporter of Hillary to sink that argument:

Hillary sounded silly trying to paint Obama as a poetic dreamer and herself as a prodigious doer. “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” she said. Did any living Democrat ever imagine that any other living Democrat would try to win a presidential primary in New Hampshire by comparing herself to L.B.J.? (Who was driven out of politics by Gene McCarthy in New Hampshire.)

Dowd missed the point entirely. In the debate, Hillary argued for change with experience. She had every right to allude to the civil rights accomplishments of Johnson. Dr. King could only fight the battle in the streets, but Congress was another matter.

In her criticism of Hillary's allusion to LBJ, Dowd forgets obvious facts where she should have been more diligent. In order to affect change, as a President Johnson needed to rely on his decade long experience in the Senate - and as Senate Majority Leader to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, considering the amount of controversy and bloodshed it caused at the time. Getting laws passed the Johnson way required him to know a lot about every Senator and Congressman. That required that decade's worth of Senate experience. The business with McCarthy in New Hampshire though important, is irrelevant to the argument.

update:

The Hooplah on the MLK Statement.

Everyone misses the point that Hillary was speaking from the perspective of someone who was for 8 years a President's wife. This gives her at least one President's point of view, and that President, her husband, had to deal with a very belligerent Congress whose every move was like.an act of war against him. This is not dissimilar to what Johnson faced from Dixiecrats in 1964. In fact, it lost him support from the South and was a factor in his choosing not to run for re-election. Remember George Wallace?.

Part Two "Keeping Barack Obama in Perspective" will appear in my next post.

The Republican Youtube Charade

2007-12-14T12:43:00.000-05:00

The Republicans ACTUALLY HELD A YOUTUBE DEBATE! And my dead great great grandmother JUST WON THE BOSTON MARATHON!

The Democrats had the real Youtube Debate. Real people who expressed themselves as individuals, not as robots like the obviously predominantly Republican crowd did. And the converted choir of an audience got the expected pre-programmed answers, except when the candidates tried to out Right Wing each other, or they had to bring someone back into the fold. Only then did sparks fly when the stray touched nerve offered each stalwart the opportunity to burnish his medals with the other guy's forehead.

As to the crowd: With that bunch, well, it's ironic for most Republicans to cry fowl because of a few questions such as General Kerr's or the toy lady's went off script. Most of the questions were asked by Republican faithful and were non-confrontational. Indeed, one ought to suspect that by some secret agreement with Youtube and the GOP, CNN may have screened out most Democrat's questions in favor of those of Republicans. There was the gung-ho gun enthusiast. There were questions about raising taxes and how to control spending, and of course, abortion. Very few questions were on Iraq.

By the way, l think that Grover Norquist whose "Americans For Tax Reform banner was CLEARLY SPELLED OUT on his Youtube post, should be extended the same courteousies by the Democrats as were given to General Kerr. I'm pointing this out, because I DON'T think CNN was trying to ambush the Republicans.

Then our heroes tried to get into their kabuki dance, but not before an opportunity for Giuliani and Romney to beat each other over the head came up.

The question was on illegal aliens and whose "sanctuary" was the most supersanctuariest, Giuliani's NYC or Romney's Massachusetts. Then the dogfight began! First Romney accused Rudy of making New York City a "sanctuary" for illegal aliens. Giuliani responded by parsing the term "sanctuary." Then Rudy accused Mitt of not only running a "sanctuary state," but of keeping a "sanctuary Mansion" as well, on the basis that the landscaping firm Romney hired to work there had a few illegals on the payroll.

On gun control, except for a rather admirably human moment of showing real concern by Duncan Hunter, who winced when the questioner was thrown a rifle, Hollywood-style, most everyone toed the gun lobby line, even Ron Paul. Moreover, when Rudy showed some real cred as a mayor as he stuck up for reasonable psych exams as part of background checks, the crowd booed him! Hunter even had the nerve to throw in Iraq as part of the rationale for gun owner's rights. Is someone bringing their fowling piece to a firefight in Ramadi?

And then there is Grover:

Here was the counterweight to General Kerr that allowed the scared little candidates to scurry into their warm little anti-tax comfort zone.

Most of candidates bragged about how they were the most partisan at least about not raising taxes. Tancredo kissed up to Norquist and even showed us the pat old Grover gave on his back. Huckabee, Romney, and Giuliani signed Norquist’s pledge, but surprise, surprise, Thompson and McCain showed that you didn't have to sign any pledge to stay loyal to voodoo economics.

However, the National GOP Loyalty Rally didn't stop there no sir!

Government spending was the next target. The GOP showed its truly dull sheen of bankruptcy when the supposed maverick, John McCain, shocked the populace when he accused S-CHIP, a program meant to help many struggling families educate their children, as contributing to smoking! Factcheck anyone?

Not to be out scrooged this Christmas season, Giuliani was in favor of cutting costs by cutting labor in favor of mechanization.

And while I admire his stand on the war, I most sincerely do not like this slavish devotion to state's rights as exhibited by Ron Paul when said he would cut the Department of Education.

But when Paul deviated from the group by reminding us that we could cut costs by overhauling our failed foreign policy and bringing our troops home from an unnecessary war, McCain, himself a veteran of Vietnam, and therefore a witness to an unnecessary war, replied to this by calling it isolationism.

And the icing on the cake came when Rudy replied to a question on how he would repair the U.S.'s world image, said he would keep on fighting the War on Terrorism, but he would make the distinction between normal Muslims and radicals. As if a stray bullet, killing a toddler could tell the difference. Maybe someone should have voiced this sentiment at Haditha!

Moreover, while McCain deserves credit for criticizing the failed strategy that led us to this fiasco, he fell in line by criticizing a deadline for troop withdrawal.

And so it goes. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. The Democrats had the real people's debate. The Republicans were all hat and no cattle.

Republicans on Government Programs

Grover Norquist asks a Question

Republicans on repairing the U.S. image Abroad.

Giuliani vs. Romney on Illegal Aliens

Pete Stark and The Sinful Stone Throwers

2007-10-31T21:40:00.001-04:00

(Warning: A few of these quotes came second-hand from About.com or Wikipedia)

I for one, find this John Boehner remark to be rather disingenuous:

Mr. Stark, by his despicable conduct, has dishonored himself.

No way Pot! This is the BRONZE kettle! A far less similar hue to yours you won't find!

Mr. Stark can only look to the Right for any teachers in the art of senseless vituperation.

When I think about the unthinking bloviators of the Right, I find it hard to feel sorry for them as they reacted with indignancy to the remarks of Pete Stark, although they might be enough to get some Freeper's skivvies in a bunch! However, I'd like to remind at least those of us who'd care to listen, that despite the erudition of the best of us on the Left, aside from the occasional "Hymietown," or Joycelyn Elder's theories on teaching masturbation, or the Dean Scream, and anything Rosie might have to say, we never seem to hold a candle to the Right!

The Right Wing media has at least four prominent shining examples of oratory that regularly regail us with their pearls of wisdom!

And yes, they are Mr. Rush Limbaugh, Billo O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. The Squawking Magpies of the Right.

One catalyst of their bile is their palace guard brand of patriotism. If you have it, you're a real American. Say something they don't like - and it won't matter if you fought in Iraq or lost a loved one on 9/11, you're a fraud or a dupe. When confronted with vets who denounced the war, Limbaugh called them "phony soldiers." And in reply to the ad of a soldier who called him out on his statement, he then said this:

He discusses his service in Iraq, the wounds he suffered there, and he says to me in this ad, "Until you have the guts to call me a 'phony soldier' to my face, stop telling lies about my service." You know, this is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into.

He has the temerity to equate a war veteran with a suicidal terrorist.

Ann Coulter is another great humanitarian with erudition. When 9/11 widows criticized the administration's lack of interest in investigating the causes of 9/11, she gave this touching tribute:

These broads (the widows of 9/11 victims) are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much.

It is amazing how someone could underutilize the two brain cells it would suffice for most of us to call up compassion for such obvious victims, and dismiss them out of hand.

Then there's Billo. Here is a man who parses the definition patriotism in a rather chiliastic fashion because he was offended by San Francisco's ban of military recruiters from city schools:

If I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

On the issue of torture, Limbaugh is positively sophomoric. Here, he describes his attitude towards the indignities suffered at Abu Ghraib:

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation...I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of the need to blow some steam off?

Now Mr. O'Reilly likes to mix his spurious statements with bombast:

I'll tell you what. I've been in combat. I've seen it, I've been close to it... and if my unit is danger, and I've got a captured guy, and the guy knows where the enemy is, and I'm looking him in the eye, the guy better tell me. That's all I'm gonna tell you. The guy better tell me. If it's life or death, he's going first.

No Billo, John Wayne would not be proud of you! You see, torture gets your enemy to tell you what he thinks you want him to hear, not the truth.

However, the piece d’resistance is a statement by Anne Coulter, as she wondered in 2005 why the New York Times didn’t propose the same solution for terrorism as it did for online child predators:

Would that the Times allowed the Bush administration similar investigative powers for Islamofacists in America!

Which brings me to this week's scandal about No Such Agency spying on 'Americans.' I have difficulty ginning up much interest in this story inasmuch as I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East, and sending liberals to Guantanamo.

Ms. Coulter might want to remember that though she may fondly wish America to be under fascism, communist dictatorship would put her ilk on the short hit list. "Televised spectator sport?" Like the Doctor's Trial Stalin had in the early 50's? Or maybe she meant like the People's Court after the attempt on Hitler's life starring Screaming Judge Friesler? Yep. Real super-patriot that Ann Coulter!

And the Right wants to stack Mr. Stark's relatively more factual statement up against ginormous classics like these? Hah!

Keep'em coming folks. You see, the well of stupid, insensitive and obnoxious statements runs rather dry on the Liberal side. And, try as you might to engender indignation at the few and infrequent gaffes you may detect from the Left, we know that you will never fail to disappoint us in demonstrating to us by your own tongues, examples of what you are looking for.

Ron Paul at GOP DEbate

2007-10-22T13:47:00.001-04:00

The Smearing of The Innocent: Graeme Frost, Bethany Wilkerson, and the Calumny of the Right.

2007-10-18T17:41:00.001-04:00

Graeme Frost is not a pawn. He is a boy. A boy who was once severely injured, whose sister is severely disabled. Nevertheless, according to the Right, he committed a serious unpardonable crime. He dared to speak out against the policies of Bush and the rest of the privatizers as a young boy.

Now, it used to be that young children of traumatized families were sacrosanct, but not any more!

Apparently, at this point, feeling threatened on all sides by a disgruntled and scandalized American public, the Right knows it is standing on a precipice looking down a deep and dark abyss. Every "gain" the Right made during the last 6 years, would be undone and reversed if a Democratic president was to coincide with a Democratic Congress. Now they are paranoid.

Like cornered bears, they seem to attack these days anyone, no matter how innocuous, who they perceive to be threats. Their reaction to the Frost family’s action is like that of a conspiracy theorist finding his enemy under every bed.

Here and there, they miraculously find snippets they call clues to bolster their ignorant suppositions about the "affluent" Frosts, and the “unworthy” Wilkersons.

On Wizbang, Kim Priestap writes:

First, Mr. Halsey Frost, Graeme's father, owns his own woodworking design studio, Frostworks, so his claim that he can't get health insurance through work is shockingly deceptive. He chooses not to get health care for his family. Second, Graeme and his sister Gemma attend the very exclusive Park School, which has a tuition of $20,000 a year, per child. Third, they live in a 3,000+ square foot home in a neighborhood with smaller homes that are selling for at least $400,000.

I believe that they bought their house at $55,000. The neighborhood's property values were not as high then due to the crime rate. However, why let facts get in the way?

Think Progress did give the definitive answer for Graeme Frost and his heroic family:

1) Graeme has a scholarship to a private school. The school costs $15K a year, but the family only pays $500 a year.

2) His sister Gemma attends another private school to help her with the brain injuries that occurred due to her accident. The school costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost.

3) They bought their lavish house sixteen years ago for $55,000 at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe.

4) Last year, the Frosts made $45,000 combined. Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined.

5) The state of Maryland has found them eligible to participate in the CHIP program.

Wingnuttery over at Whiskeyfire found the Admission section of the Park School webpage, added this overlooked detail:

Park enrolls students based on their talents and capabilities. Families who are unable to meet the full cost of tuition may apply for the Financial Assistance Program, which supplements tuition payments. Financial assistance does not need to be repaid.
In 2007, 18% of Park students in grades 1-12 received over $2 million in financial assistance that ranged from $1,000 per year to full tuition. Tuition remission for children of our faculty brings that total to 25% of the student body.
Because each family's situation is unique, it is impossible to predict the amount of funding awarded based solely on income. For example, the number of children attending tuition-charging institutions is an important factor. As a guide, families with incomes up to $160,000 received financial assistance during this past school year.

To which Wingnuttery added:

If the school is giving assistance to families making $160K, they are offering pretty substantial assistance to those making $45K. I'm just guessing here, but it sure does seem plausible!

I take it that the Right Wing has never needed tuition assistance! I sure did when I was in junior college - back in the '70's.

I'm surprised that at the first stage of this news cycle that the Right Wing didn't discover such obvious facts that Graeme's sister was so severely and permanently disabled that her private school necessarily had to be one that accommodated her disability, or that Graeme had a scholarship that left the Frosts only to pay $500.

And now, little Bethany Wilkerson who had a pre-existing heart condition will have to face the calumny of the selfish.

Has anyone heard of an insurance company giving a policy to an infant with a pre-existing heart condition? Bethany had to have her surgery at six months old. She still has a hole in her heart.

Yet, that doesn't stop the Freepers from attacking the credibility or character of her parents. It is remarkable what Mark Steyn has to say:

Last week I compared parents who allow their kids to be props in political debates to stage mothers. Instead of, Judy, take one more Benzedrine and this time smile during the encore of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," it is "Madison, tell the nice man what Uncle Gore said would happen to the polar-bear cubs if people don’t drive better cars." Maybe the political form of stage mothering isn’t as harmful to the kids, but it is just as exploitative.

Now Mr. Steyn wants to argue that the Democrats had chosen the wrong S-CHIP poster family.

Well, I was surprised that someone on the Right could actually concede (italics) that the Frosts might have a fair to middling claim to S-CHIP!

However, he only does so to imply that the far poorer Wilkersons are a worse choice due to "bad behavior":

While the debate around the Frost family at least initially centered around their relative wealth, the issue really at hand is one of bad behavior. While US Action and a labyrinthine maze of leftist activist groups prepare to rally around images of Tampa Bay’s Most Photogenic Baby holding up a crayon sign that says "Don’t Veto Me," Dara and Brian Wilkerson are real poster children ó for irresponsible decisions.

Wait a minute! Is the Right to Life crowd finally converting to Pro Choice? Hallelujah will miracles never end!

I thought it was the job, no - the duty of every girl, single or married, rich as a queen or poor as a beggar to not interfere with nature and postpone the Blessed Event through contraception. And when the bun went in the oven, every good girl saw it through! Amazing how conveniently chameleon like the morality of the Right is when it sees its money slipping away!

Bethany's mother probably faced the same dilemma many newlyweds face when adjusting to marriage. She left her job at the country club (whose insurance plan would anyway be irrelevant to Bethany's case, because her condition must have made her ineligible,) because it was an obstacle to the establishment of a household.

In addition, the funny part is that just as the Wilkersons ruled out abortion, the Frosts in their own way are also are the model Conservative family!

Most Conservatives want government support for attending private schools, which is what Graeme got - government support for attending private school!

Instead of having a "woodworking hobby," Halsey Frost was an entrepreneur. He owned his own home as well. And he tried to do well by his family.

But because of the Frost’s stand on S-CHIP, he is castigated!

Listen to how E.J. Dionne puts it:

Conservatives endlessly praise risk-taking by entrepreneurs and would give big tax cuts to those who are most successful. But if a small-business person is struggling, he shouldn't even think about applying for SCHIP.

Conservatives who want to repeal the estate tax on large fortunes have cited stories -- most of them don't check out -- about farmers having to sell their farms to pay inheritance taxes. But the implication of these attacks on the Frosts is that they are expected to sell their investment property to pay for health care. Why?

Oh, yes, and conservatives tell us how much they love homeownership, and then assail the Frosts for having the nerve to own a home. I suppose they should have to sell that, too.

Well, if the Frosts and the Wilkersons, who in different ways personify two of the staples of Family Values, then how is it that their espousal of S-CHIP bars them from passing Right Wing muster?

Well, if you're not saving the money for butter... maybe you want it for guns!

Let me leave you with one last tidbit from Wikipedia:

Insurance companies use the term "adverse selection" to describe the tendency for only those who will benefit from insurance to buy it. Specifically when talking about health insurance, unhealthy people are more likely to purchase health insurance because they anticipate large medical bills. On the other side, people who consider themselves to be reasonably healthy may decide that medical insurance is an unnecessary expense; if they see the doctor once a year and it costs $250, that's much better than making monthly insurance payments of $400 (example figures).
The fundamental concept of insurance is that it balances costs across a large, random sample of individuals (see risk pool). For instance, an insurance company has a pool of 1000 randomly selected subscribers, each paying $100 per month. One person becomes very ill while the others stay healthy, allowing the insurance company to use the money paid by the healthy people to pay for the treatment costs of the sick person. Adverse selection upsets this balance between healthy and sick subscribers by leaving an insurance company with primarily sick subscribers and no way to balance out the cost of their medical expenses with a large number of healthy subscribers.
Because of adverse selection, insurance companies use a patient's medical history to screen out persons with pre-existing medical conditions. Before buying health insurance, a person typically fills out a comprehensive medical history form that asks whether the person smokes, how much the person weighs, whether the person has been treated for any of a long list of diseases and so on. In general, those who present a large financial burdens are denied coverage or charged high premiums to compensate.[5] One large U.S. industry survey found that roughly 13 percent of applicants for comprehensive, individually purchased health insurance that go through the medical underwriting process were denied coverage. Declination rates increased significantly with age, rising from 5 percent for individuals 18 and under to just under a third for individuals aged 60 to 64.[6] On the other side, applicants can get discounts if they do not smoke and are healthy.[7]
Starting in 1976, some states started providing guaranteed-issuance risk pools, which enable individuals who are medically uninsurable through private health insurance to purchase a state-sponsored health insurance plan, usually at higher cost. Minnesota was the first to offer such a plan; 34 states now offer them. Plans vary greatly from state to state, both in their costs and benefits to consumers and to their methods of funding and operations. They serve a very small portion of the uninsurable market — about 182,000 people in the U.S. as of 2004,[8] but in best cases allow people with pre-existing conditions such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease or other chronic illnesses to be able to switch jobs or seek self-employment without fear of being without health care benefits.[9] Efforts to pass a national pool have as yet been unsuccessful, but some federal tax money has been awarded to states to innovate and improve their plans.

Bethany Wilkerson and Her Family on MSNBC Countdown

2007-10-18T13:05:00.001-04:00

Kids Warn Conservatives on SCHIP: No More Photo Ops

2007-10-16T15:02:00.001-04:00

Finally!

SCHIP, Mitch McConnell Protest

2007-10-16T14:59:00.001-04:00

SCHIP All the Way!

S-CHIP Works: Bethany's Story

2007-10-16T14:53:00.001-04:00

Here's who gets helped by SCHIP:

The "Soldier's and Citizen's Rally against the War" in Syracuse, NY on Sept. 29th

2007-10-04T13:13:00.001-04:00

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon last week, I saw something incredible - people, thousands of people coming together, peacefully yet passionately united to end the most unnecessary war this country ever fought since Vietnam.

We came with signs like "Healthcare NOT Warfare, " or "Green Party Veterans Against the War," or "BUSH - WEAPON OF MASS DECEPTION." Many groups came together because the war in Iraq is an obstacle to their causes just as the Vietnam War was a generation ago. There were Greens there, as well as Iraq Veterans Against the War, childcare advocates, a Catholic priest, the SEIU, chapters of the DFA from all over New York State.

The first rally occurred at Everson Museum Plaza. Somehow, we packed at least 2,500 people there to hear veterans speak out against the insincere absurdities they encountered in the American war effort, and how that turned them against the war.

There were at least two die-ins on the march to Walnut Park and S.U. Both were under the sign: "IF NEW YORK WERE IRAQ." I am an uncle to two little girls, and began to think about the little children who were dying in Anbar, Ramadi and Baghdad.

Myself, I chose a more humorous approach to a visual presentation. A listener to Stephanie Miller, I used one of my many contributions to Photoshop Fun at Stephanie Miller.com, a "living caricature" of a terrified Dubya, which I pasted onto both sides of the placard. It was a way to ritually force a horrified Bush to look with fear and trepidation at a crowd not vetted by the Secret Service, and unencumbered by Loyalty Oaths or Pledges! The caption read: "Ruggie! Wheresz Mah Ruggie?!"

Actually, this was an attempt to encourage any tired marchers to keep going by creating a sense of joy at scaring the bejeezus out of Dubya.

As we marched into Walnut Park, (with people beeping us and yelling encouragements along the way) the last rally began. Marine Lance Corporal John Turner told us all how at every tour in Iraq, things got progressively worse and how he changed from a "gung ho Marine" as the Syracuse New Times:
put it - to a disillusioned one.

An hour after the rally began, marchers were STILL pouring in as a massive crowd! Placards were everywhere!

Later, although i could not attend, I heard that on campus at S.U. there were speakers like Scott Ritter, Dr.. Dahlia Wasfi and other witnesses who were there in Iraq who saw the disastrous results of the Bush War Machine and his Lie Factory.

As I saw the mass of people filling up Walnut Park, vibrant with energy and commitment, I realized that this must have been what it was like in the Sixties, only better because the people are behind us, and there were no riots. Those marches were of a generation. This one spanned ALL generations.

I can find no better a way to end the story than with a quote from SNT:

They had marched through the streets from downtown, where an even larger group had gathered at 1 p.m. outside the Everson Museum, 401 Harrison St. It was by far the largest peace march downtown Syracuse had seen in years, and it came at an important time in the debate about the Iraq war. The Bush administration appears determined to continue the conflict in spite of public sentiment, as evidenced by the November 2006 elections and polls showing Americans want the war to end.

Interview with Dick Cheney (1994)

2007-08-20T10:54:00.001-04:00

Flip before the Flop!

Lions ‘n Tigers ‘n Youtubes Oh My!

2007-08-03T21:39:00.000-04:00

The Youtube Snowman’s Gonna GIT Ya!

The Republicans do not make good stand-ins for Dorothy in the Land of Oz, but this Youtube thing has taken them away from Munchkin Land into the big black Forest and it has really got them scared!

So, what exactly about Youtube causes the Republicans such fear and consternation?

I watched the debate and found that for the most part the people who participated asked incisive and penetrating questions. As Blog House from the Minneapolis Star Tribune put it:

One mother of a serviceman stationed in Iraq asked if Democrats were "putting politics before conscience," a worker at a refugee camp in Darfur asked if the candidates could promise the children there a better life and a lesbian couple from New York and a minister from North Carolina asked about gay marriage.

In addition, there were questions about Social Security, illegal aliens, terrorism, Iraq, Afghanistan, global warming - all asked by people who were not afraid to cite reports and quote statistics.

Moreover, the "snowman" asked a pithy question about that global warming Mr. Romney.

Now, I'm curious about Republican reticence in participating in the largest town hall like debate in the history of U.S. elections. It's not like they haven't done free-for-all debates before, and they do use the Internet.

Now they accuse CNN and Youtube of "cherry picking" questions to make the Dems look good. To me, that's a non sequitur. Given the last 6 years of Republican disasters on the job, a third-grader with a D average would be up to the task.

Of course, CNN and Youtube would weed out the jokesters, wiseasses, loonies, and otherwise incomprehensibles. However, if even the person who called his assault rifle his "baby," had a clear and concise question to ask, his post got airtime.

Now, Mitt Romney has some 18 of his own postings on his which can be reached from his own webpage.

All of his "official" postings tout his opinions, or what a great guy he is.

So, what are Mitt Romney and the other Republicans afraid of?

In my opinion, they are afraid of what they can't control.

Mitt Romney can't control all the other Youtubers who posted their own versions of Romney's greatest hits, showing him to be a flip-flopper. Like the ones on Election Central:

In the Romney videos you can watch Romney...Pledge not to impose his moral beliefs on others. Praise his mother's 1970 Senate campaign in Michigan as a pro-choice candidate. Discuss the experience of an in-law who died from a botched illegal abortion. Say the Boy Scouts of America ought to allow gays to participate. Completely distance himself from Ronald Reagan. And much, much more!

He also can't control his own ignorance of a new media, as when it manifested itself in his on air confusion of Youtube and MySpace.

The Republicans can't conceive of anything working well without being controlled therefore, they believe that if they don't control it, "big money Liberals, " or MSM controls it.

The truth is - Google controls it. In addition, Google does not care about political or religious opinion. The fact is, anyone on Youtube can post so long as the postings are tasteful, and are not sexually or blatantly offensive.

People get a little creative on Youtube. After all, it's their 15 minutes of fame. In addition, it's a cheap way to produce a video, or an indie short. And so, some Youtubers became the Slam Poets of the Internet, with props and all.

Yet to the Republicans, it's just controlled anarchy.

At least from Jed Babbin's of Human Events.com point of view, the whole CNN/Youtube thing was a "clown show," and Republicans shouldn't engage the Dems in anything other than in tightly controlled, micromanaged events stacked in the Republican's favor:

Think about it:†get the folks from, say, RedState, PowerLine, InstaPundit, LittleGreenFootballs and a couple of the milblogs like BlackFive and Sgt. Hook. (Guys, I know Iím neglecting a lot of other good-to-excellent ones.† But there just ainít enough room.)† Let Michelle Malkin moderate it.† The result will be the boost from online activism the Republicans whine they lack, and theyíll get a much better questions than theyíll get from YouBoobTube.

Uh, Jed, the whole idea behind debates is to present your point of view and try to win people over to it. Preaching to the converted is just icing on your cake, and strictly incidental.

Perhaps I'm wrong about this. However this media has the potential for great power. The Republicans are proving this despite themselves. By refusing to participate, they show themselves to be controlling and manipulating - cowards. Which means they can stand in for the Wicked Witch!

Lugar, Domenici, and..."I Told You So?"

2007-07-28T23:43:00.000-04:00

Many people have shown themselves to be unrealistically impatient with this Congress. Cindy Sheehan now wishes to run against Nancy Pelosi in her District. I myself have heard Liberal talk show hosts dismiss Pelosi and Reid's sincerity with a broad backhanded slap. Moreover, of course, Congress, elected with high expectations to end this war now has an approval rating on a par with Bush's.

I think the 110th Congress has been badly undersold. You see things are changing. The glacier is moving. People said “Do Nothing Congress!” I said, “Give this Congress a
Chance!” Now I’m declaring a tentative “I told you so.”

I have a couple of theories about why a tipping point in favor of the Dems is now occurring in Congress.

Theory One: Some Republicans are actually getting sick, tired, and impatient with the conduct of the war in Iraq, and are not happy with the prospect of a lengthy commitment in that war-torn country.

Theory Two: At least one major Senate Republican has a nasty ethics tie-in with the ever-popular Alberto Gonzales that he would like to see go away.

Theory Three: Many Republicans see how unpopular Bush and the war are, and are worried about the slavish pro-war stance all GOP hopefuls are taking as they try to appeal to the Right in 2008 and all the negativity it will inspire in the general elections They note which way the wind is blowing, and the money is going - in Democrat's pockets! In comparison with the poorest Dem Presidential hopeful, the richest GOP contender is a pauper!

Theory 1 is exemplified by Republican Senators such as Dick Lugar of Indiana and Olympia Snowe of Maine.

Lugar's Wikipedia profile suggests no improprieties on his part. Apparently, Lugar is so popular that twice he ran for the Senate unopposed by the Democratic Party in Indiana. The first time he got 87% of the vote.

Moreover, he could work with the other side to:

As Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Lugar built bipartisan support for 1996 federal farm program reforms, ending 1930s-era federal production controls. He worked to initiate a biofuels research program to help decrease U.S. dependency on foreign oil, and led initiatives to streamline the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reform the food stamp program, and preserve the federal school lunch program.

Well, at least the Wikipedians don't feel the need to write home about any Lugar shenanigans, so let's see what Wiki says about his stand on the war:

Stance on Iraq War

On June 25, 2007, Senator Lugar, who had been 'a reliable vote for President Bush on the war,' said that 'Bush's Iraq strategy [is] not working and ... the U.S. should downsize the military's role.'[4]

Lugar's blunt assessment has been viewed as significant in that it shows the growing impatience and dissatisfaction with President Bush's strategy in Iraq. Lugar's speech had particular resonance given his stature as one of the party's elder statesmen on foreign policy. After Lugar finished his remarks, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL), a sharp critic of the war, praised Lugar's 'thoughtful, sincere and honest' speech, which Durbin said was in 'finest tradition of the U.S. Senate.'[5] Durbin urged his Senate colleagues to take a copy of Lugar's speech home over the Fourth of July break and study it before returning to work.[5] Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, in reaction to Lugar's speech: 'When this war comes to an end, and it will come to an end, and the history books are written, and they will be written, I believe that Sen. Lugar's words yesterday could be remembered as a turning point in this intractable civil war in Iraq. '[6]

Two days later, on June 27, 2007, Lugar said that Congressional measures aimed at curtailing U.S. military involvement in Iraq, including 'so-called timetables, benchmarks,' have 'no particular legal consequence,' are 'very partisan,' and "will not work.

Olympia Snowe is considered one of the fairest impartial and honest Senators in a long time. At the Clinton impeachment trial, she voted to acquit once a motion to vote separately on the charges and the remedy failed.

Snowe is a moderate and resolutely so. According to Wikipedia:

Snowe is a self-described political moderate, whose independence in the Senate often marks her for complaints from more conservative groups, especially over her support for legalized abortion and gay rights. On other social issues like drug policy, travel to Cuba, and censorship issues like government regulation of the media and prohibiting flag-burning, Snowe is quite conservative. In fiscal matters and on defense, Snowe is also generally conservative. She has been long-regarded as a hawk on foreign affairs, supporting both President Clinton's involvement in Kosovo and President George W. Bush's interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, however she recently has criticized the administration's involvement in Iraq.

So, Snowe and Lugar ain't got no skin in the game other than what they feel is right. What about Pete Domenici?

By all rights, Domenici should be part of Bush's Praetorian Guard.

According to Wikipedia, Republicans for Environmental Protection called Domenici "Worst in the Senate in 2006." This brings me to Theory 2.

In addition to assigning Domenici a score of zero for his environmental voting record, the group issued him ìenvironmental harm demeritsî for what they saw as two particularly irresponsible acts: first, for spearheading efforts to include in federal budget legislation provisions for ìspeculative revenues from oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; second, 'for sponsoring and securing passage of S. 3711, the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, which would perpetuate Americaís dangerous oil dependence, set a precedent for drilling in sensitive marine waters, and direct a disproportionate share of federal royalty revenues from a public resource to four states.

The nonpartisan League of Conservation Voters is also not happy with him for voting to allow mining companies to buy patents on public lands to mine them without environmental standards for $5 or less an acre. Real sweet guy!

Now what would make an environmentally sensitive guy like Pete suddenly grow a conscience on an issue like Iraq? Doesn't he know they've got oil there?

Perhaps I rely too much on Wikipedia, but once more, they have got something interesting to say that may shed light on the timing of Pete's newfound religion:

Prior to the 2006 midterm election Domenici called and pressured then-United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico David Iglesias to speed up indictments in a federal corruption investigation, immediately prior to an election, that involved at least one former Democratic state senator. When Iglesias said an indictment wouldn't be handed down until at least December, Domenici said "I'm very sorry to hear that" ó and the line went dead. Iglesias was fired one week later by the Bush Administration. A communication by a senator or House member with a federal prosecutor regarding an ongoing criminal investigation is a violation of ethics rules. In a March 2007 statement, Domenici admitted making such a call.[4] House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., issued subpoenas to require Iglesias and three other ousted U.S. attorneys to testify before Congress.[5]

Domenici later admitted calling Iglesias, though Domenici claimed he never used the word 'November' when he called Iglesias about an ongoing Albuquerque courthouse corruption case.[6] Domenici has denied trying to influence Iglesias, and has hired lawyer K. Lee Blalack II to represent him.[7]

According to the Justice Department, Domenici called the Department and demanded Iglesias be replaced on four occasions.[8]

According to the Washington Post, on the day of the firing (Dec 7, 2006) William Kelley, a deputy to then White House Counsel Harriet Miers, said in an email that Domenici's chief of staff was 'happy as a clam' about the Iglesias firing. A week later, a Justice Department email to the White House counsel stated: 'Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias's body to cool).'

Now with Gonzales being investigated for what now looks like perjury over Attorneygate now would be a good time to get on the investigator's good side. Play the anti-war card!

Theory Three is one out of left field, but quite logical if you think about it. There's been a load shift in the political truck as it careens toward Election City. It's been due to how Americans perceive the situation in Iraq, how they see the overall performance of this Administration, how they view the Republican Party, and a perceived "Culture of Corruption" within it. It's also logical to assume that rank and file Republicans feel somewhat demoralized. And so, one result of this is a realization that Democrats and the Progressive Left in general are growing in power. A major indicator of this is the fact that for the first time in my memory, the Democratic Party, and it's candidates are outraising the Republicans in funding while the Republicans, possibly out of panic, are spending like sailors!

Even FOX NEWS has been forced to admit this:

Democrats outraised Republicans about $80 million to $50 million from April through June. But Republicans kept pace with Democrats on spending ó nearly $50 million spent on both sides.

The Democrats' money advantage was helped in large part by the extraordinary fundraising of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. He raised $32 million for the primary; she raised $21.5 million.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics site Opensecrets.org, the securities and investment industry's favorite recipient of funds is Hilary Clinton. Before it was Mitt Romney.

The Wall Street Journal's prognosis of the situation is this:

If their fund-raising advantage continues -- so far, Democrats have been pulling in about 58% of overall donations to federal-office seekers -- they will have more resources for pricey advertising, organization building and voter outreach next November to buttress their edge in the polls. Moreover, Democrats' focus on small donors leaves them room to raise more cash over the next year, since many contributors have yet to hit the legal limit of $2,300 per candidate per election, and could potentially keep giving.

And so, it seems, at least now that people perceive that Republicans and Conservatives in general are on their way out, and Liberal will stop being a dirty word.

Therefore, I now feel that I was right to defend this Congress, because I feel that the votes are going in the anti-war direction. One reason may be that many Republicans are waking up to the dire situation in Iraq. Another reason is that due to the probes into possible corruption in the Administration, some legislators may find themselves in awkward positions they may wish to distance themselves from. Finally, some Republicans have their political fingers in the wind, and see which way the wind blows.

All of which leads me to say that Pelosi and Reid are being undersold; This Congress will get its benchmarks and an exit strategy! I give you a tentative "I told you so!"

Scooter Libby, The Little Power Clique That Could, and "Omerta."

2007-07-16T14:36:00.000-04:00

But this belief in intrinsic legal immunity extends to the entire Bush movement (which has become virtually synonymous with "neoconservatism"). That is what explains the literally endless defense not merely of individual acts of illegality, but of the claimed power to break the law in general. They are an authoritarian movement which believes only in its own power. By definition, none of its Leaders can ever be guilty of anything because to be a Leader of that movement means, by definition, that their actions are always for the Good and that anything which impedes those actions -- whether it be ethics, political principles or the law -- are unjust."

Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Comrades!" he cried. You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.

Squealer - Animal House

Scooter Libby is well protected. He's supposed to be in jail now. You see, he's guilty of lying to obfuscate an investigation of charges of treason.

Six years of gaming the system by Bush and Congress created this Culture of Corruption, and the rules it lives by. One rule is: If you are in The Group, be loyal, and you will be rewarded. Disloyalty will be punished. Of course, Rule 2 is: reward loyalty. Corollary 1 to that rule is: If loyalty is not rewarded, expect disloyalty. Corollary 2? Disloyalty leads to aired out dirty linen. Corollary 4 is: Paranoid treachery to the loyal that are in trouble leads to disloyalty with lethal consequences. Therefore remember: A good crime boss always rewards loyalty. Scooter Libby was on the inside, and had to be treated that way.

Anyway you look at it, Libby is in The Group, and The Group is to be beyond the reach of government or the law.

All the safeguards are there to guarantee complete _omerta_ for all the dirty doings of The Group. This echelon can do many things under the cloak of secrecy. Worried about the legality of extraordinary rendition of suspects to countries that are not too particular about violating a prisoner's rights while interrogating them? No problem. The Group has _omerta._ Outing loyal CIA agents whose husbands had the temerity to expose one of The Group's scams, lying to cover up the deed, and then protecting the liar to ensure his silence is par for the course in The Group.

And so The Group operates by it's own rules, and it doesn't care how many holes it puts in our Constitution.

Melissa Etheridge - Live Earth 2007 Live from New York

2007-07-09T11:54:00.001-04:00

Listen

Pelosi, Reid and the Circular Firing Squad

2007-06-14T10:09:00.000-04:00

Many people in the Progressive camp are upset over the war-funding bill that passed a few weeks ago, thinking that they've been betrayed by overly cautious Democrats who are too busy reading tea leaves to "get off their collective asses and DO SOMETHING!" I couldn't disagree with them more.

While I would rather have a hard and fast timetable for exiting from Iraq, I just don't see how it's feasible to get everything we want while Americans still have a great deal of ambivalence about our exit strategy.

I see how it all looks: First Congress says; " Accept this timetable Dubya!," all the while knowing they will compromise after the inevitable veto. All for the lack of 60 veto-proof Republican votes. How will they regain their traction?

I have a sneaking suspicion that the war, as well as the hurricane season may have something to do with it.

The situation still continues to deteriorate in Iraq, and given the track record of the Bush outfit, this new gamble of giving arms to Sunni militias that previously fought us on the basis that they will fight al Qaeda is really Russian Roulette with 3 rounds in the barrel. Who says that they won't turn on the Shiite dominated government? Who says that they won't turn on us again? And what if they decided that al Qaeda can be an ally? Doesn't the whole project smack of desperation anyway?

And why is it that some people on the Left feel that it is their right to bully those of us who are not so extreme in our positions? So Pelosi & Co. can't get you everything you want. What many on the Left don't understand are the political realities we've all been confronting in general and in Congress in particular.

Democratic control over Congress is new and as yet not consolidated. Half of those 30 competitive House seats captured by Democrats went to centrists, some of whom like Nick Lampson or Tim Mahoney voted against Iraq troop withdrawal. These are people whose seats are virtually still in play, and are being targeted in 2008 by Republicans. They cannot just simply "vote their consciences" without at least taking into consideration the feelings of their constituents who may not all be so up in that about being Liberal. And what about Dems like Jack Murtha? What about the vets? How can you expect Jack Murtha to vote against funding for the troops?

And what have you, at the grassroots level been doing? Did you picket? Did you write letters, or e-mails? Did you at least call your Congressman? It's fine to bitch and crab about "sell out" politicians, but it's your job to really put on the pressure. Pelosi, Reid & Co. can only go so far. You have to take it the rest of the way.

I just had a look at Congress.org's demographics of the U.S. House of Representatives. Did you know that there are only 2 registered Independents, that is - if you count Joe Lieberman as an "Independent" on the war. Of the Democratic Representatives in office there sits a majority of 285. Of the Republicans, there sits a minority of 250. There's only a difference of 37 votes between the two parties. Not enough to override a veto. Especially if the guy issuing that veto is a stubborn, moronic Republican. Where is the veto-proof majority?

The recent vote on illegal immigrants and the test vote on Alberto Gonzales proves my point. The illegal immigrant bill was the exception that proved the rule. Without those Republicans, not even an alliance between Reid and Bush could save the bill from defeat. Now comes the Iraq war, where Dubya and the G.O.P are thick as thieves. With Bush & Co. tag teaming the Dems, the only 3 options are to keep up the pressure on Republicans, impeachment of the Vice-President, and the defeat of those who chose to obstruct the passage of this bill. In my opinion, only the first option is viable. the other two will take until next year to do. Handy for the election, but how many will die in Iraq 'till then?

The More Liberal Than Thou faction seems to forget that in any democratic legislature, especially one so closely divided, politics is a game of numbers, based on who the Congressman represents, and whether or not your people can give that person a deal they could live with. And in a closely divided Congress, even the party in control has to make sacrifices. And like Woodrow Wilson and his failure to ratify the Versailles Treaty, those who are trapped in their ideology are doomed to sink in it.

I hear that in Officer Training School you learn one hard rule that applies to a representative democracy:

The enemy always gets a vote.

Why I Won't Weep Over Jerry Falwell

2007-05-29T17:37:00.000-04:00

So now, the old Snail has gotten to write again.

It has been a few weeks but I did not have the opportunity to do some proper research on anything for a while. I’ve been dealing with a few personal matters, and with me personal matters get very sticky.

Thank heavens Jerry Falwell reminded me of where my true focus should be!

Falwell was an interesting man who was a paradox in some ways yet in most he was very predictable. Pardon me, but I’ll stick to what made him predictable.

I always found his demeanor to be smug and condescending. It was as if he felt that he knew the secrets of the universe, and we were all merely his acolytes.

He did some good things. In 1967, Falwell created the Lynchburg Christian Academy, a fully accredited K-12 day school. He created and built up the Thomas Road Baptist congregation from a handful to a mega church. His founding of Liberty University and even the Moral Majority were all par for the course. If you believe in something create the mechanisms to attain your goal.

However, what I remember is that smug, blustering boob that pontificated to all, and condemned the innocent and undeserving to damnation, all according to his own special criteria.

His tunnel vision was strikingly obvious when he actually had the temerity to blame 9/11 on the courts, gays, lesbians, feminists, abortion, the A.C.L.U. and civil libertarians!

According to the Washington Post,"On September 14, 2001, on Pat Robertson’s show he said:

The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'

How’s that? The A.C.L.U. and P.F.AW. left us open to terrorism? Hardly! The inattention of the Bush gang to the red flags like a PDB of possible terrorism as well as our basically one-sided policy in the Middle East might actually have had something to do with 9/11. If anything, the intolerance manifested in Falwell’s statement is closer to that of bin Laden’s than anything the A.C.L.U. or the P.F.A.W. believes in.

All his life he had a tunnel vision that allowed him to make such divisive statements. In the Sixties, Falwell was pro segregation, and called the Civil Rights movement the “Civil Wrongs” movement. In the Eighties he, a man of God, defended the use of nuclear weapons.

Of course, after every gaffe Jerry would get religion and apologize after the nation showed appropriate indignation, outrage, or ridicule.

Which reminds me of Falwell the buffoon.

Poor, sweat Tinky Winky! How could he have known that carrying a purple purse constitutes portraying a gay character? Poor clumsy Falwell! Shouldn’t he have double checked his editor’s article on Tinky Winky in his National Liberty Journal? I don’t sem to recall him trying to distance himself from that article.

Falwell always made mountains out of molehills, whether it was prayer in schools, or same sex marriage. And of course, Falwell always made himself out to be more important than he was.

“Some people,” as Hannity would say, even postulated that Falwell’s importance to American politics was a little inflated.

Jonathan Alter was not as impressed with Falwell as most people were:

According to lore (and much of the coverage of his death), November, 1980 found Falwell at the peak of his powers. That was the month Ronald Reagan was elected president, after having met with Falwell and other members of his brilliantly-named organization, "The Moral Majority." While Falwell might have contributed slightly to Reagan's margin of victory, he was not even close to being instrumental in his election. With incumbent Jimmy Carter bogged down with the Iranian hostage crisis and double-digit inflation and interest rates, Reagan won with 57 percent of the vote -- a huge landslide. At best, the Moral Majority added a point or two to Reagan's totals. More likely, it contributed nothing. Exit polls showed that Carter bested Reagan among Southern Baptists, 50-46 percent. And abortion ranked well behind foreign policy and economics among issues that mattered most to voters that year.

Look, someone will undoubtedly feel the loss for Falwell's passing. It just won't be me. Too much water has passed under the bridge for too many people.

Wikipedia - Jerry Falwell

The National Liberty Journal

Positive Atheism's Big Scary List of
Jerry Falwell
Quotations

Fallwell's Liberty University Bio

No Freedom of Speech for Don Imus?

2007-04-13T19:18:00.000-04:00

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Beatrice Hall

Something troubles me.

It's not that I liked Don Imus. Frankly I despised him for his adolescent insensitivity. I still remember that obscene gesture that he did with a wet cigar around 1998 during the Lewinsky scandal. Despite whatever Bill Clinton did in the White House, he did not deserve that kind of treatment on national TV, even from a detractor like Imus. Captain Cowboy Hat and his crew has a long record of such abusive behavior of which the Rutgers incident was only the latest. He should be shunned. He should be ostracized. He is pond scum.

According to MediaMatters, Imus has a rap sheet on both arms. This year alone, he was accused of at least echoing a phrase that he attributed to his executive producer, "Besa mi culo," in reference to Gov. Bill Richardson. In March, executive producer Bernard McGuirk in character as "Cardinal Egan," equated Barack Obama's topping Hilary Clinton's fundraising to a stereotypical view of black criminals.

Imus & Co. are also is said to have cast racial slurs on Jews, Arabs, Latinos, you name it.

And women from all walks of life were special targets for Imus. The stronger, more powerful the woman, the more they got the Imus treatment.

Still, despite all that, his career shouldn't have been ended.

If Imus was fired because of something he said, and those girls were deeply offended, then we shouldn't castigate Bill O'Reilly's attempts get Keith Olbermann fired, because after all, despite the fact that Olbermann was being honest, O'Reilly was offended by what he said, and how he portrays O'Reilly. And what about Rosie O'Donnell?

Can we afford what may turn into a witch hunt?

Bill Maher is a man who may well understand the position that Imus is in because also lost a show for saying something which at the time, (somewhere after September 11, 2001,) was assumed to be contrary to the tensions and overwrought sensitivities of the time. According to Radio Ink, Maher rushed to Imus's show, and defended him with these words:

I just think there is so much in this country about making people go away for a mistake. It's a mistake, you apologized, and you know you don't lose your livelihood - I don't understand that people have to lose their livelihood because they made one rotten joke. It's like nobody in this country can have one moment of discomfort. If you were made to feel one moment of discomfort, the person who caused it has to go away and that's just ridiculous.

Yeah it was a bad joke, it was real creepy but after that people move on. You know? Don't listen to you any more. You will lose some black listeners and that should be your punishment.

Of course, Bill didn't take into account that Imus & Co. are repeat offenders, but essentially, he is right.

People on the Left have as much to fear from this business as well as the Right. While not nearly as caustic as a Michael Savage, Limbaugh and O'Reilly, radio Left of the dial has many provocative and envelope pushing talents that might one day go too far. Stephanie Miller mentioned fears of "a slight chilling effect." And I'm sure Mike Molloy his offended somebody with his acid tongue. Did I mention the outspoken Randi Rhodes? So many people ion the Left have been attacked and smeared for their speech by the Right, that we should be the first to defend anyone’s freedom of speech. And yet, sometimes even we turn on the A.C.L.U.

I really hate to say this, but there has always been a slight totalitarian streak in many on the Left. It manifests itself in their ability to dismiss out of hand ideas that they are opposed to. It gave rise to political correctness. It also manifests itself in uncalled for bullying, harassment and head hunting.

For this very post I fear there will be a very caustic reaction. Once again, I DO hate the sinner, and would consign him to a very special circle of Hell, as well as hate the sin. To those who tout all of Imus's charities and big heart I would say:

Forget it! He hurt people, and many of them were weaker than he!

But I would not consign freedom of speech to the shredder! just because someone abused it. That the Rutgers girls were deeply hurt and offended by what Imus said, I have no doubt, but those girls are at a point in their live where they can overcome this adversity. Imus, at his age lost his career.

I wonder if anyone remembers how many times certain groups tried to take a few library books off the shelves because they found some words or passages in those books to be objectionable? Some books I’m sure were like Mein Kampf, or maybe somebody didn’t like O’Reilly’s books. But then, some people didn’t like Mark Twain’s books like Huckleberry Finn, or Tom Sawyer, because they had the “N“ word in them. No one remembers what a great thinker Mark Twain was, or that his books were written with the best of intensions.

Freedom is only freedom if the least of us can have it. Otherwise it’s only privilege. And privilege only serves to control people.

Bill Maher

MediaMatters.org

Huffington Post - Michael Fauntroy, PhD "What's Next Al?"

A Poem about Don Imus

New York Times - Networks Condemn Remarks by Imus

John McCain and the Potemkin, sorry I meant Shorja Market

2007-04-05T14:20:00.000-04:00

Potemkin Village - From Wikipedia:

Potemkin villages were, purportedly, fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. Conventional wisdom has it that Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress's eyes.

So John McCain and Lindsay Graham took themselves a little stroll in a Baghdad sook didn't they? Get a little local flavor, some face time with the folks right? Show us all how safe things are becoming in Iraq by not wearing the old brain bucket right? And those quaint little Iraqi merchants were so friendly! Heavens! A little island of peace and love! A taste of what the future of Iraq will be!

All to be gobbled by the folks at home via the TeeVee!

Only, there's one small problem:

When you're trying to pull off as large a PR scam as this, you can't let them see the gears turning!

Lindsay, John, it's nice that you went to the market sans helmets, but you should've left your flak jackets at home as well. But that was just one of the smallest giveaways. There's more.

You see, I can't even remember the last time I went to the Farmer's Market with a couple of Blackhawks and Apache gunships flying overhead. Have to keep control of my expenses you know. After all Johnny, you did say things in Iraq are getting better now didn't you?

From Capitol Hill Blue:

Monday, 02 April 2007
By DOUG THOMPSON†
According to Arizona Senator John McCain, life in Baghdad is pretty safe these days - so safe, he says, that he walked freely in an open air market without any fear for his safety.

On his "safe" walk through the Shorja market where 137 Iraqis died from a truck bomb in February, hundreds of combat-ready American soldiers surrounded McCain and his party while Blackhawk helicopters provided air cover. The Senator, and others, wore flak vests.

The market where McCain walked "freely" is also fortified with blast walls and "Jersey barriers" to restrict vehicle traffic.

Reporters weren't allowed along on McCain's "walk of safety." An Army spokesman cited "security" as a concern for limiting access by the press. Instead, the military provided photos and video afterwards. After the Senator and two Republican colleagues returned to the safety of the even-more-heavily-fortified "Green Zone," he bragged about how safe Iraq had become under the seven-week-old "troop surge."

While he spoke, roadside bombs southwest of Baghdad killed six American soldiers. They weren't surrounded by a security cordon of troops pulled off regular duty to protect visiting VIPs. No Blackhawks circled overhead to provide extra security.

It's a sad state of affairs when a photo op by an aspiring Presidential candidate warrants more protection than American men and women fighting in an out-of-control civil war.

And I'm happy that you brought along that nice Gen. Petraeus and 100 of his boys! They deserve a break! But in a new and improved more peaceful Iraq, did they really need to bring all that hardware? After all it's not like somebody was going to bomb the place! Pity that few other Americans had such luck in another part of Baghdad:

From the NEW YORK TIMES:

4 G.I.ís Among Dead in Iraq; McCain Cites Progress

April 2, 2007

By KIRK SEMPLE
BAGHDAD, April 1 ó Mortar attacks, suicide car bombs, roadside bombs, ambushes and gun battles killed at least two dozen people on Sunday, including four American soldiers, the authorities said.
The American military command said the soldiers were killed southwest of Baghdad just after midnight as they responded to an earlier bombing that had killed two other American soldiers. The insurgents have frequently tried to reap greater death tolls by carrying out attacks against rescue crews rushing to bomb sites.

Such a nice peaceful day! And why on such a day did you and the other Republicans feel that you needed to bring 100 soldiers with full hardware on a shopping spree? Maybe you were trying to hide something? Maybe you knew that without those G.I.s, those Apaches and Blackhawks your life wouldn't be worth a plug nickel! And maybe without that preliminary sweep, you'd've lost more than your big tow to an I.E.D as your were strolling. Maybe Dubya was so anxious to save his legacy and you were so desperate to prop up a sagging Presidential campaign that you put on an act and threw up your own Potemkin Village just to try and fool the people. All nothing but props while the media and the people float by in their barges and merely give it all a glance.

Well, guess what Senator McCain:

This time the barges decided to dock. Time for a little stroll of our own to see what's behind the props of your little Potemkin Market.

IraqSlogger Sen. John McCain Goes Shopping For Votes

Madtv - Apple I-rack

2007-03-29T17:59:00.001-04:00

What a Parable!

George W. Bush and the Supernanny

2007-03-26T22:43:00.001-04:00

He's had it Too Good for Too Long. Now he has to Learn to Make Nice.

Does George W. Bush have any notion of what true maturity and responsibility are?

A truly mature person is one who understands his own fallibilities, and does not seek to judge and condemn others whom he perceives fault in. He does not assume that he is always right, that his decisions are the only ones that matter and that nobody else has the right has the right to an opinion but he.

A mature person is forthcoming, evenhanded, and respectful of the rights and prerogatives of his colleagues in government. A mature person is mindful that he and those colleagues are all working toward the same goal, in this case the security and well being of the American people, and is not insultingly dismissive of any notions other than his own for furthering those ends.

A responsible person is one who owns up to his mistakes, and doesn't try to hide them with platitudes and cheap appeals for a rigid, false patriotism. Responsible people do not try to misdirect from their failures by attacking the opposition with a broad tar-laden brush to obscure the well-meaning arguments of the opposition.

Responsible people do not go into cover-up mode every time suspicions are raised about certain actions of the administration. They are so secure in the knowledge of their honesty that they confront their accusers and allow their minions to testify and not hide behind executive privilege.

This week we learned just how immature and irresponsible George W. Bush could be.

The Immature Crybaby Bush, Prone to Temper Tantrums:

Mr. Bush seems to have forgotten that a new Congress was elected almost solely because nobody wants this war, and the Dems promised to end it.

In a press conference at the Diplomatic Reception Room,with his own bit of political theater behind him, he dismissed out of hand one of the prerogatives that Congress has, the power of the purse:

The Democrats have sent their message, now it's time to send their money. This is an important moment -- a decision for the new leaders in Congress. Our men in women in uniform should not have to worry that politicians in Washington will deny them the funds and the flexibility they need to win. Congress needs to send me a clean bill that I can sign without delay. I expect Congress to do its duty and to fund our troops, and so do the American people -- and so do the good men and women standing with me here today.

And with this Dubya gave the back of his hand to the American people.

He refused to acknowledge that nobody but the extremists wants to "cut and run."

A mature person could learn to see the other side’s view, even if he still disagrees with it. A mature Bush could have seen the advantage of having a deadline for exiting Iraq in 2008. It will focus the Iraqi government, and if the insurgents lie low, that only means that we'll have time to finish training the Iraqi forces and ingratiate ourselves with the people there by actually improving their lives. And the House’s plan not only does not call for immediate withdrawal, but calls for every one of the Iraqi government’s aims to be accomplished by that deadline. According to the official House.gov summary of bill H.R. 1591, the emergency funding bill:

Directs the President to transmit to Congress by specified dates certain determinations and certifications with respect to conditions to be met by the Government of Iraq. Requires redeployment of the armed forces from Iraq if any of such conditions is not met.

Directs the President to appoint a Coordinator for Iraq Assistance, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Declares that Congress will fully support the needs of members of the Armed Forces who the Commander in Chief has deployed in harm's way in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and their families.

That would put the insurgents between their rat holes and a hard place.

Yet, Dubya refused to see where Congress's ideas converged with his, and splattered tar all over Congress and the people with a sealant brush called "cut and run."

And then there's Bush's command performance this week concerning the Gonzales matter.

Responsibility and Confidentiality in the Oval Office:

Q If today's offer from Mr. Fielding is your best and final offer on this, are you going to go to the mat in protecting the principle that you talked about? And why not, since you say nothing wrong was done by your staff, why not just clear the air and let Karl Rove and other senior aides testify in public, under oath? There's been a precedent for previous administrations doing that.

THE PRESIDENT Some have, some haven't. My choice is to make sure that I safeguard the ability for Presidents to get good decisions.

Michael, I'm worried about precedents that would make it difficult for somebody to walk into the Oval Office and say, Mr. President, here's what's on my mind. And if you haul somebody up in front of Congress and put them in oath and all the klieg lights and all the questioning, to me, it makes it very difficult for a President to get good advice. On the other hand, I understand there is a need for information sharing on this. And I put forth what I thought was a rational proposal, and the proposal I put forward is the proposal.

Confidentiality in the Oval Office is not necessarily implicit. Not when it entails conspiracy to commit crimes or unethical behavior.

On a local level, once probable cause is proved, the appropriate law enforcement bodies can bug a Chief Executive's office, be they governor or village mayor. After all, we are the ultimate bosses in this democracy not George W. And we have the right to know what are minions are doing in our name. And it is the height of irresponsibility for this administration to obstruct any investigation into unethical behavior.

Immature? Irresponsible? A mature person knows enough not to bite the hand that feeds it. If George W. Bush thinks that he will bring this Congress to heel, then he really has at best a fifty/fifty chance of succeeding. Time is on the Democrat's side, as more and more Republicans are coming over to coming over to their side.

A responsible person knows enough to come clean about his minions if the possibility of their unethical behavior arises. The boss of a company who cooperates fully is more likely to be trusted than one who constantly obstructs the investigation.

George W. Bush with his displays of arrogant closed-mindedness on the one hand, and obduracy on the other has shown that he is neither mature, nor responsible. He's like the spoiled little brat who has suddenly found himself with a stern new babysitter. Now it's a battle for control. But I have a suspicion that Supernanny will win.

President Bush Addresses Resignations of U.S. Attorneys

President Bush Discusses Iraq War Emergency Supplemental

H.R. 1591 - Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes.

H.R. 15981 as received in Senate - House.gov Summary

The "Iraq Surge," and Seven Things Wrong with It

2007-02-16T21:01:00.001-05:00

1) First of all there aren't enough men. Equipment is not ready, yet political stress at home and distrust in Iraq will preclude any slow introduction of troops into the war zone.

Those 20,000 troops will be gradually "dribbled" in as if Iraq were nothing more than a sleet covered driveway getting halite. In fact, this is already beginning with delayed rotations, lowering standards for induction, and longer tours of duty.

Problem is, what if that is not enough?

Rule one of insurgency is;

Have the support of the population in whose name you are fighting.

Counter-insurgents must separate the guerillas from their constituent population or risk prolonging the war indefinitely.

Ever since we threw open the barn door, and gave Iraq over to the Shia, and alienated the Sunni, any kindergartener would've known that civil war in Iraq would have to be sectarian. And they would also know that alienated Sunnis, fearing the wrath of the Shiites has been enforced by "ethnic cleansing," would naturally rally around the first militia that calls them to action. It matters very little I think of who drew first blood at what mosque. This war was going to start because someone wanted it to.

And now the Sunni insurgency has all the support from the Sunnis that it needs. And we have done nothing to prevent it.

And it isn't the danger of attack from the Shia that is most imminent at the time,

2) If over 80% of the people in Iraq think it's OK to kill Americans, the insurgents and the militias have a potentially large reservoir of recruits.

3) This means that chasing insurgents may continue to be a game of "Whack A Mole." This situation is well illustrated in Wikipedia:

However, the majority of counter-insurgency efforts by major Western powers in the last century have been spectacularly unsuccessful. This may be attributed to a number of causes. First, as Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart pointed out in the Insurgency addendum to the second version of his book Strategy: The Indirect Approach, a popular insurgency has an inherent advantage over any occupying force. He showed as a prime example the French occupation of Spain during the Napoleonic wars. Whenever Spanish forces managed to constitute themselves into a regular fighting force, the superior French forces beat them every time. Whenever Spanish forces managed to constitute themselves into a regular fighting force, the superior French forces beat them every time. However, once dispersed and decentralized, the irregular nature of the guerilla campaigns proved a decisive counter to French superiority on the battle field. Napoleon's army had no means of effectively combating the guerilleros and in the end their strength and morale were so sapped that when Wellington finally was able to challenge French forces in the field, the French had almost no choice but to abandon the situation.

4) This means that "clear, hold & rebuild" will be very difficult because we will need far more than 20,000 or 40,000 to pervasively occupy insurgent controlled areas, and to expand these areas, due to our inability to trust Iraqi forces.

5) The Iraqi government cannot be trusted due to the heavy Shia influence of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and SCIRI.

6) Both Sunni and Shia can count on military and political support from Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, both surreptitious and otherwise. Bush keeps focusing on Iran's supposed culpability, but I seem to remember that Saudi Arabia has threatened to openly support the Sunni militias if we leave Iraq.

According to the Iraq Study Group Report, while the Saudi government may be an ally, many Saudis may be privately supporting the Sunni militias in Iraq:

Funding for the Sunni insurgency comes from private individuals
within Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, even as those governments help facilitate U.S. military operations in Iraq by providing basing and overflight rights and by cooperating on intelligence issues.

7) The resources spent in Iraq would deprive the U.S. of needed resources at home. According to Associated Press, via MSNBC, Bush is asking for $100 billion more for military and diplomatic missions in Iraq and Afghanistan for this year and $145 billion for 2008. MSNBC goes on to say that those requests “come on top of about $344 billion spent for Iraq since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.” Bush is threatening to cut spending from hospitals, education, and sundry other things the middle class needs:

Portman said Bush's budget submission contains about a 1 percentage point cut in the rapid growth in Medicare - which averages almost 8 percent a year without changes - to squeeze about $66 billion in savings over five years from the federal health care program for the elderly.

Bush would curb payments to health care providers such as hospitals, and would require more of the higher-income recipients to pay greater premiums.

I've got a fabulous idea. Congress must tell Bush that any monetary support for our soldiers will be earmarked for adequate body armor, strengthened humvees, and all the other sorely lacking items our boys need to survive. And not one cent of that money will go to a ''surge!"

George W. Bush's State of the Union: Train Wreck Due To Pilot Error

2007-01-30T21:30:00.000-05:00

I hate to say this, but I found there to be nothing new in SOTU. . Bush's speech fell flat. It was predictable.

Although he seemed to be genuinely sincere in his congratulation of Nancy Pelosi as the first "Madame Speaker," he congratulated the new "Democrat" majority in Congress, with his usual "doublespeak," a backhanded complement if I ever heard one.

And a very revealing tell from a man who claims that he wants a bipartisan Congress. Funny, but it's only after control of Congress was wrested from a corrupt Republican party that he has revealed this new brotherly spirit. Before ‘06, ol' Dubya had a fine ol' time running over the Dems with his "Rubber Stamp faction. Now he's all lovey-dovey now that We Dems are back in power!

That's if you can assume that when he says things like:

Some in this chamber are new to the House and the Senate -- and I congratulate the Democrat majority. (Applause.) Congress has changed, but not our responsibilities. Each of us is guided by our own convictions -- and to these we must stay faithful. Yet we're all held to the same standards, and called to serve the same good purposes: To extend this nation's prosperity; to spend the people's money wisely; to solve problems, not leave them to future generations; to guard America against all evil; and to keep faith with those we have sent forth to defend us.

In other words: ‘‘it doesn't matter what all crazyass ideas you all have in Congress. We all are going to do things the right way - the Dubya way!" Bush's idea of bipartisan effort is where everyone shuts up and obeys every fiat from the Decider.

He showed how obstinately out of touch he was by bringing up some old failed chestnuts liked privatization, and the voodoo economics of balancing the budget and cutting the deficit without raising taxes on his precious "base."

On "No Child Left Behind," he has proved again to be intransigent, as he has refused to drop the impossible standards of the law, and called anyone who tried to reform the law "backsliders."

And then we heard the same old drivel desperately camouflaged to sneak past the public, like appointing judges only he likes, pretending that we are "fighting over there, so we don't have to fight them over here." And then, he had the NERVE to tell us that the responsibility for this war would be left to someone other than the guy who started it!

Of course Bush is decidedly simplistic about every last item of the rest of his speech. The Arabs who are terrorists "hate our freedom," as if poverty, tyranny weren't at all reasons to feel a great deal of antipathy toward the country that propped up the perpetuators of these conditions.

And it's all going to be Mickey-Mouse easy to bring democracy on the heels of those 21,000 new troops to Iraq right?

Wrong! "Some people," as Sean Hannity would say, believe that in the end we have only 3 choices: 1) Accept that there's a civil war on, and either back the Shia faction, which would be like backing your worst enemy, and make enemies out of the Middle East's Sunni majority. Or 2), we force a minority Sunni government on Iraq, which will oppress the Shiites once more.

Of course, Bush would not be Bush without brainlessly or thoughtlessly pushing on ahead with his plan without consulting with Congress. Most people tell him that 21,000 troops are not enough that more like 250,000 troops is necessary. But Bush doesn't see that as he accuses detractors of "stepping back.”

If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country -- and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict.

In case, you hadn't noticed Dubya, too late to close the barn door!

Iraq: Is it "Civil War" Yet?

2006-12-14T13:18:00.000-05:00

Iraq Bush, originally uploaded by wazdat.

To Bush it's all semantics. To the rest of us, it's a real horror.

250 dead Shiites kind of tells you that maybe a low intensity conflict is in fact, underway, no matter what kind of rose-colored frames and blinders Bush, Cheney & Co. The administration continues to refuse to characterize the conflict as a "civil war," but it's all a game of semantics.

Hmmm, let's see, 60 tortured bodies a day. That wasn't "civil war" enough for Bush. Setting up a government that squeezes out Sunni Arabs, Lack of security and the ethnic violence that followed were not causes for war? That same lack of security made possible an arms supermarket. That and the neocon's lack of planning for the reconstruction of lraq provided the fuse and the match for the explosion. It sounds like a civil war to me!

Now CNN calls it a "civil war." NBC calls it a "civil war."

At the heart of all this was lack of foresight. During Cobra II, Donald Rumsfeld's misconceived notion that speed without mass still means power didn't take into account that without sufficient force you could not secure your rear. It violates every basic tenet of military occupation! You corral the enemy army first and secure their arms. These things were not done. The occupying army has a ready force multiplier in the surrendered units that can be trusted to cooperate in maintaining order. The Coalition released the Iraqi army with arms, thus surrendering a vital tool in occupying an enemy's territory. That, additional troops and securing the enemy's arms would have gone a long way to calming the situation.

But the neocons did not want the calm of a hopeful nation. They wanted a country of zombies. And so, the citizenry of Iraq to this day are forced to endure not more than 3 hours of electricity, unemployment, and hunger to support the New Capitalist Playground. Zombies, it was reasoned would accept all of the new pro-business anti-labor laws that were imposed by fiat.

Instead, what they got was government by militia, a bifurcated society and two major sets of enemies who hate each other only a little more than they hate us. We are smack in the middle of no man's land, and neither combatant would cease-fire. Did any of those militias visit that free 480-ton ammunitions bazaar west of Baghdad? You can bet they did!

Now we find that our variety of choices in Iraq is growing increasingly slimmer.

Each side is receiving support from outside players, People at an average of 120 a day are being killed according to the U.N. says MSNBC.

And now, lo and behold... two days before he resigned, and on the eve of the Democratic Party's victory in the Congressional elections, Donald Rumsfeld SAW THE LIGHT!

"The situation in Iraq has been evolving, and U.S. forces have adjusted, over time, from major combat operations to counterterrorism, to counterinsurgency, to dealing with death squads and sectarian violence. In my view, it is time for a major adjustment. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough. Following is a range of options:"

"Sectarian violence?" So, there is a whole lot of "sectarian violence" going on, between people who live in many of the same cities, in many cases the same neighborhoods, with "ethnic cleansing" in full force, and this is not a civil war?

Let's see, what are the prerequisites for a civil war according to Tony Snow? You need factions with opposing ideologies, (or sects as the case may be.) You need deadly force, in order to capture territory and to fight for control of a country.

Let's see what a journalist, one who actually lives in Baghdad can tell you.

Aparisim Ghosh of Time Magazine had just returned to Iraq in August of this year when he wrote the article I'm quoting. He describes an Iraq that is lethally divided:

"The only available escapism is via TV. The one post-Saddam freedom Iraqis can unreservedly enjoy is access to satellite television--Lebanese music videos, Egyptian soaps, the Oprah Winfrey Show (with Arabic subtitles), sports. The soccer World Cup was a welcome distraction. Since Iraq didn't qualify, people invested their emotions in foreign teams, like Brazil and Italy. When the Italians won the tournament, it was our driver Wisam--not our Milanese photographer, Franco Pagetti--who had to be restrained from shooting an AK-47 into the air, the traditional Arab celebration. But even the enjoyment of a faraway sporting event can be poisoned by sectarian suspicions: a Sunni neighbor asked me, with a knowing smirk, whether our Shi'ite staff members had supported the Iranian team. When I said no, he was surprised. Many Sunnis believe that Shi'ite sympathies--and not just in sporting matters--lie with Iraq's ancient enemy to the east. "In Najaf and Basra, the Shi'ites were praying for Iran to win," he said disdainfully. "What do you expect from these people?" When I asked him if he had supported the two teams from Sunni-majority countries in the tournament, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, he changed the subject."

He describes a government that has no control:

"Al-Maliki is getting very little help from other Iraqi leaders. The national-unity government is anything but unified. Shi'ite and Sunni ministers routinely contradict one another. It's hard to get consensus even among his fellow Shi'ites. His offer of amnesty for Sunni insurgents was compromised when a powerful Shi'ite leader publicly disagreed about who should be pardoned. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim said insurgents who had killed U.S. service personnel should be pardoned, directly contradicting al-Maliki's promise that those with American blood on their hands would not qualify for amnesty. Al-Maliki's plan was also criticized by al-Sadr. It's probably no coincidence that al-Hakim and al-Sadr control the two largest armed Shi'ite militias, the Badr Organization and Mahdi Army, respectively. While al-Maliki at least tries to present himself as a unifying figure, railing against Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militias, many of his partners in the government are blatantly sectarian. Political leaders express outrage over the atrocities committed against their own sect but won't acknowledge that the other side, too, is bleeding. They often dismiss those wounds as self-inflicted. After the bombing of the Samarra shrine, many Sunni leaders told me the blast was the work of Shi'ite agents’ provocateurs working in concert with Iranian intelligence operatives. Likewise, Mahdi Army commanders routinely accuse Sunni insurgents of committing atrocities against their own kind and then blaming the Shi'ites."

So, the division is there along Shi'ite and Sunni lines. Now do they have armies?

"Sunnis like Mahmud now feel vulnerable in Baghdad, which for centuries was the citadel from which they lorded it over Iraq's Shi'ite majority. For the first three years after Saddam's fall, much of the violence in and around the capital was committed against Shi'ites by Sunni insurgents and jihadis. But since the beginning of this year, Shi'ite death squads--widely believed to emanate from militias like the Mahdi Army and the Iran-trained Badr Organization--have become the main practitioners of terrorist violence. Each side has its signature style of murder. When Iraqis hear news of car bombings or suicide bombers, they don't need to be told that Sunni jihadis were involved; when bodies bearing signs of gruesome torture (like the use of electric drills) turn up in a garbage dump or in the sewers, it's assumed Shi'ite militias were responsible."

Well, there's fighting going. And death. And as in all wars, it's the innocent who pay the most:

To bring me up to date with the news, Wisam rattles off a long list of recent atrocities: a high-profile kidnapping here, a massacre there, a car bombing someplace else. Long before we reach the city, I've heard so many ghastly things that the harrowing flight is already a fading memory. Sensing my sinking spirits, Wisam apologizes for the overdose of grim tidings. "You know how it is in Iraq," he says with a grin. "All news is bad news." Then he tells me about the 10 bodies that were discovered in his neighborhood in the past few days, all of them his fellow Shi'ites. The bodies were decapitated, the heads never found. He tells me how, since a suicide bombing in a nearby neighborhood, his wife has been suffering anxiety attacks when she goes shopping. I feel ashamed that a mere hour's worth of Baghdad's reality has brought me down; Wisam and his family live it all the time.

And the violence is conquering territory:

In the Red Zone (the name given to the rest of Baghdad by Green Zoners too nervous to venture outside the walls), the sporadic spurts of violence between Shi'ites and Sunnis have given way to a steady stream of blood. Partisans on both sides are arming themselves for battle, and ordinary folks are looking for ways to defend themselves. Owing to soaring demand, the price of a Chinese-made AK-47 has quadrupled, to $200, since the start of the year; the Russian-made version has doubled, to $600. The U.N. reports that nearly 6,000 Iraqis were killed in May and June, more than in any comparable period since the fall of Saddam. These days, almost all the killing is Iraqi on Iraqi. Many people are abandoning neighborhoods that were harmoniously mixed for centuries, instead seeking the safety of all-Shi'ite or Sunni-only districts.

So, both sides have gained territory.

And, is everyone playing for all the marbles?

If Wikipedia is on the money, then SCIRI's Badr Brigade is definitely in the control game:

The Badr Organization originally the Badr Brigade or Bader Corps was the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Headed by Hadi Al-Amiri it participated in the 2005 Iraqi election as part of the United Iraqi Alliance coalition. Its members have entered the new Iraqi army and police force en masse and gained virtual control of Iraq's Interior Ministry.

Currently based in and around Karbala, the Badr Organization effectively rules that city and other parts of southern Iraq. It has played a leading role in fighting insurgents there. While the organization has lessened the burden on coalition troops there have also been tensions between the two. There have been reports of gun battles between the organization and British troops that occupied the area. The government of Iyad Allawi has accused the Badr Organization of assassinating Iraqi intelligence officers on behalf of Iran, something the organization strenuously denies. Also, the militia has allegedly been involved in several incidents of kidnapping, beating and torturing of Sunni Iraqis.

And yesterday the Sunnis showed that they too would stoop to low levels in order to kill. The victims? Day laborers just trying to get low paying temp jobs in order to feed their families

The 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) attack took place in Tayaran Square, a popular gathering point for carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, painters and other workers who frequent the cafes and street vendors while waiting for the chance of some work. Many of the workers who gather at Tayran Square are poor Shias.

‘A driver with a pickup truck stopped and asked for labourers. When they gathered around the car it exploded,’ said a witness, who was helping a stumbling survivor with a blood-stained bandage covering his head.

'They were poor labourers looking for work. The poor are supposed to be protected by the government,' he said.

Calling the attack a 'horrible massacre', Shia Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki blamed it on Saddam Hussein sympathisers and Sunni Islamist Al Qaeda.

'These terrorist groups are trying to spread chaos by killing and fuelling sectarian strife,' he said in a statement.

The explosion, which sent a cloud of black smoke into the sky, set many cars on fire. Gunfire sounded after the blast.

Iraq is gripped by tit-for-tat sectarian killings between majority Shias and Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam but now the backbone of the insurgency. Thousands have been killed in violence many Iraqis fear is pitching the country toward all-out civil war.

And some would say Iraq is already in one, and maybe the solution is to partition the country. Kurdistan and the Shi'ite south already virtually independent states. I guess Bush thinks that if you call it a civil war it makes it harder to resist the "get out now" crowd. He should relax. Many people including myself feel that leaving now would be disaster. We have a moral obligation to put right that which we did wrong. Also one hears that many Iraqis actually prefer that we remain for now to allow some semblance of order.

And today we hear that 24 more day laborers have died in a similar attack. And Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has given Dick Cheney an ultimatum stating that it would start funding Sunni insurgents if American troop levels aren't maintained.

Well, it looks as if everything meets all requirements for it. Is it a civil war Dubya? And we are jammed in real good!

Maffei vs. Walsh: Common Sense vs. Bankrupt Thinking

2006-10-18T23:55:00.000-04:00

Maffei vs Walsh II - 1, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

The more James Walsh tries to tell me that he's not Bush's man, the more I see Dubya standing right behind him! His performance in this week's debate will certainly not persuade any undecided to his cause.

For starters, Maffei and Walsh's manners were as different as night and day. Dan Maffei was forthcoming and very polite to Walsh, who was both petulant and defensive.

When Maffei gave his opening statement, he gave it directly to the people. He went through the litany of Bush horrors in a way that showed he knew the pain of the people.

Walsh, on the other hand, pushed the Panic Button, and retreated behind his pork and earmarks. He's a lousy rainmaker if he must exaggerate every small drop in the bucket.

Regarding Iraq, Bush has very little that's original days to say these days, and Walsh had even less. When confronted with the downwardly spiraling situation in Iraq, his only aces were that we were training an Iraqi army, and that there was a "government of unity" there to take over. As if.

Maffei saw the real situation: That we are in over our heads. The "unity government," is united in name only, and you can't create democracy at the barrel of a gun. We need a phased withdrawal, and for once let the generals take the point!

All Walsh could respond with was an accusation that Maffei was "shifting positions!" basing his allegation on quoting Maffei out of context from an article by Tom Curry on MSNBC.com.

Here is what Walsh said:

My opponent's position keeps shifting on this. When Tom Curry was here from MSNBC magazine, my opponent told him that he would support a bill that would cut off all funds except for immediate withdrawal of our troops. That's basically walking away from lraq.

And here's the paragraph

in question. You be the judge:

Unlike many Democratic candidates this year Maffei is not guarded about saying he'd support the resolution introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and other anti-war Democrats that would cut off funding for the Iraq deployment - with an exception for funds needed for "the safe and orderly withdrawal" of U.S. troops. "I would support that resolution," he said flatly.

"with an exception for funds needed for 'the safe and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops.' " Sounds exactly like ''phased withdrawal" to me!

Maffei showed how canny he was by not letting Walsh's statement go unchallenged:

You know, Congressman Walsh keeps saying that I shift positions on Iraq. I guess he just isn't listening, or just doesn't understand my position. We need to change the course. We need to bring our troops home. We need to leave the details to the generals. That's my position, it always has been.

On stem cell research, Walsh proved he too wouldn't shift his position. He stuck to Bush's perpetually backwards logic that a blastocyst has as many rights as a fully developed human being. (Or is it that a human being has about as many rights as a blastocyst? "War on Terror" you know!)

Back and forth went the exchange. Walsh became overly sensitive to the point where he referred to Maffei in a George Allen saying "Maccacca"- like manner as ''this fella." Maffei on the other always referred to Walsh as "Congressman."

In the end, it was a battle between a man who behaved as if he had new ideas and one bankrupt of any visions at all. Walsh kept falling back on obvious tactics. Like a mini-Karl Rove, he painted with a broad brush and gave out smear after smear. One obvious, and ridiculous one was a replay of his newest hare-brained commercial - where he reveals that as a Congressman he has a voting record, and Maffei doesn't! Really! Mr. Walsh should know that we own pumpkin patches here in CNY. We don't live under them. And after this straw man, Walsh had the temerity to say that Maffei's surrogates are "Washington Liberals," and that as an aide, Maffei never went public with his ideas! And how many Washington chatterbox aides can we count on one hand? Any of those pages Walsh's?

Aides have the responsibility of serving their Representative, and helping to represent the positions of that Representative's constituents.

Maffei, who never badgered Walsh or called his friends,"Washington Conservatives," was more than generous in his treatment of Walsh even under yesterday's circumstances.

Maffei the Real, Walsh the Phony

2006-10-13T15:54:00.000-04:00

Maffei & Walsh, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

Fnally, in an acid test, Gentleman Jim shows his true colors. And CNY gets a new hope.

The text of this article was written on Wednesday the 11th:

The debate last night was close. Too close for Mr. Walsh's comfort I think. Yes, Mr. Walsh has mastered the ability to speak off the cuff when he needs to, but if his goal was to distance himself from George W. Bush, he failed miserably. When your voting record reflects the Administration’s dismal record 80% of the time, you've got some 'splaining to do!

Dan Maffei's words on the other hand, resonated with a lot of Central New Yorkers. And he was quiet comfortable in answering questions, and felt he had audience on his side.

Mr. Walsh was always on the defensive. He was there to answer for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld policies on Iraq, Afghanistan and the War on Terror no matter how he tried to say that he was his own man.

The devil was in the details. When confronted with the concept that the Taliban were resurgent in Afghanistan, all Mr. Walsh could say was to be patient, Afghans hate the Taliban. Stay the course. He practically accused the Democrats of advocating a policy of "cut and run."

He then proceeded to give the standard GOP spiel about how they "lowered" people's taxes, and that Dems will raise them.

When asked about the state of healthcare, Walsh proceeded to tell us how we have the greatest healthcare system in the world. Of course, he forgot to say that it only works if your insurance policy covers it. If you can afford health insurance. Mr. Maffei was kind enough to remind him of this.

When Walsh expounded on the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, I swear I could see George Bush's hand up his butt. He could see nothing wrong with curtailing freedoms for security. Dubya may as well have been standing there.

Maffei on the other hand, exploited every opening that Walsh created. I was a little worried when he said we should leave Iraq as soon as possible, but he saved it when he said that the nation building should internationalized, and that the President should defer to generals on military decisions. He voiced the mood of the people when he mentioned how Afghanistan backfired because of our little Iraq adventure, and when Walsh tried to say that al Qaeda considered Iraq to be the battleground, Mr. Maffei kindly reminded him how Bush dropped the ball at Tora Bora in the hunt for bin Laden, and how we could've saved Afghanistan if we concentrated on it solely, and not added on the burden of Iraq.

Walsh came off sounding more like Bush than he wanted to. Dan Maffei established himself as a voice of the people, and CNY's best hope for needed change.

"Walsh-Maffei debate to air tonight" - Syracuse Post Standard

"THE ISSUES: WALSH VS. MAFFEI " - Syracuse Post Standard

Mudless debate for Jim Walsh, Dan Maffei - Syracuse Post Standard

Jim Walsh: The NAM's Fair Haired Boy

2006-09-04T20:04:00.000-04:00

Fair Haired Walsh, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

Here's One of Walsh's REAL Constituents!

I've uncovered a few more items about our representative from the 25th District Mr. Walsh.

I guess I must be the last person on the face of the earth to have heard of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), but they are big and they are firmly in the Bush camp.

Here is a look at their 2006 agenda:

Pro-Manufacturing Agenda:

Reduce Production Costs in the United States:

Immediately address the critical shortage of reliable domestic oil and natural gas supply to include legislation permitting deep water exploration.

Build a plentiful, flexible, diverse and affordable energy supply through a broad range of options to address our nation's energy supply crisis, including policies that open the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for development of natural resources.

End lawsuit abuses including asbestos and medical litigation.

Reduce health care costs by focusing on chronic disease prevention and management, transforming health care from paper records to electronic medical records and encouraging the growth of consumer-oriented options such as Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs).

Reduce excessive regulatory costs by ensuring that scientific and economic analysis is applied to regulations.

Enact sensible, cost-effective multiple emissions policy, such as the President's Clear Skies initiative, and avoid inefficient and anti-growth command and control mandates on emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2).

And now here is a little bit of NAM's own history from their own website:

Recognized Lobbying Leader. Fortune, Washingtonian and others have cited the NAM as one of the singularly most influential advocacy groups. As the leader of many coalitions, the NAM magnifies manufacturers' influence to score far-reaching policy victories. NAM lobbying achievements in the 1990s included:

* Passage of NAFTA and MFN for China.

* Successful lawsuits reining in rulemaking abuses at OSHA and EPA.

* A five-year extension of the essential R&D tax credit.

* Defeat of President Clinton's job-crushing BTU tax and nationalized health care schemes.

* Reform of the misnamed alternative minimum tax and reduction in capital gains and estate taxes.

* Moratorium on Internet taxation.

* Major improvements in food and drug laws, reducing approval times for life-enhancing pharmaceuticals.

The NAM is believed by many to be a right wing organization with a history of anti - labor, and anti - union activism. Some people say that the NAM was in league with Fascism.

I'm not going into that today though. Let me just deal with the facts that I've uncovered so far concerning how the NAM values a man like James T. Walsh.

And here is the damning evidence:

Quotes from Walsh's NAM profile: in

NAM Prosperity Project*

Class Action Reform (S. 5) Vote on S. 5, the Class Action Fairness Act. Approved 279-149 on Feb. 17, 2005 (Roll No. 38). The NAM supported the bill, which would curb trial lawyer "forum shopping" by shifting most class actions to federal courts, without altering plaintiffs' right to sue. Signed into law (P.L. 109-2) on Feb. 18, 2005. NAM POSITION: Yes.

Walsh voted "Yes"!

Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act (H.R. 8) Vote on H.R. 8, the Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2005, to make the repeal of the estate (death) tax permanent. Approved 272-162 on April 13, 2005 (Roll No. 102). Unless the death tax repeal is made permanent, the current estate tax system and estate tax rates faced by small business owners will resurface in 2011, resulting in more complexity and confusion for small businesses and increased planning costs. The NAM supported the bill, as large estate tax bills force the sale of many small manufacturing companies upon the owner's death. NAM POSITION: Yes.

Walsh voted "Yes" too!

OSHA Legal Issues, Review Commission Reform (H.R. 741) Vote on legislation providing for an independent review of citations issued by OSHA. Approved 226-197 on July 12, 2005 (Roll No. 371). The NAM supported the bill, which would help companies challenging OSHA citations by ensuring that the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission ("the Court") -- and not OSHA ("the prosecutor") -- would be the party that interprets the law and provides an independent review of OSHA citations. NAM POSITION: Yes.

Walsh voted "Yes" on this one!

OSHA Legal Issues, Review Commission Reform (H.R. 741) Vote on legislation providing for an independent review of citations issued by OSHA. Approved 226-197 on July 12, 2005 (Roll No. 371). The NAM supported the bill, which would help companies challenging OSHA citations by ensuring that the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission ("the Court") -- and not OSHA ("the prosecutor") -- would be the party that interprets the law and provides an independent review of OSHA citations. NAM POSITION: Yes.

Walsh voted "Yes" on this one!

Discouraging Regulation Through Litigation (S. 397) Vote on S. 397, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Approved 283-144 on October 20, 2005 (Roll No. 534). The NAM supported the bill, which would forestall lawsuits brought with the intent of shutting down a legitimate and legal industry, while allowing those with merit to proceed. Signed into law (P.L. 109-92) on Oct. 26, 2005. NAM POSITION: Yes.

Walsh voted "Yes" as well.

There you have it. Walsh keeps getting headlines with his false legislative "philanthropy", and his myriads of awards for his "philanthropy," and yet in the darkest corners of the House, he is busy with a million and one easily unnoticed votes that don't serve the public good, but further the agenda of the moneyed elite.

National Association of Manufacturers Website

NAM's 2006 agenda

NAM website's Historical Highlights

NAM "Prosperity Project" Walsh profile

James T. Walsh: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing?

2006-08-02T16:01:00.000-04:00

Full disclosure: I'm actively campaigning for Dan Maffei to be the next Congressman for the 25th District of New York. I'm tired of having this 'do nothing" Republican rubber stamp Congress any longer.

James Walsh is as bad as it gets.

Here are MY thoughts on why Walsh is bad for my district.

So, James T. Walsh says he is the friend of the people, right? Kind, congenial, one of the folks. "Moderate" Republican right? The kind of pal you can sit down, have a beer with right? Yeah, just the kind of pal you'd have like George Bush! We all know what a ''compassionate" conservative he turned out to be!

Well, let's see what kind of nice guy Mr. Walsh really is when he's not giving paltry grants, and paying lip service to our fears and aspirations:

His "no".vote on embryonic stem cell research, tells me that he cares more for the rights of a blastocyst than for those of a sick or dying human being.

His views on NSA spying on our bank records are clearly indicated by his approval of a resolution condemning publications that blew the whistle on the NSA.

And how could his "yes" vote on the new Medicare Part D perscription drug plans be anything other than an approval of the privatization of Medicare?

I'm sure Good Bush Soldier Walsh also approved the No Child Left Behind idiocy and is no doubt involved in this hijacking of the minimum wage raise for repealing the Paris Hilton Tax!

And why not? not only did he vote "yes"on theDeath Tax Repeal Permanency Act, he co-sponsored it!

The more you look into James Walsh, the more he looks like Bush!

H.R. 810 To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for human embryonic stem cell research.

Walsh's Vote On H.R. 810 To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for human embryonic stem cell research.

H.RES.895
Title: Supporting intelligence and law enforcement programs to track terrorists and terrorist finances conducted consistent with Federal law and with appropriate Congressional consultation and specifically condemning the disclosure and publication of classified information that impairs the international fight against terrorism and needlessly exposes Americans to the threat of further terror attacks by revealing a crucial method by which terrorists are traced through their finances.

Walsh's Vote On H.RES.895

H.RES.802: Encouraging all eligible Medicare beneficiaries who have not yet elected to enroll in the new Medicare Part D benefit to review the available options and to determine whether enrollment in a Medicare prescription drug plan best meets their current and future needs for prescription drug coverage.

Walsh's Vote On H.RES.802

Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act

Walsh's Vote On the Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act

Walsh as CO-SPONSOR OF H.R. 8 To make the repeal of the estate tax permanent.

No Child left Behind Act

Walsh's Vote on No Child left Behind Act

Regarding Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - "Plus ça Change!"

2006-07-04T19:26:00.000-04:00

Abu Musab as-Zarqawi, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

Не кажи "гоп" заки не перескочиш*, and don't count your chickens before they hatch, and the are more Zarqawis in that sea!

Okay, so Zarqawi is dead. So? Did the streets get any safer? No. Not for 30 innocent Iraqis who got snatched, KIDNAPPED, off of the "free and democratic" streets of Baghdad. Not for PFC. Mancheca, who was tortured and killed. Not for many people who actually LIVE in Iraq. In fact, I know of at least two Iraqi bloggers who could care less about Zarqawi, and think that he was a United States creature:

"What is the meaning of life in Iraq?

All the beautiful meanings of life there are lost. For panic is the daily feeling, morning and night; militias for killings, free, incessant assassinations, sudden road blocks that kill people without a reason, bodies cast on the streets, which no one removes, on to a security chaos, the confusion of the government and the occupation forces, and- big statements.

But with nothing positive in reality, on the ground.

People are fed up, and began to despair from the improvement of things…

Then, comes the happy declaration about killing AL-Zarqawi. Well then; if we assumed that the chaos and the destruction in Iraq for the past three years was caused by this hateful maniac, now he is announced dead, so, some real, positive change is supposed to happen in Iraq.

We shall see…

But we say: AL-Zarqawi is just an illusion they created to raid the Iraqi towns, kill the men, and imprison them. And now; the show is over- and as they created his existence, they created the story of his killing.

Very well, thank you, but we want a positive outcome, not a muscle show, and the manufacture of bogus military victories.

This story of killing AL-Zarqawi didn't effect the Iraqis much, for how much they saw of the daily calamities they live through; the shortages of water, electricity, and fuels, to the bombings, free killing, on to the criminal militias controlling the streets. But the American citizen doesn't know about the sufferings of the Iraqi citizen... and the story of AL-Zarqawi is one concerning the American people more than the Iraqi people. It is considered a powerful media hit, and a great military victory to the occupation troops in Iraq- there, in America.

But to the Iraqis, it is just a play, and empty talk, like the play of capturing Saddam Hussein and his trial, what did the Iraqis get out of it?

Did it bring on security and settlement, water, or electricity to the houses? Did it stop the bloodshed of the Iraqis?

Of course not…"

That was Faiza Al Arji, blogger of the blog: "A Family in Baghdad" She is an engineer, and the mother of Raed Jarrar, who operates the "Raed in The Middle" blog.

But my next blogger, Riverbend is living in Baghdad NOW, and can give almost real time reports on how much of a difference the "new day" in Iraq has made:

"A new day for Iraqis" is the current theme of the Iraqi puppet government and the Americans. Like it was "A New Day for Iraqis" on April 9, 2003 . And it was "A New Day for Iraqis" when they killed Oday and Qusay. Another "New Day for Iraqis" when they caught Saddam. More "New Day" when they drafted the constitution... I'm beginning to think it's like one of those questions they give you on IQ tests: If 'New' is equal to 'More' and 'Day' is equal to 'Suffering', what does "New Day for Iraqis" mean?

How do I feel? To hell with Zarqawi (or Zayrkawi as Bush calls him). He was an American creation- he came along with them- they don't need him anymore, apparently. His influence was greatly exaggerated but he was the justification for every single family they killed through military strikes and troops. It was WMD at first, then it was Saddam, then it was Zarqawi. Who will it be now? Who will be the new excuse for killing and detaining Iraqis? Or is it that an excuse is no longer needed- they have freedom to do what they want. The slaughter in Haditha months ago proved that. "They don't need him anymore," our elderly neighbor waved the news away like he was shooing flies, "They have fifty Zarqawis in government."

So now that Zarqawi is dead, and because according to Bush and our Iraqi puppets he was behind so much of Iraq's misery- things should get better, right? The car bombs should lessen, the ethnic cleansing will come to a halt, military strikes and sieges will die down... That's what we were promised, wasn't it? That sounds good to me. Now- who do they have to kill to stop the Ministry of Interior death squads, and trigger-happy foreign troops?"

Sounds like an unhappy camper to me! And did the death of Zarqawi bring more jobs to Iraqis? Whoopdidoo, 4 hours of electricity! Hey, I live here in Syracuse, NY, and we've had some really dog days over here ourselves. But we can still run home to central air conditioning! In Iraq they are lucky to have ceiling fans that work! My mom's old enough to get a little cold for air conditioning, so we spend a few hours without it. Luckily I can keep my ceiling fan on 24/7 or I'd swelter! Riverbend's lucky to have hers on for 4 hours!

As for the killing? I doubt if any peace will be anything more than an interruption. Muqtada al-Sadr appears to have every intention of gaining control of Iraq. Shiite and Sunni kill one another with impunity. Ethic cleansing on par with post Raj lndia and Pakistan is taking place, and Zarqawi's old outfit seems to be it's grisly old self again as Pfc. Mancheca would've attested to if he could've.

Last week was a rather fascinating week in Right Wing Cloudcuckoobury. First it started out as an exercise of poor desperate Rick Santorum's attempt to latch onto Bush's ephemeral Zarqawi "coattails," by grasping at straws. Somehow, magically, he and Rep. Hoekstra have found the missing WMD's! Except that they turned out to be something from before the last Gulf War, and it all looked very old, decrepit - and depleted. The canisters looked like something you'd find in your grandfather's worn out tool shed. They weren't very well stacked either. Nope, apparently neatness didn't count in the care and maintenance of potent WMD's, not in Cloudcuckoobury! Sean Hannity jumped all over it! Even though the decrepit ness of those things stared him in the face from FOX's own clips! All of FOX from NEWS to RADIO from O'Reilly to ''FOX Across America," went gaga over it! Finally, the Pentagon itself had to shut down the whole shebang by saying that those weren't the WMDs that Bush trumpeted, far from it, they were depleted and useless. David Kay himself put some holes in Santorum's balloon.

But that wouldn't stop our courageous Right Wing Don Quixote from bravely (and desperately) reaching for a log to help his campaign stay afloat. So he kept up his Hail Mary play on "Imus in The Morning"**:

"DON IMUS: 21 till the hour talking with uh, Senator Rick Santorum who's locked in a very tight race down there, in Pennsylvania for his Senate seat and uh, how are the polls now? Just kind of curious.

RICK SANTORUM: Uh, they're all over the map, everything from single digits uh, I guess two recent ones were eight and nine and then there's one that came out yesterday, sort of an outlier uh, that has it sort of double digits but, uh, you know this is going to be a race that's going to come down to one or two points in the end. I don't think that either side would say that that's not going to be the case and uh, just gonna, uh, we'll battle it out, and I feel very confident that in the end we're gonna win. Just because of you of course.

IMUS: So at this point you're ahead by double digits in some polls?

SANTORUM: No, no, no, no, I'm not ahead. I'm behind. But you're hanging in there with me I know that.

IMUS: I don't know if I heard that knock, knocking.

SANTORUM: Yes, but you're, you're hanging in there with me?

IMUS: Yes I am actually. Uh, now what is this, what's this nonsense about a smoking gun you found. What the ...

SANTORUM: Now wait a minute, uh, first uh, I never said the word is smoking gun and in fact uh, Peter Hoekstra who is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and I who have been, uh been working on this, was very clear and said that this is not a silver bullet this is a piece, another piece of the puzzle. Uh, see uh, we found, we knew that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and had used them, uh during the Gulf War, used them on his own people, so we knew that uh, going into uh, to this, to this war we also knew uh, that and we know from the Duelfer Report, uh, that , he had weapons programs, weapons research being conducted, ongoing, for everything from biological to chemical, uh and, and, and, and, and, attempts to put together a nuclear program although it wasn't nearly as advanced as, as we had thought, but, it was clear from the Duelfer Report that he could have recons, when sanctions were lifted, the report said that he could have had Anthrax within four weeks as an example, so, we knew he had programs, but what the Duelfer Report said he did not have, was stockpiles of chemical or weap, biological weapons and what this uh, unclassified version of, of the report that we had seen the classified version of said that in fact we have found, over 500 weapons, chemical weapons, uh, with sarin and uh, mustard gases in them, that uh, were uh, in the country, and you could, you could say 500 amounts to a stockpile from my perspective as well as, an additional thing that this unclassified version of the report says, is that there are assessed to still exist additional munitions, filled, uh, and unfilled munitions from uh, from the pre Gulf War period, in Iraq.

IMUS: Well, a Defence Department official is saying I believe on the FOX NEWS website, that, that these weapons are not the WMDs that this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had and, they are not the weapons of mass destruction for which, apparently this country went to war, so...

SANTORUM: Well, I don't know who this anonymous Defence Department official is, and it's some anonymous person that's, you know, whispering in the hallway, uh, but I can tell you that uh, having talked to a lot of people in the administration, uh, and certainly talking to a lot of my colleagues this was the weapons of mass destruction that we thought that he had going in that I thought when I voted for this war, uh, that he did not, that he lied to the weapons inspectors, that he had not gotten rid of his chemical and biological weapons, and that uh, that he was avoiding detection from UNSCOM, if you remember this was the UN committee that was supposed to, tuh find these weapons and have them destroyed, uh, he had uh, he had not had those, he had not destroyed those weapons, and it's very clear, that uh, he had lied to the inspectors, and was avoiding a detection of these, of these weapons, so I don't know who the Defence Department, what, what they thought we were looking for, but certainly this was some of the weapons that I thought we were looking for.

IMUS: Well the administration is not jumping all over this one. I'll tell you, the President, I talked to David Gregory, he's in Budapest with the President this morning, the President says, President said they weren't there, we made a mistake and ...

SANTORUM: Yeah, well uh, all I can tell you is having talked to the administration uh, and lots of folks over there, what they are focused in, and they keep saying this is, 'We need to look forward. I don't want to debate this issue any more about weapons of mass destruction, uh, we need to just look forward in what we want to do in the future.,' and that's very admirable, but the bottom line is the American public has a right to know what we haven't, what we found and what we haven't found, and that last report uh, by the Intelligence Community that came out was the Duelfer Report which said that no stockpiles existed, and there was headlines everywhere in the country: 'No WMD's'. Three members of the United States Senate yesterday on the floor of the Senate said that we found no weapons of mass destruction. That is factually incorrect. We have found at least 500, and in fact, having read the classified report, let me assure you there are others.

IMUS: Yeah but, an, another unnamed Pentagon official is saying were, uh, pre 1981, 1991 rather munitions, that they were in such a degraded state that they couldn't be used uh, for, assuming for what they were designed for, and perhaps anything else, so ...

SANTORUM: That's not (inaudible) again, I can't comment on what the classified report is, but let me just assure you that I, I'm not sure that Pentagon official read the report, just let me put it that way.

IMUS: See, here's what has to happen Senator Santorum, is you guys all have to finally say: admit you were wrong, that this was a hideously horrible idea, and that you're sorry that you got us into this and you're going to get us out of this as quickly as possible, and go on and fight the real war on terror.

SANTORUM: We are fighting the real war...

IMUS: I want you to say that now.

SANTORUM: We are fighting

IMUS: Say 'I'm sorry I got you into this you guys .'

SANTORUM: No, I can't, I can't say that, because I, I deeply believe that this is a, one of the more vitally important wars that maybe one of the, maybe thee most important of um, certainly of our time, in the last fifty years that we have fought, because these are folks, and you heard, we had this discussion, uh just uh just a few weeks ago, in talking about Iran. This is a mosaic of organizations and nation states that have clear designs on destroying not only the nation of Israel, with Iran, it's been very clear about that but, but, but the entire West. And they have now the resources thanks to oil, and they have, they're developing the capability you see, uh, North Korea trying to launch a rocket. Uh, they're working with Iranian, uh, scientists, and uh North Korea's working with Iranians not only in the development of rocketry, but in the development of nuclear weapons, this is a very serious threat, this is a threat that not, not only was in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in Iran in other places around the world, and, and, to suggest that somehow or another that it's an isolated one group call Al Qaeda, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're fighting against.

IMUS: I hope you're right about all of this. What uh, do you have any plans, uh, let's just say uh, things don't work out and you lose? Are we, are we looking at any options in that area or is, are we, are we thinking win, win?

SANTORUM: Never consider the possibility of losing. When you start to do that then you, you start to make decisions and do things you shouldn't have.

IMUS: Well I'm right, right with you ...

SANTORUM: You are. You've been awesome! I, I, I don't know of any supporter I've had that's been more forth and just absolutely with me, uncompromising, always defend me. You never criticize me, you're there with me a hundred percent of the time. You're awesome! I appreciate it!

IMUS: Of course I criticize! I think you're crazy about this whole war thing of course!

SANTORUM: Oh...

IMUS: But I like you, cause I think you're a good man, I think, I know you have a good heart, you keep your word, uh, the, the work you've done on this combating autism uh, uh, bill far outweighs this nonsense about these weapons and stuff but, talking about this point I also am supporting by the way, Congressman Harold Ford Jr., in Tennessee and he's in a tight race. I'm not bailing on him either so ...

SANTORUM: I, I, I appreciate you're steadfast ...

IMUS: You're quite welcome sir, thank you very much.

SANTORUM: Thank you sir. (inaudible) Bye, bye.

IMUS: Senator Rick Santorum here on the 'Imus in the Morning' radio program. Jack Nicholson is next. Fourteen 'til the hour."

A funny thing happened on the way to finding the WMD's:

FOX NEWS itself had to shoot down the ploy only hours afterwards when it's own reporter had to concede that the weapons were not effective enough to be the WMD's we imagined post 1991, and that they were basically toothless.

And now there are reports that these weapons were sold to Saddam by ... The Carlyle Group! An AMERICAN company!

Boy ol' Ricky must be feeling oh, so secure in his position now!

Back to the smelly bog of failure Dicky! Stick your hand out, and say "goodbye!"

The next twist on the rollercoaster ride was given by General Casey. You see, the week before, when John Kerry and Carl Levin presented their competing legislation for reducing the troop strength in Iraq, they were shot down. Now General Casey's proposing troop reduction. Is he a "cut'n run" guy?

And then there were the revelations that over the past 6 years, The New York Times was NOT the first to reveal that we were tracking terrorist financing!

Yes, we found that in inumerable instances the Bush Bunch itself revealed in many instances that they were tracking financial records from day one. On September 24, 2001, just 13 days after 9/11, Bush, Powell and O'Neill were in the Rose Garden to say:

" We know that many of these individuals and groups operate primarily overseas, and they don't have much money in the United States. So we've developed a strategy to deal with that. We're putting banks and financial institutions around the world on notice, we will work with their governments, ask them to freeze or block terrorist's ability to access funds in foreign accounts. If they fail to help us by sharing information or freezing accounts, the Department of the Treasury now has the authority to freeze their bank's assets and transactions in the United States.”

Now, how would Dubya be able to tell us these things without tipping his hand? Does anyone in al Qaeda NOT have at least a radio? If they were money movers you BET they were listening!

And here's a quote from a Fact Sheet September 24, 2001, on the White House Website that must've had everyone within reading distance slapping their foreheads in exasperation:

"A Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center (FTAT) is up and running. The FTAT is a multi-agency task force that will identify the network of terrorist funding and freeze assets before new acts of terrorism take place."

Ah! But Dubya actually caught the spirit of the whole thing almost a year before 9/11 happened when he said:

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier...just as long as I'm the dictator..."

Anyone would didn't get that memo after 9/11 deserved to be caught!

Hmmm! Seems that hasn't happened to Osama yet. I wonder why.

Riverbend

A Family in Baghdad

Sept 24, 2001 Fact Sheet introducing FTAT and the Executive Order for tracking Finances

"President Freezes Terrorists' Assets" Sept 2001

*"Don't talk smack before you jump!" Paraphrased translation of a traditional Ukrainian saying.
** Transcript provided by yours truly.

Memorial Day

2006-06-01T13:58:00.000-04:00

Bush - Iraq, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

When I think of Memorial Day, I remember what Jeff Daniels, as Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain said to his men on the eve of battle in the movie "Gettysburg":

"This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you'll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, power, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we're here for something new. This hasn't happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free. America should be free ground, from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow, no man born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here you can be something. Here is the place to build a home. But it's not the land. There's always more land. It's the idea that we all have value, you and me. What we're fighting for, in the end, we're fighting for each other."

In the 230 years that this country has existed, this or something like it was at the very core of why we fought wars and gave the last full measure of our devotion. In the Revolution we fought because Britain denigrated our value, and treated America like it was it's poor cousin. In the Civil War, the issue was that all men are in fact, created equal, and man has no right to challenge that status.

We fought two World Wars, one because a half-mad Kaiser was willing to threaten humanity's peace of mind for the sake of real-estate, and the other because a complete psychopath was willing to wipe out a portion of humanity for his own twisted notions of a Master Race. In both wars, we fought to save humanity, and to keep it from destroying itself.

In Korea and even Vietnam, we fought because somebody had the notion that war was the only way to stop the spread of Communism there.

And now we are here on this Memorial Day. I went to a parade this weekend in Jamesville, NY in support of my candidate for Congress in the 25th District, Dan Maffei. We had joy, merriment. I carried my Maffei for Congress poster right near a Veteran For Peace, and not by coincidence.

When the merriment was over, we all gathered at the flag in front of the highschool, and there people were ready to remind us of the real reason why we were there. We fought for what we think has created America. The will to freedom, the need for equality. We also fought for the concept that free and equal individuals can work together to preserve and give life to their society. It's the American people's values that preserve this country, not the grandiose schemes of rich men. The men and women of our armed forces came from civilians, and to civilians they shall return. The Kilranes, Reynolds, Caparzos, Mellishes and Captain John Millers were not just in the movies. They came not just from the country clubs but mostly from average middle class and poor people. What they fought for was a better world, for other peoples as well as for their own. And all that they asked for in return was that we make something of ourselves, and improve the world around us, if only just by treating each other better. As Miller admonished Ryan in that memorable scene from "Private Ryan," "Earn this!"

When I was at the Wall, I saw people rubbing onto paper names of friends, lovers, fathers, sons, brothers and relatives whom they will never see or hear from again. Someone whom they have been missing for a long time. I also found myself looking for Ukrainian-sounding names. That I found them was a foregone conclusion.

Looking at that sea of names, I also found my thoughts turning with anger to the present ignominious situation. We have a so-called leader, who’s best instincts are to "dissemble feeling" in the face of heartfelt sorrow. As for "valuing'' humanity, and "fighting for each other," these are notions foreign to the disingenuous Dubya. He mouths the words, but he doesn't get the irony of how his actions contradicted them on this Memorial Day:

"In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war. We have seen those costs in the war on terror we fight today. These grounds are the final resting place for more than 270 men and women who have given their lives in freedom's cause since the attacks of September the 11th, 2001."

So Dubya, did YOU go to war "reluctantly," when you didn't let UN weapons inspectors finish their job in Iraq? Not quite.

He can't even get the number of dead in Iraq right:

"270 men and women ...'' Try close to 3000! Not to mention the MILLIONS of innocent civilians killed while "freedom," was "on the march!" When news of the Haditha massacre broke, where 24 unarmed civilians, mostly from a poor family including the elderly, women and children, were killed by Marines, he, the Decider, only found out about it after a reporter from TIME magazine told him!

But that doesn't stop Dubya from mouthing the words. No, he goes on to use words and phrases like:

"brave Americans like these, who volunteer to confront our adversaries abroad "

They were stop lossed and federalized into a war only you and your neocon friends wanted.

And I like this quaint sentiment:

" by defeating the terrorists, by advancing the cause of liberty, and by laying the foundation of peace for a generation of young Americans."

Massacre, detention without due process will not win over hearts and minds of a suffering people. As for a "foundation of peace?" How, when our forces are under a great strain? And didn't Dubya just tell that ''generation of young Americans," when he was at West Point, that it would be up to them to fight this war that he started?

And what about the Marines who are no longer given a long enough r & r before returning into battle, and re-rotated for multiple tours in Iraq? What will this generation of Marines remember? That a squad of them went ballistic and murdered nearly two dozen innocent civilians in Haditha, one of them an old man in a wheelchair, reading the Quran? Or will they remember the stress of dealing with a deadly and precarious crapshoot of an insurgency, while being undermanned?

How ill - used our boys must feel. How undervalued as well. Now, all they can do is fight for each other, not in the cosmic way Jeff Daniels meant in "Gettysburg," but in a tragically all too literal way, for this is not our war they are fighting, but Dubya's private war, fought for no real reason, just for the purposes of a few.

Haditha, Ishaqi and Hamandiya are not illustrative of the lack of conscience or values of our men. They were raised according to their parent's values in the best way those parents possibly could do so. Rather, these attrocities are a monument to a system, created by the stupidity, born of delusion and greed, of men to whom no one has "value," just usefulness, convenience and expendability.

Rumsfeld, Rice, and most of all, George W. Bush, have dishonored the bargain we had made with our honored dead. While 3000 men died for Dubya's little adventure, he has endangered the freedoms of those men's families, attempted to destroy their well-being and devalue them into virtual tools for the enrichment of his friends.

How has Dubya & Co. improved the world when all he has done is wage the same war on the middle class in Iraq as he is waging at home?

How has Dubya & Co. improved the world, when all he has done is alienate the rest of the world from us, neglected the rise of China and the increasing totalitarianism and bullying of Russia?

This Memorial Day the sadness that I feel for men who'll never see their children, or children who will never see their fathers is compounded by the fact that families are being sacrificed to ambition.

Memorable Quotes from the film, "Gettysburg" - 1993

Bush's Memorial Day Address at Arlington, VA

E.L. Doctorow - "The Unfeeling President

Un-Sweet Sixteen

2006-05-07T00:06:00.000-04:00

I got this from Democrats.org:

"Democrats.org has a post called "Un-Sweet Sixteen: Breaking Down Republican Culture of Corruption" that's worth checking out...

This weekend, millions of Americans had their college basketball brackets busted as underdog teams knocked off perennial powerhouses to reach the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA basketball tournament. Sadly, the brackets in the "Un-Sweet Sixteen," the leading members of the Republican culture of corruption, remain intact."

"Trying On The New Method of Speechmaking"

2006-04-25T11:29:00.000-04:00

"Trying On The New Method of Speechmaking", originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

I would like to tell you about a little Town Hall type meeting we had up in Syracuse, New York last week with our candidates for Congress. We wanted to know what they intended to do about the situation in Iraq. It went pretty much as anyone would expect, the incumbents didn’t show up, and that includes you Chuck and Hilary. As always, Representative James T. Walsh (R) couldn’t be bothered. It’s only the 25th District Jimmie. But all the Democratic candidates did show up.

I was impressed with the caliber of the individuals that attended the meeting on what to do with Iraq. Impressed yet at the same time not surprised by many of the statements made by many of the speakers. There were simply repetitions of many opinions that I had heard throughout the Iraq fiasco.

The presuppositions of both sides were very present.

There were even a few people from the other side.

A Major Scott Taylor got up and said that we must stay in Iraq, because we

A: Thought Saddam had WMD's.

B: The infrastructure there is improving

C: Saddam was a bad man, who committed many atrocities. The presuppositions of both sides were very present.

The Progressives spoke about how we should leave Iraq as soon as possible.

Dr. John Burdick wanted an international solution to the problem.

Mr. Ken Howland wanted immediate pullout.

This reinforces my opinion that no solution for peace in Iraq from the Left or the Right will be a cakewalk. In general, my sympathies are for the Progressives' solutions to the war, but as to specifics, I have a few questions.

I agree with Dr. Burdick that we are the target in Iraq, and we do inevitably cause innocent lives to suffer and die. I also agree that civilians suffer the worst casualties, and even politically sympathetic factions want us to leave.

Dr. Burdick was right to mention that sectarian hatred makes creating an army and police force from both Shia and Sunni sects nearly impossible. I would even add that the experience of being expelled from their neighborhoods for belonging to a particular sect and being ghettoized for it, creates vast reservoirs of angry youth ready ripe for recruiting by violent groups. This will be exacerbated by the fact that our troops have had to depend on one faction to help them fight the other.

My problem deals with Burdick's solution to the problem.

He wants America to out of the friendly king installment business. Next we need international participation.

First of all Mr. Jaafari has already caved. America is already tarred and feathered as the installer and deposer of kings.

Secondly, International cooperation requires nothing less than having to gain the cooperation of French mothers, German fathers, Italian brothers and sisters to send their family members to a war in a place where few people like them.

We may expect that in 3 years time though we may have achieved the ability to enjoin other nations to form a new coalition, it may by then be too late for an international coalition. After 3 more years of Dubya's inept bungling, the civil war in country, will be so bad that no country will send any troops into this worsening problem.

Does Dr. Burdick understand that we'd be asking somebody's French kid, or German brother to lay their lives on the line. Germany and France are democracies, like we are. It may be impossible to get them back into a coalition.

A more realistic solution? The regional approach. An occupation by Arab or Moslem armies partnered with the U.S. and Britain for cohesion is far for realistic and preferable. And for good measure let the troops be from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, the U.A.E. and Algeria.

Now to Major Taylor:

So what if everyone thought there were WMDs. Not only was the Intel lousy, but it was cooked when the leadership knew it was lousy. And sir, I've got some terrible news for you. The most terrible thing that could happen to our boys has already happened. The guys were betrayed by the leadership. To be sent to war on a lie, and to be the victims of a basic miscalculation due to "war on the cheap" is nothing more than an abuse of public trust and a waste of lives.

Yes, as you say Saddam was a Stalinist monster. At Dujail and Halabja he murdered civilians. But are we attacking the Sudanese because of their atrocities? What about North Korea? Uzbekistan? Byelorussia? Lukashenko's a bastard you know. Let's go! We don't like someone's government? Attack them! And if the Chicoms don't like the Philippines' government, or Taiwan, they can attack it too! SAME RULE APPLIES!

Yes, Saddam blocked inspections, bad move. But let's look at it from what might've been Saddam's point of view. He sees how we handled Kim Jong Il with kid gloves. Now Kim admitted to having nukes. Now Saddam wants to have it both ways. He wants to protect his position, yet have perks from the West, so he acts like has WMDs, but doesn't admit to it. Sound credible? Anyway, Saddam in the end gave in after every bomb strike, and did so right before hostilities.

And what about Kosovo? Much is made about how Clinton went in there over the U.N.'s objection. But the U.N. had learned a bitter lesson in Bosnia, and wasn't about to repeat it in Kosovo. Clinton never went anywhere without N.A.T.O. He turned Kosovo into a N.A.T.O. operation. When he did so, the U.N. compromised and followed suit. Non-interventionism was out of style.

And what did Bush do? He went on a pre-emptive war with no coalition worth mentioning! He went with too few troops, and no exit plan!

And given that sectarian violence is on the rise, what makes the Major think that the army will be any more effective than it is now?

As for the media, whom the Major so dutifully derides as per the Republican talking points dictum, they didn't start the war, nor did they make the colossal mistakes (or miscalculations if you will) that set up the situation. Once again, the guys were betrayed. By the way sir, where are the WMDs?

Ken Howland was former military. A veteran of the Vietnam Era if not the war itself. He hates imperialism. I agree with him on many things. We installed the Shah in Iran. Then they had a revolution. When Iran & Iraq went to war we supported Iraq with arms. I also believe that if we have a preponderance of power and can't win, something is wrong.

However I have a problem with Mr. Howland's solution - "Get out now!" We can't simply do that. We've already had a long history of doing that, leaving without moral accountability for the consequences, and without taking responsibility for the geopolitical aftermath. In Vietnam we simply pulled out, and left the South Vietnamese to the Communists. We were responsible for the millions of Vietnamese boat people. In Somalia we obsessed over capturing Muhammad Eideed, and lost our nerve after the Black Hawk Down incident. We left. Isn't that the example that bin Laden took for American weakness? It wasn't long thereafter when he began the terror campaign that culminated in 3000 dead at 9/11. If we just pull up stakes and leave lraq, won't that thug with a nuclear suitcase be more likely to come?

And then there is the moral .imperative. We went in, caused death and destruction to untold thousands, bombed them into the Stone Age. Doesn't it follow that if we have a moral bone left in our bodies that we take responsibility and at least re-establish the security that we deprived the civilians of? I think it does. And forget all that moral relativism about whether or not they want democracy in the Middle East. We worked with Conrad Adenauer to rebuild Germany, we can work with Iraqis to rebuild Iraq. In Iran an entire generation is clamoring for democratic reform. And anyway, 10,000 Iranian kids can't be wrong.

Jonathan Tassini as represented by Daryl Marcy had a few good ideas.

The war is illegal. We need the $24 million that the war sucked out here at home. We have to end the jingoistic patriotism. We have to march, write, get mad, get organized.

The only problem I have with any of the candidates other than Dan Maffei is this lingering political simplism that amateur candidates seem to have.

One attitude shared by Tassini and Anyone who voted for it was wrong. I've a problem with that in that it doesn't presuppose the assumption that the representative's angry constituents may have pressured them into voting for the war.

I know l felt angry in 2001.

What if I told l that I thought it was my fault that Hilary Clinton was for the war? I watched 3000 people die on my TV. I wanted revenge. All these accusations were being made about Iraq, and the U.N. was sounding to me (at the time) like a broken record. There was nothing to reign in the anger that the Bush lie machine inspired in me. Like many others I called my Congressman and my Senators, and told them how I felt. Our leadership at the time was blindsided, caught in the headlights. Last week I stood up at the meeting and apologized for my enormous part in this grievous error. What if I we could swing politicians over by giving them permission to admit their mistake and turn against the war?

Paloma Capana was a little too utopian for me. She asked what a poet could do for America. A poet wouldn't last very long in the Capitol bear pit.

Dan Maffei at least sounds like someone who has a firm grasp on how to handle the situation. He cut through the bull by saying that we already agreed on why we were there. To end the war. We can't continue the course we are on for empty honor. And he agrees with me that we can't simply attack countries simply because we hate their ideology. Anyway he states, using Saddam as straw man for justifying the war is a non-sequitur. Saddam was no threat, now he is no threat.

All in all, I'd say that the symposium went pretty much as expected. At least we know who the challengers are.

Wikipedia - Progressivism

Town Hall Meeting

2006-03-31T16:15:00.000-05:00

Town Hall Meeting On The War In Iraq
Thursday, April 20, 2006.
7:00PM until 9:00PM

Location:
Grant Middle School, 2400 Grant Blvd., Syracuse, NY (Handicap accessible. Sign language interpreter will be used.) Plenty of free parking available in school lot.

Participants:

Dr. John Freie will be the moderator. Dr. Freie is professor and Department Chair of Political Science, LeMoyne College, Syracuse, NY

TBA (For the war)

Dr. John Burdick, Professor of Anthropology, Syracuse University (Against the war)

Each speaker will talk for 20/25 minutes outlining his For/Against argument regarding the war. Walsh, Schumer, Clinton, and their opponents have been invited to attend. They will present their position on the war following the speakers. Invited audience comments at the end limited to 3 minutes. Paper ballot vote will be conducted at the end of the program. (Are you for or against the war?)

Sponsored by Peace Action of Central New York:
Peace Action of Central New York, an affiliate of National Peace Action and Peace Action of New York State, is an organization that strives to inform and engage its membership and the greater community in activities that promote peace, human rights, and the abolition of weapons of mass destruction.

Contact Person:
Gerald R. Lotierzo, Co-Chair Peace Action of Central New York
8214 Dexter Parkway
Baldwinsville, NY 13027
315-638-2972
Email: glotierz@twcny.rr.com

The Powerful Writings of Jane Smiley

2006-03-22T20:41:00.000-05:00

March 22, 2006

JANE SMILEY ( Author, novelist, and commentator)

Bruce Bartlett, The Cato Institute, Andrew Sullivan, George Packer, William F. Buckley, Sandra Day O'Connor, Republican voters in Indiana and all the rest of you newly-minted dissenters from Bush's faith-based reality seem, right now, to be glorying in your outrage, which is always a pleasure and feels, at the time, as if it is having an effect, but those of us who have been anti-Bush from day 1 (defined as the day after the stolen 2000 election) have a few pointers for you that should make your transition more realistic.
1. Bush doesn't know you disagree with him. Nothing about you makes you of interest to George W. Bush once you no longer agree with and support him. No degree of relationship (father, mother, etc.), no longstanding friendly intercourse (Jack Abramoff), no degree of expertise (Brent Scowcroft), no essential importance (Tony Blair, American voters) makes any difference. There is nothing you have to offer that makes Bush want to know you once you have come to disagree with him. Your opinions and feelings now exist in a world entirely external to the mind of George W. Bush. You are now just one of those "polls" that he pays no attention to. When you were on his side, you thought that showed "integrity" on his part. It doesn't. It shows an absolute inability to learn from experience.
2. Bush doesn't care whether you disagree with him. As a man who has dispensed with the reality-based world, and is entirely protected by his handlers from feeling the effects of that world, he is indifferent to what you now think is real. Is the Iraq war a failure and a quagmire? Bush doesn't care. Is global warming beginning to affect us right now? So what. Have all of his policies with regard to Iran been misguided and counter-productive? He never thinks about it. You know that Katrina tape in which Bush never asked a question? It doesn't matter how much you know or how passionately you feel or, most importantly, what degree of disintegration you see around you, he's not going to ask you a question. You and your ideas are dead to him. You cannot change his mind. Nine percent of polled Americans would agree with attacking Iran right now. To George Bush, that will be a mandate, if and when he feels like doing it, because...
3. Bush does what he feels like doing and he deeply resents being told, even politely, that he ought to do anything else. This is called a "sense of entitlement". Bush is a man who has never been anywhere and never done anything, and yet he has been flattered and cajoled into being president of the United States through his connections, all of whom thought they could use him for their own purposes. He has a surface charm that appeals to a certain type of American man, and he has used that charm to claim all sorts of perks, and then to fail at everything he has ever done. He did not complete his flight training, he failed at oil investing, he was a front man and a glad-hander as a baseball owner. As the Governor of Texas, he originated one educational program that turned out to be a debacle; as the President of the US, his policies have constituted one screw-up after another. You have stuck with him through all of this, made excuses for him, bailed him out. From his point of view, he is perfectly entitled by his own experience to a sense of entitlement. Why would he ever feel the need to reciprocate? He's never had to before this.
4. President Bush is your creation. When the US Supreme Court humiliated itself in
2000 by handing the presidency to Bush even though two of the justices (Scalia and Thomas) had open conflicts of interest, you did not object. When the Bush administration adopted an "Anything but Clinton" policy that resulted in ignoring and dismissing all warnings of possible terrorist attacks on US soil, you went along with and made excuses for Bush. When the Bush administration allowed the corrupt Enron corporation to swindle California ratepayers and taxpayers in a last ditch effort to balance their books in 2001, you laughed at the Californians and ignored the links between Enron and the administration. When it was evident that the evidence for the war in Iraq was cooked and that State Department experts on the Middle East were not behind the war and so it was going to be run as an exercise in incompetence, you continued to attack those who were against the war in vicious terms and to defend policies that simply could not work. On intelligent design, global warming, doctoring of scientific results to reflect ideology, corporate tax giveaways, the K Street project, the illegal redistricting of Texas, torture at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the Terry Schiavo fiasco, and the cronyism that led to the destruction of New Orleans you have failed to speak out with integrity or honesty, preferring power to truth at every turn. Bush does what he wants because you have let him.
5. Tyranny is your creation. What we have today is the natural and inevitable outcome of ideas and policies you have promoted for the last generation. I once knew a guy who was still a Marxist in 1980. Whenever I asked him why Communism had failed in Russia and China, he said "Mistakes were made". He could not believe that Marxism itself was at fault, just as you cannot believe that the ideology of the unregulated free market has created the world we live in today. You are tempted to say: "Mistakes have been made", but in fact, psychologically and sociologically, no mistakes have been made. The unregulated free market has operated to produce a government in its own image. In an unregulated free market, for example, cheating is merely another sort of advantage that, supposedly, market forces might eventually "shake out" of the system. Of course, anyone with common sense understands that cheaters do damage that sometimes cannot be repaired before they are "shaken out", but according to the principles of the unregulated free market, the victims of that sort of damage are just out of luck and the damage that happens to them is just a sort of "culling". It is no accident that our government is full of cheaters--they learned how to profit from cheating when they were working in corporations that were using bribes, perks, and secret connections to cheat their customers of good products, their neighbors of healthy environmental conditions, their workers of workplace safety and decent paychecks. It was only when the corporations began cheating their shareholders that any of you squealed, but you should know from your own experience that the unregulated free market as a "level playing field" was the biggest laugh of the 20th century. No successful company in the history of capitalism has ever favored open competition. When you folks pretended, in the eighties, that you weren't using the ideology of the free market to cover your own manipulations of the playing field to your own advantage, you may have suckered yourselves, and even lots of American workers, but observers of capitalism since Adam Smith could have told you it wasn't going to work. And then there was the way you used racism and religious intolerance to gain and hold onto power. Nixon was cynical about it--taking the party of Lincoln and reaching out to disaffected southern racists, drumming up a backlash against the Civil Rights movement for the sake of votes, but none of you has been any less vicious. Racism might have died an unlamented death in this country, but you kept it alive with phrases like "welfare queen" and your resistance to affirmative action and taxation for programs to help people in our country with nothing, or very little. You opted not to take the moral high ground and recognize that the whole nation would be better off without racism, but rather to increase class divisions and racial divisions for the sake of your own comfort, pleasure, and profit. You have used religion in exactly the same way. Instead of strongly defending the constitutional separation of church and state, you have encouraged radical fundamentalist sects to believe that they can take power in the US and mold our secular government to their own image, and get rich doing it. The US could have become a moderating force in what seems now to be an inevitable battle among the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions, but you have made that impossible by flattering and empowering our own violent and intolerant Christian right. You have created an imperium, heedless of the most basic wisdom of the Founding Fathers--that at the very least, no man is competent enough or far-seeing enough to rule imperially. Checks and balances were instituted by Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, and the rest of them not because of some abstract distrust of power, but because they had witnessed the screw-ups and idiocies of unchecked power. You yourselves have demonstrated the failures of unchecked power--in an effort to achieve it, you have repeatedly contravened the expressed wishes of most Americans, who favor a moderate foreign policy, reasonable domestic programs, a goverrnment that works, environmental preservation, women's rights to contraception, abortion, and a level playing field. Somehow you thought you could mold the imperium to reflect your wishes, but guess what--that's what an imperium is--one man rule. If you fear the madness of King George, you have no recourse if you've given up the checks and balances that you inherited and that were meant to protect you.
Your ideas and your policies have promoted selfishness, greed, short-term solutions, bullying, and pain for others. You have looked in the faces of children and denied the existence of a "common good". You have disdained and denied the idea of "altruism". At one time, our bureaucracy was full of people who had gone into government service or scientific research for altruistic reasons--I knew, because I knew some of them. You have driven them out and replaced them with vindictive ignoramuses. You have lied over and over about your motives, for example, making laws that hurt people and calling it "originalist interpretations of the Constitution" (conveniently ignoring the Ninth Amendment). You have increased the powers of corporations at the expense of every other sector in the nation and actively defied any sort of regulation that would require these corporations to treat our world with care and respect. You have made economic growth your deity, and in doing so, you have accelerated the power of the corporations to destroy the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice caps, the rainforests, and the climate. You have produced CEOs in charge of lots of resources and lots of people who have no more sense of reciprocity or connection or responsibility than George W. Bush. Now you are fleeing him, but it's only because he's got the earmarks of a loser. Your problem is that you don't know why he's losing. You think he's made mistakes. But no. He's losing because the ideas that you taught him and demonstrated for him are bad ideas, self-destructive ideas, and even suicidal ideas. And they are immoral ideas. You should be ashamed of yourselves because not only have your ideas not worked to make the world a better place, they were inhumane and cruel to begin with, and they have served to cultivate and excuse the inhumane and cruel character traits of those who profess them.

Whatz Dat Wojto?

2006-03-02T16:25:00.000-05:00

What a charade the county election commissioners are perpetrating on the voters and the Onondaga county legislators with their phony selection scheme to choose the new voting machines for the County. The federal government enacted legislation in 2002 with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), after the 2000 presidential election fiasco, mandating new voting machines with accessible voting for all. Now New York State is in the process of making choices about new voting systems to replace our current mechanical lever machines. Our state legislature decided that each county should choose which voting machines to purchase and have delegated that responsibility to our two county commissioners.

Our two County commissioners decided to have a mock vote and invited the public to view the “pre-selected” machines they have selected and then vote on which one they prefer. Although some knowledgeable people have concluded that they have already decided which machine they will purchase because they stated publicly in an op-ed piece in the Post Standard that the direct recording electronic devices (DRE’s) are the only viable choice.. So how did our esteemed commissioners set this up? They designated four dates for the public to view four machines---one machine per date. What times did they choose? They chose a time when only those who are retired or have an extremely flexible schedule can make it; 1:30PM until 3:30PM. Where did these demonstrations take place? At a place convenient to the commissioners, the 4th floor of the County Court House. Please tell me how many citizens have the time to make all four sessions at such an inconvenient time and location to vote on a decision that may have enormous consequences in local, state, and national elections? Does the public know that we are choosing among DRE machines and the optical scanner choice which is a paper ballot marked by hand with a ballot marking device for disabled voters and counted by precinct based optical scanners? They are two distinct types of machines. The question is do you want your vote to be in the hands of corporations who only care about making a profit with unprotected electronic voting machines whose tabulations can be illegally altered or by the more reliable process of marking paper ballots and counting them by optical scanners and by hand if a recount is necessary? This is neither a Republican or Democrat issue nor is it conservative versus liberal one. This is an issue that transcends party affiliation and defies political labels. The New York Times and the New York State affiliate of The League of Women Voters have recommended city and county governments (March 9, 2005) purchase optical scanning machines.

The County Legislators must do the right thing and assure us that our vote will count when we go to the polls to cast it. No machine is perfect but the Paper Ballot, Ballot Marking Device Optical Scanner Machine can give us a better guarantee than electronic recording devices. Despite the misinformation spread, these optical scanners cost less. Let’s have a valid demonstration with all the machines presented together at a time and place when the public can be there and then let the advocates explain to those attending why they think a certain machine is better. Have a real demonstration in the evening at a local high school and publicize it well in advance!

Gerald R. Lotierzo

The National SECOND-HAND Used Car Salesman

2006-02-23T20:37:00.000-05:00

Second Hand Used Car Bush, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

Used car salesman. That's what I thought of when I listened and watched as Dubya made his big Sales Pitch.

Now, there are honest used car salesmen. But, well, you know the stereotype. It has a long and well-made history. And in this case, the stereotype fits. Every time he opens his mouth, it holds a forked tongue. Whatever he tries to sell you, bet on getting the opposite. Every sentence, every paragraph was based on fallacies.

Fallacy number one:

He starts out with an out and out lie:

"In a system of two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches, there will always be differences and debate. But even tough debates can be conducted in a civil tone, and our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger."

It wasn't the liberals who called out the dogs back during the election. "Swift Boating," "outing" our own secret operatives, We were not the ones who carried out illegal surveillance of American citizens, and then brazenly announced that they would continue doing so with complete disregard of American's shocked sensibilities! Bill Clinton never sought to turn himself into "King William the First" with the aid of a rubber stamp Congress, Nor was Lincoln allowed to keep suspension of habeas corpus by a "yes man" Supreme Court. But George W. Bush wants it all, to own Congress, the Court , and the ability to do whatever he wants from taking away our rights to helping his and Daddie's friends without pesky Constitutional impediments. And Dubya's surprised at Democratic truculence!

And forgive me George, but your talk of economic paradise rings hollow:

"We will choose to build our prosperity by leading the world economy -- or shut ourselves off from trade and opportunity. In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting -- yet it ends in danger and decline. The only way to protect our people, the only way to secure the peace, the only way to control our destiny is by our leadership -- so the United States of America will continue to lead. "

"Protectionists.?" Well, let me show you a piece of a transcript from CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on 02/14/06, that shows a different point of view:

"DOBBS: Tonight, at least one member of the Bush administration has finally acknowledged the obvious, that the U.S. trade relationship with Communist China is neither free nor fair.

Trade Representative Rob Portman says it is time to readjust our trade relationship with Beijing, but it is far from clear tonight that the White House and Congress will listen.

Christine Romans reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The Bush administration says it is now significantly concerned by the U.S.- China trade relationship.

ROB PORTMAN, U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE: The relationship needs to be more balanced, more equitable.

ROMANS: U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, vowing a "new phase of greater accountability and enforcement with China."

PORTMAN: As a mature trading partner, China should be held accountable for its actions and required to live up to its responsibilities.

ROMANS: His 29 page top-to-bottom review includes a laundry list of U.S. complaints. None of them new: continued Chinese trade barriers, piracy, labor violations, extensive government subsidies for China's domestic industries, environmental concerns, and spotty compliance with international trade rules.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, our trade deficit has exploded, topping $200 billion last year, the most unbalanced trade relationship in history.

MICHAEL WESSEL, U.S.-CHINA COMMISSION: We've seen jobs migrate out of the U.S., production loss, R&D loss. And this is all the way up and down the food chain. Not just toys and textiles, as some thought it was going to be, but you're looking at computers, high-tech equipment. We're really seeing the devastation not only of our manufacturing base, but our high-technology base as well.

ROMANS: Many call this so-called new phase for the Bush administration nothing more than rhetoric.

WILLIAM HAWKINS, U.S. BUSINESS & INDUSTRY COUNCIL: They've done -- done nothing for five years here as the situation has deteriorated. I think that this is really meant more to head off the growing cries in Congress to do something.

ROMANS: He knows prior administration efforts have come up empty-handed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: The U.S. Trade Office is adding a China Enforcement Task Force and a chief counsel for China trade enforcement but the critics, Lou, say, that should have been done years ago.

DOBBS: Well, absolutely. And the idea -- this administration has had a wonderful, wonderful penchant for suggesting that any one who wants to have a balanced trade relationship with China or any other nation, for that matter, is a protectionist and -- or an isolationist is one of their -- also favorite terms of art.

So if this administration can get rid of those kind of idiotic and insulting polar extremes and false choices in their rhetoric and actually focus on this, I will be the first to salute them.

But if they continue the absolute charade that they're putting out as a trade policy, we'll also be, I guarantee you, every bit as energetic in our criticism as we've been.

ROMANS: It's easy to keep score. Something called the trade deficit, $201 billion last year.

DOBBS: And 30 consecutive years of trade deficits and we've got CEOs of U.S. multinationals and this administration talking about competitiveness and productivity and efficiency. And all they're saying is cheaper labor, cheaper labor, cheaper prices. Christine Romans, thank you.

ROMANS: You're welcome."

I couldn't have said it better.

And what did Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a conservative to boot have to China's " subsidizing" companies with slave labor on that same show:

"ROHRABACHER: It is amazing. We have built up a monster that is, number one, taking -- stealing our technology -- not our defense technology, also the technology that we have in order to be competitive.

If they have slave or low-wage people working over there, the only way our people are going to survive is if our technological ideas are put in place and not stolen. We permitted the Chinese to steal this and build a competitive product overseas. "

If this is true, and I very much suspect it is, can it be due to the pie-in-the-sky view of the world that Dubya thinks that he is creating?

" Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of freedom is the great story of our time. In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today, there are 122. And we're writing a new chapter in the story of self-government -- with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink, and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom. At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half -- in places like Syria and Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran -- because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom, as well."

Freedom House, from where Dubya claims to get his facts, has a different opinion.

"FREEDOM IN THE WORLD
2006"has only 89 free countries, 58 partly free and 45 countries not free. Now Freedom House notes that freedom has had steady progress since 1975 from 40 free countries to that magic 89.

Now, according to FH, out of 46 Muslim majority countries, only 3 are completely free, 20 countries are partly free, and 23 are not free. And this only advanced from 1 free, 13 partly free and 32 countries not free in 1995 - 96.

In the Middle it breaks down according to FH, to 1 completely free country, 6 partly free and 11 not free in 2006. Iraq is listed as "Not Free."

Why Factcheck.org asked Freedom House's Arch Puddington:

"We asked Puddington why the highly publicized elections in Iraq and Afghanistan don't yet qualify those countries to be counted as democracies. 'It is a flawed way of thinking to believe that elections alone guarantee democracy,' Puddington said. 'You have to have a reasonable rule of law, a reasonable amount of freedom of the press, personal security. You have to have a fair and consistent electoral process in place, and you have to have the people who are elected then effectively governing the society.'"

Someone in the White House did some "fuzzy math."

And what will Dubya propose to do with Iran and Syria? Start another unnecessary, alienating war?

And "Unaccountable George" still doesn't get the role he played in creating a terrorist army in Iraq, or the terrorist havens in South and Central Asia:

"No one can deny the success of freedom, but some men rage and fight against it. And one of the main sources of reaction and opposition is radical Islam -- the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death. Terrorists like bin Laden are serious about mass murder -- and all of us must take their declared intentions seriously. They seek to impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East, and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder.

Their aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world. Lacking the military strength to challenge us directly, the terrorists have chosen the weapon of fear. When they murder children at a school in Beslan, or blow up commuters in London, or behead a bound captive, the terrorists hope these horrors will break our will, allowing the violent to inherit the Earth. But they have miscalculated: We love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it."

Brilliant George. Now tell them about the part where you didn't come with enough troops, didn't adequately protect those that are there, neglected to establish control by dispersing enemy troops with weapons and failed to secure key ammo dumps!

You practically rolled out the red carpet for them, Dubya! Gave Zarqawi a terrorist supermarket at the ammo dumps, plus a few lethal arms 7 Elevens for those tempted to deal in weapons!

But Dubya's pie-in-the-sky view of the world is matched only by his black and white view of his own countrymen!

"There is no peace in retreat. And there is no honor in retreat. By allowing radical Islam to work its will -- by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself -- we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals, or even in our own courage."

No Georgie. All that means is that we will stabilize the situation, get the Iraqis to focus on victory, and fight the war we were supposed to be fighting, in Afghanistan, and Pakistan, looking for Al Qaeda's bosses!

But try telling that to a man who fires everyone who dares to disagree with him. He seems to think that politics must always be like a sitcom's resident jerk's dream, where the good guys all agree with him, and worship him:

"Along the way, we have benefitted from responsible criticism and counsel offered by members of Congress of both parties. In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice. Yet, there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. (Applause.) Hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy. (Applause.)

With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor. A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our Iraqi allies to death and prison, would put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country, and show that a pledge from America means little. "

There's also a difference between qualified praise and blind jingoism that refuses to see danger. There is also a difference between accepting criticism and calling those who disagree "unpatriotic" and "cowards."

As for "a pledge from America," meaning little, I think that Dubya pretty much saw to that when he went back on his word to the UN and didn't allow the inspectors to finish their job, and attacked Iraq.

But that "terrible simplifier" George W. would not only apply his night and day logic to foreign policy, he would sacrifice liberty on the alter of security:

"Our country must also remain on the offensive against terrorism here at home. The enemy has not lost the desire or capability to attack us. Fortunately, this nation has superb professionals in law enforcement, intelligence, the military, and homeland security. These men and women are dedicating their lives, protecting us all, and they deserve our support and our thanks. (Applause.) They also deserve the same tools they already use to fight drug trafficking and organized crime -- so I ask you to reauthorize the Patriot Act."

Jacob Burckardt the great Swiss historian was very prescient about the 20th Century when he said:

"terrible simplifiers . . . are going to descend upon poor old Europe"

He could've been talking about today's neocons. And H.L. Mencken may have had a thing to say about Bush's "terrible simplifier" solutions to the freedom v security debate:

"an easy solution to every problem neat, plausible, and wrong!”

But I believe that Bush's attitude to fighting terrorism at home is not "post 9/11", but neo-MaCarthyist. See if this paragraph from an essay done in the1950's doesn't apply to today From "Facing the Paradox", by Russell Nelson:

"The principles for which the United States stands have been seriously undermined at home and abroad. Since 1945 there has been a steady erosion of the values that were formerly considered the very foundation stones of American democracy. Proceeding from the false assumption that whatever is anti-communist is therefore democratic, many Americans have supported or acquiesced in measures that have generally been considered central characteristics of totalitarianism: spying on fellow citizens; anonymous denunciations; restrictions on freedom of movement, speech, and press; prosecution for beliefs rather than acts; the reversal of the traditional presumption of innocence until proof of guilt; the gradual militarization of our minds and our society; and the growing confusion of our thought and language until we no longer feel any astonishment at the use of a phrase like "the free world" to include all nations, however dictatorial, and colonies, however exploited, that are not under Soviet control."

With a few qualifications, I'd say that paragraph very aptly describes the situation we find ourselves in under Dubya's tender mercies.

With F.I.S.A. we gave every president the inch they needed to fight international terrorism on our soil, but like any other extremist who can't recognize the dictatorship they wish to set up for what it is, George W. isn't satisfied with the inch of privacy we've given up. He wants to take the whole mile! And after that he has the nerve to ask us to trust him with a permanent Patriot Act? Not without a few changes and some heavy scrutiny George! Previous Presidents always used the F.I.S.A. Act advisedly, and rarely broke that law. In case you're wondering, warrantless searches aren't that popular. There's a reason why evidence obtained without probable cause is thrown out. It's to prevent just such unreasonable search and seizure. It's not just the rights of the majority that protect the community, it's the rights of the individual that protect our democracy! Privacy is the key to free thought, and the grandparent to free expression. But the Terrible Simplifier is like a lawn mower. He cuts each blade of grass so that none is higher than the other. No individuals here. No blade higher than the other. Great for cutting grass. Horrid for democracy.

And that same cookie-cutter mentality is being used for our domestic policy:

"Our economy is healthy and vigorous, and growing faster than other major industrialized nations. In the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million new jobs -- more than Japan and the European Union combined. "

Our economic strength is being sold out from under us for cheap foreign labor abroad, and our security is being sold out for cheap illegal alien labor at home. And for whom is this economy growing? For you? For me? Hardly! The middle class is being squeezed out of existence! And those 4.6 million new jobs? That's not the NET gain! Dubya LOST 2.6 million jobs in his first two years, so we really only gained little over 2 million new jobs!

Of course, like any other entrenched ideologue, Dubya always wants to keep by his holy tenets:

"Keeping America competitive begins with keeping our economy growing. And our economy grows when Americans have more of their own money to spend, save, and invest. In the last five years, the tax relief you passed has left $880 billion in the hands of American workers, investors, small businesses, and families -- and they have used it to help produce more than four years of uninterrupted economic growth. (Applause.) Yet the tax relief is set to expire in the next few years. If we do nothing, American families will face a massive tax increase they do not expect and will not welcome. Because America needs more than a temporary expansion, we need more than temporary tax relief. I urge the Congress to act responsibly, and make the tax cuts permanent.

Dubya cut taxes during a war, which we haven't stopped paying for, he increased spending for his pet projects lavishly, and turned a surplus into deficit! And who did he cut the taxes for? That 1% that doesn't need it! Dubya asks for a permanent tax cut. What about a fair tax cut? What about one that gives debt-ridden families a break? Bush's Country Club friends can take a hit. Anyhow when he talks about cutting spending, he's not talking about defense spending, only "non-security discretionary spending". That means you and me. All other spending went up 42%! He thinks nothing of cutting programs people are in dire need of. And he wants permanent tax cuts! Typical! A something for nothing Republican! Like Wimpy, he'll gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today! Forget the fact those hamburgers pay the light bill each .month!

And yet somehow, Dubya seems to think that despite his economic mutations, his Frankenstein will keep business humming as usual in America:

"Keeping America competitive requires us to open more markets for all that Americans make and grow. One out of every five factory jobs in America is related to global trade, and we want people everywhere to buy American. With open markets and a level playing field, no one can out-produce or out-compete the American worker. "

Doesn't that mean that we have to rebuild our American economy we have to build American, not letting the folks in the Marianas Islands put "Made in America" on their products?

But George is like the Energizer Bunny. Even when it looks like he's finally making sense, as when he spoke of "energy addiction", you still have to read between the lines:

"Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources -- and we are on the threshold of incredible advances."

A twenty-percent increase in energy research is not enough to David B. Sandalow, Environment Scholar, and expert in Foreign Policy Studies for the Brookings Institution:

"Yet the President's strong words were not matched with bold policies. After the attention-grabbing sound bite on oil addiction, the President called meekly for a '22-percent increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy.' Seldom has soaring rhetoric been deflated so quickly with budget specifics."

And Bush's so-called ''Advanced Energy Iniative?

"This Initiative, according to the White House, will consist of $236 million in proposed increases for six clean energy programs in FY 2007. This is hardly a transformational new program.

Furthermore, three of the programs in the Advanced Energy Initiative relate to electricity generation and are therefore essentially irrelevant to the problem of oil dependence, since only a tiny fraction of our electricity (less than 3%) comes from oil A fourth program focuses on hydrogen fuels, with a payoff several decades away".

What gets me here is, despite Bush's "election year energy policy conversion", underneath all that, he probably hasn't really changed. According to "The Hill", the energy section of the budget had a rocky history:

"The lawmakers sent a letter March 4 to House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) and Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) as Congress prepares to debate the budget resolution, which will set spending caps on the federal government.

The members said they supported efforts to cut the deficit, which the White House projects to be $427 billion for 2005. But the energy proposal ó projected to raise $12 billion in 10 years would unfairly target our constituents that receive power from one of the four' PMAs.

“We oppose this proposal to unjustifiably increase our constituents power bills to boost the Federal Treasury,' states the letter, which is signed by 48 Republicans."

So, not only did we find at least one instance of seemingly crony-like behavior, but it also seems we have a blast from the Reagan past, "revenue enhancers"! Bush wouldn't raise anyone's taxes, but he'll jack up your energy bill for his friends!

Bush's duplicity knows no bounds as he will be disingenuous to your very grandparents and grandchildren:

"In recent years, America has become a more hopeful nation. Violent crime rates have fallen to their lowest levels since the 1970s. Welfare cases have dropped by more than half over the past decade. Drug use among youth is down 19 percent since 2001. There are fewer abortions in America than at any point in the last three decades, and the number of children born to teenage mothers has been falling for a dozen years in a row.

These gains are evidence of a quiet transformation -- a revolution of conscience, in which a rising generation is finding that a life of personal responsibility is a life of fulfillment. Government has played a role. Wise policies, such as welfare reform and drug education and support for abstinence and adoption have made a difference in the character of our country''

First of all, Bush cannot take credit for welfare reform. That was done in 1996 by Clinton and a Republican Congress. Secondly, the economy was booming so that many people could leave the rolls.

You had a 5 year limit come hell or high water.

And then you had a block grant system, where states got block grants and distributed them as they saw fit. According to Wikipedia:

" Some states simply kept the federal rules, but others used the money for non-welfare programs, such as subsidized childcare (to allow parents to work) or subsidized public transportation (to allow people to travel to work without owning cars)."

The "block grant'' system may have sent people off the rolls too early:

" Others criticized the block grant system, claiming that states would not be able to administer the program properly, or would be too motivated by cost. Finally, it was claimed that although the bill might work in a booming economy like that of the 1990s, it would cause significant harm in a recession."

Anyhow history shows that Dubya had nothing to do with declining welfare rolls:

"The consequences of welfare reform are still being debated today. Welfare rolls (the number of people receiving payments) dropped significantly in the years immediately after the passage of the bill. The original bill was set to expire in September of 2002; as of July, 2004, Congress had passed 7 temporary reauthorizations, generally of 3 months. Debate continued over Republican attempts to increase the amount of hours that recipients would need to work."

And of course, although I disagree with some in the Cato Institute about our spending priorities, one that we can agree on is that spending has gone too high, and we've gone into debt, which we will be paying for in the future.

Where would we be without more of Bush's doubletalk on checks, balances and the judiciary?

" The Supreme Court now has two superb new members -- new members on its bench: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito. (Applause.) I thank the Senate for confirming both of them. I will continue to nominate men and women who understand that judges must be servants of the law, and not legislate from the bench."

Bush wants nothing more than his boys in place. A judge by definition does have to interpret the law. And sometimes that means that he has to judge the constitutionality of a law. A judge is supposed to be a referee, and his first job is to keep the government honest.

And it couldn't be a Dubya speech without a trip to the Twilight Zone!

"A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale. ".

First of all, Bush should understand that stem cell research has far more benefits than costs. And stopping something that can end affliction, and change the lives of the disabled for the better is criminal. And does Bush live on the Island of Dr. Moreau? This is the first time I ever heard of "human-animal hybrids!" George, I know your level of intellect is somewhere below that of a kumquat, but you watched too many B science-fiction movies from drive-ins!

And Bush always reaches the height of hypocrisy when broaches "civility:"

"A hopeful society expects elected officials to uphold the public trust. (Applause.) Honorable people in both parties are working on reforms to strengthen the ethical standards of Washington -- I support your efforts. Each of us has made a pledge to be worthy of public responsibility -- and that is a pledge we must never forget, never dismiss, and never betray."

Who was it who began cheap tactics and political tricks during the last election? Not Kerry. It wasn't the Democrats who put the term "Swift Boating" in the lexicon. Who tried political intrigue and at every step showed that he was really in it for himself? Bush, Cheney and Karl Rove. And who was it that was evasive and opaque after every scandal if not Scott McClellan?

It's like he's Nero, so out of touch with his people that all he hears is his own music while people are screaming to him that Rome is burning. He "dissembles emotion" as E. L. Doctorow said. Bush on Katrina:

''A hopeful society comes to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency -- and stays at it until they're back on their feet. So far the federal government has committed $85 billion to the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. We're removing debris and repairing highways and rebuilding stronger levees. We're providing business loans and housing assistance. Yet as we meet these immediate needs, we must also address deeper challenges that existed before the storm arrived."

But Bush that took a well-run outfit like the Clinton FEMA, privatized it, filled it with cronies and added a layer of bureaucracy by unnecessarily folding FEMA into DHS! Oprah's getting more done with her pocket change than this FEMA! Next time Sean Hannity wants to know where the buses were, I'd ask him what's going on with the mobile homes!

All in all, I'd say Dubya's big speech was a snow job. He thinks that he can keep pulling the wool over our eyes. Well Georgie Porj, I've got some news for you. Even conservatives are calling you an impostor.

CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight 02/14/06

FREEDOM IN THE WORLD
2006

Freedom House

Wikipedia - Jacob Burckardt

Russell Nelson - "Facing the Paradox"

Cato Institute: Bruce Bartlett - "How Bush Bankrupted America"

Wikipedia - Welfare Reform

Mr. Rove and the Winter Meeting

2006-01-31T16:16:00.000-05:00

Rove Experiment OVER!, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

Mr.Rove and His Marching Orders

So Karl Rove is at the Winter Meeting of the Republican Party! He's in a boastful mood! (Which is a surprise, because he hasn't shaken Fitzpatrick off, and had a Very Bad Year in 2005.) Yet here he is, talking trash about how the Republicans are right, how they are ''spreading freedom,'' how the American people are behind them and how lowering taxes was the magic bullet that created economic paradise, (They didn't lower it for you and me, but Rove SAYS they did!) and how during the Supreme Court hearings, the Republicans were the model of civility and the Democrats were wanton meanies to the sterling character of Roberts and Alito.

Whooh! I transcribed the speech. A lot to get through, but l did it quickly. And yes, I did find a copy eventually on the net, but I took him down verbatim, not second hand. I'm not clear about whether or not I'm violating copywright if I put my version on the web, hence the link in the title. One thing though, during Rove's preening in front of his homeys, I could distinctly hear the sound of Republicans lying to themselves! There's what the Republicans tell us and maybe themselves, and then there’s the truth.

Here’s Rove on Bush's record on fighting terrorism:

" President Bush has established a remarkable record. He is winning the war against terrorism, promoting liberty in regions of the world that have never known it, and protecting America against attacks. "

What record? The war on terrorism is unchanged. Osama still eludes us. There is little better than a stalemate in Iraq. Those "vital successful elections in Iraq," merely increased the fissures that will split the country by a civil war. As for national security: Our borders are broken. I wonder how many terrorists and drug mules can get across a Southwestern U.S. border? Mexico spits in our faces and sends more illegal aliens across the border.

But don't worry Bush & Co. know what this country needs, tax cuts:

"President Bush believes the role of government is to create an environment in which the entrepreneurial spirit flourishes, and where small businesses can grow, where people can dream about owning their own home, and turn it into a reality. The President doesn't believe government creates wealth. He believes that's done by American workers and farmers and entrepreneurs. And the President believes the American economy grows when the American people are allowed to keep more of their own money so they save and invest and spend as they see fit not government."

Well, apparently according to Bush and Rove, only 1% of Americans know how to "save and invest and spend as they see fit," because they got 80% of the tax cuts in 2004. Of course, they don't really NEED those tax cuts, and the 61% of us DO, but, we'll get by on the 13% of those tax 2004 cuts they left for us!

And of course, Mr. Rove very conscientiously castigates us "irresponsible'' Democrats for furthering the suffering of Americans. We are nothing but "tax and spend" liberals.

"The Democratic Party on the other hand, seems like it has an allergy to tax cuts. Sometimes it seems as if they never found a tax cut they were for, or a tax increase they were against. Many Democrats seem to view higher taxes as more than an economic policy. They see higher taxes as a sign of virtue."

Now Mr. Rove mustn't be inconvenienced by the fact that we Democrats believe that the only fair tax cut is the one where 60% of the population gets the largest tax cuts.

Karl Rove knows that what's best for the country is to take care of that 1%:

"To those Democrats who want to take money out of your pocket by opposing making the tax cuts permanent, our response is: 'No you don't!' To those Democrats who want to raise your taxes in order to increase the size of government, our response is: 'No you won't!' And to the Democrats who say they can spend your money better than the American people can, our response is: 'No you can't!'"

Rove won't let nasty Dems reduce fat cat profits! But Bush added a whole new tier of management to government, the Department of Homeland Security. Though proposed by Democrats, the creature that lives today is wholly Bush's creation. Oh, and then there's the war, you know, the one Dubya started in Iraq to look for non-existent WMDs. Believe it or not, it cost s us more than the figurative "arm and a leg" as many a Marine could tell you, and Iraqi oil - just isn't paying, not to put too fine a point on it!

Now Karl wants to speak to a grave problem - "activist" judges.

Here's a good rule of thumb to follow Karl:

An "activist" judge is a judge who contradicts your ideology or, more to the point, acts contrary to your Party's political interests.

And yet:

"In Roberts and Alito, the American people saw the kind of individuals President Bush wants on the Court and they like what they see. Most Americans want judges who will strictly apply the Constitution and laws, not legislate from the bench. They want judges who believe in self-government, instead of those who are determined to undermine it. They want judges who will stand against judicial activism and for Constitutionalism. This important debate over judges will decide whether we will treat the Constitution as the governing charter of our country, or whether we will treat it as if it was made of hot wax, pliable, inconstant and easily changed."

I thought "constitutionalism" would mean belief in what is constitutional or what is in keeping what the spirit and values are behind the Constitution, but ever watchful Karl knows better!

I thought we had a ''living Constitution," not a Country Club charter that remains unchanged for generations, but Rove implies that we Democrats treat it ''as if it was made of hot wax, pliable, inconstant and easily changed," and Karl is "an honourable man." *

Am I really so sarcastic? Rove brings the acid out of me. And what he and his ilk are doing to this country make me spit venom. Rove is a duplicitous bastard! On the one hand, he can "Swift Boat" an honorable man like Kerry, yet still In speaking of Alito, Rove have the actual nerve to accuse the Democrats of using smear tactics! And it was all part of his spin, which began with this statement:

"Now I admit, the Democrats talked a whole lot longer, particularly about themselves, but John Roberts and Samuel Alito spoke a whole lot better."

Which in Rovespeak is the code for evading questions, convenient memory lapses, and just plain ol' fudging. Then he gets to the good stuff:

"It's also worth noting the old special interest playbook just didn't work this time. Every effort to smear the good names of these two men blew up in the faces of those making the malicious charges. "

Karl, Karl, Karl... Its not a smear when you're judging a man's character by the choices he made, and the actions he took, especially when he took them for the advancement of his career. Those actions, like belonging to a racist, bigoted alumni group for 18 years and using your membership in it to pad your resume for a higher job in the Reagan administration signifies a mercenary nature at best when Alito tries to put some distance 'twixt himself and his past.

And is it a "smear" to say that Alito lied when he said that he would recuse himself from Vanguard in which he owned stock, Three years later he heard a case involving Vanguard without said recusal.

And if it was a "smear" to tell the world that Alito belonged to an alumni group based on bigotry, then why did he continue to belong to that group for 18 years, and referred to this group in a letter of referral when he applied for a higher position in the AG's office?

"In Roberts and Alito, the American people saw the kind of individuals President Bush wants on the Court and they like what they see."

Realistic Americans see that Dubya wants "his men" in the Court and are frightened by what they see. Bye bye civil liberties.

Well, the time was coming well-nigh that Karl had to depart, so he decided to remind the loyal subjects who their beneficent leaders were:

"The President and Vice-President played indispensable roles in our success. You know this, they've appeared in countless events in your states on behalf of candidates working hard to avoid a lonely victory. They came here to get something done. And now it's easier to get things done when you have your friends and allies in the House and Senate."

And, of course, I LOVE this part, may I repeat?:

"And now it's easier to get things done when you have your friends and allies in the House and Senate."

That's the MONEY line for me! Now lets do away with bi-cameral legislatures, checks and balances and BRING ON that Unitary Executive! Let every fat cat come now and feed at the trough!

And though he was proud of them, Rove had admonish his children not to be irresponsible!:

"The GOP's progress during the last four decades is a stunning political achievement. But it's also a cautionary tale. It's a cautionary tale of what happens to a dominant party, in this case the Democrats, when it's thinking becomes ossified, when it's energy begins to drain, when an entitlement mentality takes over, and when political power becomes an end in and of itself rather than a means to achieve the common good."

Wonderful line!: " and when political power becomes an end in and of itself rather than a means to achieve the common good."

I love that! Ask the people of Florida and Ohio if political power wasn't the neocon's "end in and of itself," when their votes were stolen!

As for ''ossified'' thinking, your feudal ideology Karl, is what's ossified. We Dems stood for the people. And if that's "ossified," then put me in a rubber room.

In the end Mr. Rove in order to further educate, saw fit to borrow the guise of a genuine honest man, and quoted Lincoln, but then I think when Lincoln educated on how to win political power, he forgot to add Mr. Rove's fine touches. You know, the part where you have to do some real smearing, not that imaginary stuff he accused us Democrats of. The part where you play upon people's fears and rig the votes - all for the good of the Party, er... excuse me, the country.

On my Podcast:

I'm reading a list of Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism, from the Randi Rhodes Newsletter. It is a distillation of his article "Fascism Anyone?"

Washington Post: Rove Offers Republicans A Battle Plan For Elections

* an alliteration to Shakespeare's "The Life and Death of Julius Ceasar

Spring 2003 edition of Free Inquiry "Fascism Anyone?"

Corruption Is Rampant

2006-01-17T10:16:00.000-05:00

Why is it that we have a congress and an executive branch residing in the hands of lobbyists who do not represent our interests but only those of corporations who continually feed our officials money for elections and reelections? The same may be said for every state government in the Union. * “Between the early 1970's and the mid-1980's, the number of trade associations doubled; in the first half of the 1980's alone, the number of registered lobbyists quadrupled, according to The Washington Monthly. A study by the Center for Public Integrity found that in the early 1990's, political donations from 19 major industries – including pharmaceuticals, defense, commercial banking and accounting - were split about evenly between the two parties. By 2003, the Republicans held a 2-to-1 advantage. Since 1998, the center found, more than 2,200 former federal employees had registered as federal lobbyists, as had nearly 275 former White House aides and nearly 250 former members of Congress. Many rules governing their conduct remain deliberately vague, and the House Ethics Committee has been paralyzed because of dysfunction and partisan disputes. In 1995, Tom DeLay famously compiled a list of the 400 largest PACs, along with the amounts and percentages of money they had recently given to each party. Lobbyists were invited into DeLay's office and shown their place in "friendly" or "unfriendly" columns. ("If you want to play in our revolution," DeLay told The Washington Post, "you have to live by our rules." (The K street project was born). Today's Republican entanglement with corporate lobbyists like Jack Abramoff is not an accident. It's not a matter of a few bad apples. And it's not something that happened gradually as Republicans got overly accustomed to power and lost their revolutionary zeal. It was a deliberate strategy, conceived by the leaders of the 1994 revolution as part of their fundamental governing strategy, and pursued relentlessly ever since.” The only way to clean up federal, state, and local governments is to drastically overhaul campaign financing and to insure transparency regarding corporate dealings with all government officials.
* Excerpted from The Washington Monthly
Jerry Lotierzo

Philosophical Differences

2006-01-11T08:59:00.000-05:00

The underlying discernable difference, yet so apparent during the hurricane Katrina catastrophe, between the present administration of conservatives and those of us who are labeled progressives is that we believe in a community founded on a covenant of mutual responsibility. This gang of robber barons believes we are all in this alone. What is equally astounding is how their fundamentalist Christian allies also ignore Christ’s overriding entreaty to be their brother’s keeper. The covenants that bind us, those upon which we all share the burden according to how much we have, no longer apply to the leaders and followers of the Grand Old Party. The GOP has aligned itself with the likes of James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Cal Thomas, and the assassin Pat Robertson. This is the party of Barbara Bush, her sons, and her husband. It’s the party that wants to follow Grover Norquist’s entreaty and “drown” all government programs except those that fill the coffers of their rich comrades. FEMA’s leadership was gutted and replaced with Bush’s cronies who had absolutely no experience dealing with disasters. Why fund those programs that come to the rescue of the rest of us when your rich constituents can fund their own escapes from disasters. It’s all about personal responsibility, isn’t it? This president is the most inept head of state in the history of our great republic. He has young people dying in the Iraqi quagmire, dismembered the helping hands of the government, increased the gap between the rich and the rest of us, and ransomed our future to the government in Beijing. The list of follies that Bush, Rove, and Cheney have wrought is too numerous to print. We have got to take our country back from these charlatans. We owe it to our children.

The Age of Darkness

2006-01-08T12:20:00.000-05:00

The Age of Darkness

Are we truly headed towards the apocalypse? Are we really dissolving into a theocracy? Is hatred of those who are not from a Judeo-Christian tradition being tolerated and eagerly embraced? Listen to this radio host when he spews out such filth and hatred with comments like this. "The religious left in this country hates and despises the God of Christianity and Catholicism and whatever else.” This is what the high priest of conservative talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, said on his April 27th, 2005 show. "They despise it because they fear it and it's a threat, because that God has moral absolutes, that God has right and wrong, that God doesn't deal in nuance." Whose God is he talking about and has he ever read the New Testament? The absolute he believes in is his own absolute certainty. Do we really want to enshrine a particular religion as the official religion of the United States? Do we really wish to follow those countries whose state religion must be adhered to by all or else and whose laws are based on it? What does this do to those who practice a different religion or no religion at all? We are witnessing now how their faith triumphs over science. Evolution is heresy because their literal understanding of the bible disproves it. The overwhelming majority of scientists believe evolution explains how man came to inhabit the earth. Creationism, also known as intelligent design, is not science but a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. If you accept all those creation stories then you better be ready to accept all the other written tales or maybe you should start reading and understanding what biblical scholars have to say about those stories. Religion and science are not incompatible. Only the extremists in Christianity believe so and unfortunately they inhabit the seats of power and influence in our government. It is time for the rest of us to tell those people they are a minority and we, the silent majority, must take back our country. We have enormous problems facing us and we need leaders who are not bound by a mediaeval understanding of the human condition.

Gerald R. Lotierzo
1-8-06

Bad Ralphie

2006-01-03T12:53:00.000-05:00

Ralph Sanctimonious, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

The Antichrist Wannabe

From the Providence Journal:

"Ralph the righteous

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, December 31, 2005

Once upon a time, Ralph Reed opposed gambling. Or so he said. As the fresh-faced director of the Christian Coalition many moons ago, Mr. Reed called gambling "a cancer on the American body politic" and an enemy of "family values."

Mr. Reed left that job in 1997, while being investigated for helping a direct-mail company overbill the Christian Coalition. He then founded a political-consulting firm and started working with scandal-covered lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Now the walls of scandal are beginning to close in on Ralph Reed, too.

Mr. Reed basically conned Christian groups in the South to oppose certain casinos on moral grounds. But his real objective was to help other casinos retain their monopolies.

The money didn't travel in a straight line. In 2000, a casino-owning Indian tribe in Mississippi sent $1.15 million to Americans for Tax Reform, run by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist. The Norquist group then sent $850,000 to the Christian Coalition of Alabama -- to be used to kill a casino proposal in that state. Although Mr. Reed had led the Coalition members to believe that they were stopping the spread of gambling to Alabama, they were really just preserving the casino profits in next-door Mississippi.

The Senate's Indian Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), has released some remarkable e-mails passed between Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Reed. In one, Mr. Reed reported that he was looking to the Christian groups for more funds to basically help their opponents. "We will be doing all we can to raise money from national anti-gambling groups, Christian CEOs, and national pro-family groups," he wrote.

In Texas, meanwhile, Mr. Reed received a reported $4.2 million from the Abramoff organization to rally Christians to close Indian casinos in El Paso and Livingston. After they were shut down, Mr. Abramoff offered to help the tribes reopen them. The owners of the El Paso casino actually hired him.

Mr. Reed denies knowing that the millions handed to him were for the purpose of helping Mr. Abramoff's casino clients. And now he claims to have had no idea that the money came from casino proceeds.

Senate investigators are estimating that Mr. Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon have defrauded their Indian clients of $80 million. Mr. Scanlon has already pleaded guilty to various charges and is cooperating with the investigators.

What makes Mr. Reed tick remains a bit of a mystery. We cannot fathom the mentality that would so cynically double-cross the very religious conservatives he was supposedly representing -- other than one of avarice.

Mr. Reed professes his innocence in all these transactions. And in an intriguing act of arrogance, he is now seeking the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of Georgia!

We doubt that Mr. Reed's wall of denial can stand much longer."

Providence Journal December 31st "Ralph the Rightoeous"

Essay by Jane Smiley

2005-12-31T09:47:00.000-05:00

Jane Smiley, Superpower 11-22-05

Back in the year 2000, I believed almost without thinking about it that the US was a "superpower", the only "superpower" in the world. Maybe it was true and maybe it wasn't, but there was a lot of money around, Americans were pretty prosperous, and most people around the world had a benign view of the US. Maybe the clearest sign of our "superpower" status was that the right wing and the press could beat up on Bill Clinton with absolutely no effect on US power or the perception of US power. Beating up on Bill Clinton was a kind of parlor game that the participants cared about, but was in the end of no international import. The most surprising thing, then, about the last five years is how quickly and absolutely the US has ceased to be a superpower. We are a country that can no longer pay our bills, no longer wage an effective military action, and no longer protect our citizens from disaster. And it doesn't matter what fiscal responsibility individuals show, what bravery individual soldiers show, or what generosity individual Americans show. As a nation-as a geopolitical entity-we have been stripped of all of our superpowers and many of our powers, and it has been done quickly and efficiently, in the name of blind patriotism, by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and their neocon advisors. The very powers that these people thought they were going to enjoy exercising have slipped out of their grasp. It's laughable now to remember the name of the campaign against Baghdad, "Shock and Awe". No one in Iraq feels any "shock and awe" toward the US presence there any longer. "Fear and Loathing" is more like it. Whether or not the administration and the press know that the powers are gone doesn't matter. They are. And they aren't coming back, because the last twenty-five years of Republican free market political devolution have resulted in a completely different country from the one that in the course of the 20th century became a superpower. Bush and Cheney have provided the final, telling blows to American power, but actions of the corporatocracy laid the ground work. There is nothing left in the US of real substance. The only thing that remains is ego, bullying, and public relations. The question thoughtful Americans are going to have to answer eventually is one they should be thinking about now-when our superpowers are gone, what are we and what do we want to be? As everyone knows, the multinational corporation has jealously preserved its right to pay its workers as little as possible-to put its factories wherever wages were lowest, and to exploit the natural resources of every corner of the globe while paying as little to the locals who ostensibly "owned" them as they could, preferably nothing This is such a precious idea for capitalists that when a company, like Costco, for example, operates on a different, more humane model, they become resentful and vengeful-it is implied that the power of Wall Street will be brought to bear on such a renegade business model-customers and workers must never come before shareholders. Nor must the public safety be considered. All regulations that protect the environment or even those who purchase some item, are to be as much as possible prohibited, or at least flouted with impunity. To these corporate types, the public safety of one's own fellow citizens is as much a matter of indifference as the public safety of people ten thousand miles away. What most Americans, indeed, most people, normally think of as desirable, such as stable communities with histories, jobs, and a middle class, is not what the corporations have shown themselves to care about. They do not care about the actual substance of the US, a set of geographical areas with a varied population of human beings. The taxpayers present themselves to the corporation much as consumers do-a bunch of suckers to be fooled and robbed for the sake of shareholder profit. The way you rob customers is by dressing up something cheap and worthless to look desirable. The way you rob taxpayers is by constantly challenging them to defend their patriotism and their religion. The average American has a long history of being reflexively xenophobic, so getting him worked up about enemies from abroad, especially dark-skinned ones, has always been an especially effective way of distracting him while you pick his pocket. But I say, let me be exactly as patriotic as some corporate executive who has outsourced his American workforce to India, bought homes around the world, made sure his children don't have to fight in American wars, and banked his money offshore so that he can avoid paying taxes. In exchange for the towns that Big Ag has depopulated, the cities that Big Manufacturing has hollowed out, the healthcare that Big Pharma has helped destroy, the environment that Big Chemical has contaminated, and the public school system that the corporate tax giveaways have hobbled, what has the average American gotten? Only the sense of grandiosity and self-righteousness that come from thinking of oneself as part of a "superpower. What does Ken Lay have to do with George W. Bush other than for a while they were good friends? When Enron fell, it became clear that there was nothing there, that the officers of the company had used it as a private bank and a private club. It was not actually expected, contrary to the understanding of customers and workers, to produce anything. It was a huge shell-game for stealing money (particularly from customers in the state of California) and moving it around. George W. Bush and his administration have used the federal government in exactly the same way. Only an idiot would have thought that FEMA would not, in the course of eight years, have to confront a disaster, either man-made or natural. But Bush has turned FEMA and the other federal agencies that used to work, more or less, into a big club that the has filled, willy-nilly, with incompetents who not only don't know how to do anything, but actually don't care enough to do anything. When Michael Brown was put on the spot for causing the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of people in New Orleans, his first instinct was to defend himself, not to express remorse for his fatal misjudgments. This is Bush's first instinct, and Cheney's first instinct. It is the instinct of business, not the instinct of public service. It is obvious that George W. Bush is a small, shallow man, the son of a rather dumb and bumbling father and a blinkered, vindictive mother. That his nature and nurture have been visited upon the country as a bwhole is an interesting detail of our decline and fall. No doubt someone, maybe Rove or Haley Barbour or some other corporate kingmakers that we haven't heard of, considered him attractive enough (remember when they tried to make use of Dan Quayle in a similar way) as a public relations front man. It is their problem that he can't be shown in public too often because his true character keeps peeking through. It is also their problem that he seems completely uninterested in his job. Lots of vacations and a very light daily regimen have not worked. Now what we saw intermittently during the election of 2004 is evident in every public appearance- Bush feels that the duties of a leader require too much effort. And Cheney, who spent the week of the New Orleans disaster closing a real estate deal, is just as bored. Those who are a little bit energized by getting and exercising power are too jaded to do any work. Where have we seen that before? In the executive suite of Bernie Ebbers, for one. But unlike Bernie Ebbers, Bush never built anything. He was always brought in to enjoy the perks of power and influence while others did the work. Some reports say he enjoyed acting as his father's hit man in the early nineties. Maybe that was good use made of his mean-streak. Bush's main importance now is how he demonstrates the bankruptcy of the corporate model as a model of governing. Public service, even customer satisfaction, is out the window. Power, privilege, and perks are all they want. Enron and the US are now quite similar, and the US is engaged in an Enron-like futile effort to make the books look good before a final accounting. Bush's strategy, like that of Ken Lay, is to talk a good game and pretend ignorance. If he really is ignorant, then he is a fool. If he really isn't ignorant (of what is going on in Iraq, what is going on in our economy, and what went on and is going on in New Orleans), then he is a criminal. That's how it works with Lay and that's how it works with Bush. The corporations-big oil, big pharma, big media, big construction, big agriculture, and big finance-may be happy with what they bought and paid for. I have no idea. It is quite likely that they are convinced that they do not actually live in the same world we do, and for a while (until the effects of global warming really set in) they may be able to fool themselves with that thought. But as a result of their efforts and those of their incompetent pawns, America's former superpowers are gone and the big corporations are going to have to spend a lot more time and effort corrupting a plethora of smaller and less globally influential governments. They have killed the big one. Imagine this-trying to bring the entire Eurozone to heel? You have to know a lot of languages to do that, and those Europeans are more politically sophisticated than the average American The fact is, nations don't get to be great just because they say they are or because they try to bully others into thinking they are. Great nations have to be, at least, places where the average human being wants to come to, to live in, and to contribute to. While the Bush administration and their supporters continue to labor under the illusion that the US is a superpower, other Americans might be content to ponder how to make their country a decent place to live, which right now it is not. A decent place to live is one where a large employed middle class can most of the time afford to house, feed, educate, and care for their children, who are, in the regular course of events, safe. Canada is a decent place to live. The US is divided largely between those who live in indecent ghost-towns that have been gutted by the evaporation of jobs and those who live in indecent affluent communities that they can barely afford but are terrified to leave. When the corporatocracy paid the Reagan revolutionaries to roll back any and all regulations so that they could do every short-sighted and selfish thing they wanted to, they started us down the road to this. Whether there is any turning back remains to be seen. However, the fate of the Bush administration and their cronies is decided. Sooner or later they will be tossed and sooner or later America's powers will be so minimal that investment will go elsewhere. Money doesn't care who owns it, and it doesn't have ears to hear appeals to mere patriotism.

The Great Defence of Christmas

2005-12-08T23:23:00.000-05:00

O'Reilly's War, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

Or...The Big War In Bill O’Reilly’s Mind

The Great Defence of Christmas
or
The Big War In Bill O’Reilly’s Mind

O'Reilly's making big noises about this "War On Christmas" inside his head. Here are two of his “Talking Points” from December 6 and 7 of just this week. Here’s December 6th:

"Christmas Humbugs Strike Back
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
By Bill O'Reilly
The humbugs strike back on Christmas: that is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo."
As you most likely know, there is a very small minority of Americans who want Christmas out of the public square, but they've made big inroads into America's most revered tradition.
However, Christmas is making a come back. Some companies who used to avoid saying "Merry Christmas" have reversed themselves. And all over the country, lawsuits are being filed to keep Christmas on public display.
That's not playing well in the secular progressive movement, which wants to diminish Christmas and all vestiges of Christian power. The SPs realize that to get gay marriage, legalized drugs, euthanasia, and other parts of their agenda passed, they need to marginalize religious forces. That is what is behind the assault on Christmas in the USA.
Over the weekend, some liberal newspapers stepped up to the plate. The Baltimore Sun said, "Groups such as the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State say Christmas is under no threat from them or anyone else."
Well, that's reassuring! Thank you, Baltimore Sun!
The Richmond Times Dispatch editorialized, "To hear some voices — Bill O'Reilly's, for instance — Christmas lies under siege. To refer to Christmas vacation as 'winter break' in no way demeans the occasion."
Of course not, Richmond Times. Not calling Christmas vacation Christmas vacation doesn't demean it at all.
But the absolute best comes from the most enthusiastic secular newspaper in the country, The New York Times, our pals. Editorial writer Adam Cohen, who met a — never met a secular cause he didn't like writes, "The Christmas that Mr. O'Reilly and his allies are promoting -- one closely aligned by retailers, with a smackdown attitude toward nonobservers fits their campaign to make America more like a theocracy, with Christian displays on public property and Christian prayer in public schools."
Of course, Mr. Cohen has no idea what he's talking about. I don't have a smackdown attitude toward nonobservers. They can do what they want. I don't care. I don't want a theocracy. And I don't want Christian prayers in public schools.
But Mr. Cohen is not interested in the truth. He wants to demonize. He wants Americans to believe this whole Christmas campaign is to promote Christianity.
What "Talking Points" is really promoting is respect, respect for a holiday that's celebrated by 95 percent of Americans. It's insane to diminish Christmas. It's also wrong.
Most Americans love this federal holiday and they don't want it tarnished by nutty far left fanatics. Get that, Adam?
More than 100,000 of you voted in our billoreilly.com poll, which asks, will you shop at stores that do not say `Merry Christmas'? 81 percent said no. Nineteen percent said yes.
So the secular progressives are going to lose the fight. But as I said, they're not happy about it. And they'll do what they always, attack.
And that's "The Memo."”

And now December 7th:

“What Christmas Controversy?
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
By Bill O'Reilly
Writing in The Los Angeles Times, wise guy columnist Joel Stein has declared there is no war on Christmas. That's the far left line, that religious nuts have fabricated a Christmas controversy in order to turn the USA into a theocracy. And The New York Times printed that opinion last weekend.
So far, we've also seen this nonsense in The Baltimore Sun, newspapers in Orlando and Richmond, and now The L.A.Times. I'm sure that's all coincidental.
The L.A. situation is interesting. The Times' parent company recently let go of the paper's editor and editorial director, two men who had turned The Times into a far left brochure, causing circulation to plummet.
The new people at The L.A. Times seem to be trying. And the paper has become more fair in its presentation. But now, Stein has mucked it all up. Here's what he wrote today.
"In fact [John] Gibson and fellow Fox anchor Bill O'Reilly are so upset [about the Christmas controversy' that they have organized a boycott of Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears, and Costco for using the phrase `Happy Holidays' in their ads instead of `Merry Christmas.'"
Well, that's news to me. Here's what I said on "The Radio Factor".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
There is a move under foot to discourage people from buying in stores that do not use 'Merry Christmas' in their advertising. I am not a part of that. I am not a part of that movement. And I'll tell you why.
I want you to make up your own mind on this. I don't want to be telling you where to buy and where not to buy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
So Stein did not write the truth. What a shock. L.A. Times editors, embarrassed, say they will issue a correction. You may have noticed I lead the league in corrections.
The importance the Christmas controversy is that it has become the centerpiece become the culture war between traditional Americans and secular progressives. Outside of the war on terror, this culture war is the most important thing happening in the country today. At stake, whether the USA will turn into a secular country that mirrors Western Europe, or maintain its emphasis on Judeo-Christian values.
The L.A. Times and much of the media is firmly in the secular corner. "Talking Points" is rooting for the traditionalists. So the battle lines are drawn. Too bad Christmas has to be in the middle of it.
And that's "The Memo."
”
Bill's got the best of both his puny little worlds here. In any other conflict, he's forced to be an imaginary soldier in a real war. Here, he can be a toy soldier in a war out of his own imagination.

In the real world, people could care less about what the outward displays say, or do not say. They may pass a comment, a sentiment or two, but they know, that THEY are the true custodians of Christmas, not the self-appointed busy-body bloviators like Mr. O'Reilly.

In his addled state of mind, O'Reilly seems to imagine that a few "far left" liberals like those in the "LA Times," or the "New York Times", are dead set on destroying Christmas to gain a foothold in their war on Christian values:

“That's not playing well in the secular progressive movement, which wants to diminish Christmas and all vestiges of Christian power. The SPs realize that to get gay marriage, legalized drugs, euthanasia, and other parts of their agenda passed, they need to marginalize religious forces. That is what is behind the assault on Christmas in the USA.”

Only trouble is that when I read the same article that O'Reilly cited in Talking Points 2, I found that the author Joel Stein had a more or less patronizing attitude toward the "defenders of Christmas, and admitted it is by far a more interesting holiday than Chanukah:

“I get that I live in a Christian nation. And I'm fine with it. I like you guys. I think it's adorable that you ring giant, white pipe cleaners around streetlights and make everything taste like peppermint and thought the world was going to end when the calendar went to three zeros in a row. It's like living with children.

I'm grateful that our Constitution separates religion from our law and our non-Kansas schools. But that doesn't mean the culture of a country with a higher percentage of Christians than Israel has Jews isn't going to be all into the Jesus thing. That's why Christmas is a national holiday and Yom Kippur isn't. And that's why Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand put out Christmas albums.”

And Joel Stein is NOT OFFENDED by the milieu of Christmas at this time, he understands that your right to religious speech is the same as his, and therefore treats the “I’ll pray anywhere I wanted to “ crowd with bemused indifference.

“Last Thursday, a group called Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, where founding member Jackie Mason spoke out against the war on Christmas. He basically argued that if people can't say "Merry Christmas," then he won't be allowed to wish people an "Exceptional Purim." That one doesn't translate from Yiddish well.”

He knows that Christmas traditions are much more fun than those of Chanukah, and he is rather thankful:

“So please, go nuts with your celebration, with your lying to children about where presents come from and your beverages made from raw eggs and your desperate use of greenery to get women to kiss you.

No, there's no war on Christmas. But this attempt to be inclusive by tamping down on the Christ birth stuff, while well intentioned, is just making us non-Christians feel worse. All I want from you is to admit — whether you're religious or not — that these customs are inexorably tied in to the birth of your savior. Then I'll be happy to celebrate your culture with you, if you want me to. Because it beats my people trying to persuade me to whoop it up over a story about an extra-long-lasting candle and a toy that's so obviously just a badly made top.”

Let's get one thing straight! What happens in the marketplace belongs to everyone. What happens in the home, belongs in the home, and is free from ANYONE'S interference, including Bill O'Reilly's. People will look at these things make some comment, and then quietly, maybe even laughingly go home and sing carols wish each other “Merry Christmas” put up their pagan tree with a star on top, nativity scene below, fill the room with presents, observe whatever traditions and meals their culture prescribes and have a happy holiday as only their family can. Christmas in our time was always a holiday of the hearth and home with only vestigial remains of the public holiday it once was. And we give unto the public that which it deserves. And it’s true Mr. O’Reilly, that we are mostly a Christian nation, but we understand the need for religious tolerance, especially in the public square. I agree that communities that substitute the word “holiday” for “Christmas” are cowardly. But look closely Mr. O’Reilly, under that “Holiday” banner you may find a nativity scene, a menorah, and a star with a crescent moon. And you’ll know, that that community’s citizens get it, and don’t feel insulted. The public square is everybody’s refuge, everybody’s trust. You know, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's?"

Incidentally Born Again Evangelical George W. Bush & CO. sent out a ''Happy Holidays!" card. I expect that after the sour reception of his "base," that will be ended faster than Harry Myers's SCOTUS candidacy. Oh, and I’m glad to see that The Fox Store and O’Reilly Factor Gear changed the sentiment on their items from “Happy Holidays” to “Merry Christmas”. Now go tell Laura to do the same! Merry Xmas!

Keep Floatin on De Nile Rush!

2005-11-14T14:47:00.000-05:00

Rush Limbaugh, originally uploaded by Wazdat!.

Does OxiContin Give Flashbacks?

I just read the transcript of Wednesday's Limbaugh rant.

Limbaugh just can't come to grips with reality, can he? He goes on, ignoring real setbacks like Hitler in his bunker, moving paper armies on a table. Not wanting to acknowledge what looks to be the banshee call of the neocon right, he prefers to wear his political rose-colored glasses, while accusing Democrats and liberals of living in an alternate reality!

Here's his tortured logic about the Democrat view of the situation:

"RUSH: Have you noticed when the liberals lose elections, the elections were stolen? I toyed with the idea today of trying to start this big movement that all these elections were flawed yesterday and that the voting machines were tampered with and that people tried to vote and weren't allowed to vote and there was discrimination against conservatives, and I wanted to lead the charge, saying these elections are illegitimate because they were stolen. But then I stopped, and then I realized, no, that's not the way to go about it. Because, as losers in these elections, those that we lost, we're actually the power. We're the winners, because the minority has rights! So the minority is actually the winners. We are in the minority; we probably now control New Jersey and Virginia. This is a lesson we have learned from the left. The left, the Democrats lost the Senate but they say they still run it, minority rights and so forth. "

No Rush, no Democrats ever said that they controlled the Senate or the House as a minority! Not when John Conyers had to hold hearings on the Downing Street Memos in the basement. Not when John Sensennbrenner could suddenly adjourn a meeting and turn off the mics of the opposition off when it suited him. You had John Roberts's nomination readjusted from for Associate Justice to Chief Justice at Dubya's leisure. And he won! Harriet Myers’s nomination failed because the right was not impressed with her! And look at all the pork that got passed! Certainly, no Democrat would have stood for a tax cut for the top 1% of the population while leaving the other 99% high and dry! And would the Democratic Senate have allowed Bush to get away with letting drug companies determine the price of prescription drugs? I don't think so! And then there were the various indignities that a Republican Senate made the nation submit to, like the Schiavo case, useless bans on flag burning and the like.

And yet, Rush is always in the habit of glossing over inconvenient things like facts:

"In fact, we actually won last night because we lost, as in the same thing with Paul Hackett. Did Paul Hackett win? No, he lost, but he won! Well, we lost, so we won! It's a great day! See how you play this if you're a Democrat? They're making all this noise. What they did was hold two seats that they already had. This was what everybody's talking about, the governor's race. I said yesterday, "It's the Democrats that face the test." The Democrats were the incumbents in New Jersey and Virginia."

Tim Kaine was BEHIND for most of the time in Virginia! Only in October did he overtake Kilgore, and only by a 6 point margin. Pretty good for an underdog, but it could have been better!

The Rassmussen Report for November 2nd had a very informative breakdown:

"Last week, Kaine was ahead by just two percentage points, 46% to 44%. The candidates have been within three points of each other in six consecutive polls conducted since Labor Day.

This is the fourth straight 2005 Virginia election poll with "leaners" included in the totals. Leaners are those who initially do not express a preference for either major party candidate but lean one way or the other when asked a follow-up question.

Without leaners, Tim Kaine has a one-point edge, 46% to 45%, over Jerry Kilgore."

All that changed AFTER Dubya's visit, and Kaine SHOT UP by 6 points. Bush has coattails. Only "born on third base, thinks he hit a triple" can't see that he is the one stuck in quicksand, and stuffed his hem in Kilgore's hand. Even in some very conservative areas, Bush was at best ineffectual, at worst a pariah. By the way, both of Virginia's U.S. Senators are Republicans, and 8 out of 11 House members are also Republican. Also, does El Rushbo know that Virginia's House of Delegates is Republican? The Dems control the state Senate, the governorship and lieutenant governorship. See how honest I can be Rush? You should try it some time!

There were 2 elections Rush. And if I'm not mistaken, any domestic transgression done by Dubya can be "mistook'' for local. But tell that to Captain Delusional who says:

"For example, the elections yesterday are not harbingers of what's going to happen in 2006, and this is a historical trend, goes back ten years, in some states 20 years and others. These are state races, local races.

The national agenda was not a factor here. Let's go New Jersey first. In New Jersey, does anybody really ever expect a Republican to be the governor of that state? "

Maybe you'll listen to a fellow conservative, Pat Buchanan, who strangely enough, we don't hear from the Right about anymore. In his article for Human Events, Bush Leaves GOP in Crisis,"he writes:

"Both Bushes abandoned the economic patriotism that had put America and Americans first for free-trade globalism. Result: the most massive trade deficits in U.S. history, the gutting of our industrial base, the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs, and the largest wealth transfer of all time with technology, factories, high-tech and high-skilled jobs pouring out of America into Asia.

Working America and the middle class have been sacrificed on the high altar of the Republican Moloch of Free Trade. And how have our Chinese brothers reciprocated our magnanimity?

Both Bushes embraced the open borders immigration policy the Wall Street Journal has trumpeted for two decades. Result: We have 10-15 million illegal aliens in our country, among whom gangs like the murderous Mara Salvatrucha are proliferating. Native-born California taxpayers are fleeing the Golden State, as Third World tax consumers pour in. So great is the crisis on the Mexican border even the liberal Democratic governors of New Mexico and Arizona have declared states of emergency. Meanwhile 35,000 U.S. troops stand guard on the border of South Korea. "

Which local issue are we missing here? Jobs? You can either clean toilets, man the counter or, sit at a desk? Your manufacturing job in Newark, Pittsburgh, and Norfolk just went to Tientsin, Taipei, or Singapore.

Security? We are a joke! Our ports are open, our borders are open. Bush & Co. never met an illegal alien that they couldn't ignore! And they are a strain on our resources. I have much sympathy for them, they have fled a horrific situation povertywise, but our resources in this deficit-ridden country with high unemployment are in fact, quite strained. And we are leaving the matter up to a bunch of bear guzzling shotgun toters who have as much experience patrolling borders as a dog on kitty litter.

By the way Rush, did I mention that Paul Hackett ran a very close race in Ohio? Lots of jobs lost there.

Rush's attitude about Virginia is, well that's just the way things are:

''I really don't want to bash our guys, but it's clear if you look at some of the campaigning in Virginia, that you had a reluctant conservative on certain issues. He was pretty strong on some but when it came to taxes and other things he was indistinguishable from the Democrat that was running for governor. If you're going to run as a conservative do it confidentially and be bold about it and don't be timid. But, you know, conservatives in the Beltway area, northern Virginia is the heavily populated Democrat region of the state, you gotta go out and make sure you don't make anybody mad, don't offend anybody, the press, and all that. But if you want to know, I'm in a great mood today. I am not dispirited by it."

Seems to me you should be very dispirited by it. By your very own words it sounds like there are entire regions in Virginia with large liberal enclaves that may be getting larger as the economy gets worse. You said it yourself Rush:

"Northern Virginia, suburb of DC, has become heavily Democrat over the last ten years. It's still a Republican state because of the down state population but it's becoming less so.''

And (What the blazes!) even fact-ridden Wikipedia would agree with you there:

“An underdog for most of the race, Kaine overtook Kilgore in some polls for the first time in October 2005, and held his lead into the final week before the election, [2] even after a barrage of negative advertising against him by the campaign of his opponent, Jerry W. Kilgore. Surprisingly, the first poll to break down results by region showed Kaine with large leads in the Shenandoah Valley (+14), Greater Richmond (+9), Hampton Roads (+8) and Northern Virginia (+7).”

Now Rush wants us to think that the Democrats have always had unreliable judgements in political forecasting. He uses the last general election as his example. He may be forgiven, because many of us thought that what is happening now was going to happen then, and we were wrong. Kerry did not run a strong enough campaign, and this was before the assault on Social Security, which went down in flames, to be soon followed by the milestone of 2000 dead in Iraq, the Downing Street Memos, the Valerie Plame Affair, Cindy Sheehan's campaign and last but not least - Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. We learned on the one hand, that Bush is willing to lie us into a pre-emptive war, that he does not care if someone dies in it, and on the other hand, he doesn't care a whit about his own citizen's misfortunes. Bush is now the one in quicksand. And he's pulling the Republicans in with him.

And that lovable lunatic El Rushbo seems hell bent on floatin' down de Nile. He tells a caller:

“It's not going to be a Bush election. They're going to cast it as a Bush election; that's my whole point. They're going to try to say that next year's congressional elections are Bush. They're not going to be. They're going to be about issues. This is where, if we just have candidates that go out and run confidently and boldly on issues, we can skunk the left because they're not going to have issues. They're going to be running against Bush who will not be on the ballot. "

Oh, but IT IS going to be a Bush election! Bush will be front and center and we will tie that can to every Republican's tail. Anyone in Tom DeLay's Rolodex will have Tar Baby Bush attached to his or her buttocks. The Republicans will have to run on Bush's record. It's Congress we will be electing, not dogcatcher!

And while the rats are scurrying off the sinking ship, Rush, with is rose-colored glasses sees them as rose petals strewn before the captain.

Rush Limbaugh Show - Status Quo holds in Election, Press Calls it Dem Sweep/ Bush Defeat

Rassmussen Report - Election - Virginia - 2005

Human Events - Bush Leaves GOP in Crisis by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted Nov 10, 2005