The Liberal Media

I'm Starting A New Blog

2009-09-02T10:20:00.000-04:00

I'm starting a new blog, and I will probably stop using this one. I haven't decided what to do with all my old posts. I may move them over to the new blog, but for now here is the link to my new blog: Bryan Arnold Blog

The McCainstream Media

2008-08-17T11:37:00.003-04:00

I've been lazy about posting lately, but I haven't stopped thinking about things to post. Right now, I don't have time to truly break my lazy streak, but I do want to make a few points.

1. We should stop calling it the Mainstream Media and start calling it the McCainstream Media.

2. We need to drive home the idea that McCain = Bush. I would frame the concept in this way: that the Republicans have figured out a loophole to the two-term limit (the 22nd Amendment) on Bush by nominating McCain.

Also, Crooksandliars.com pointed out this article by Michael Moore which I wanted to link to.

Stop Retroactive Immunity NOW!

2008-06-20T15:19:00.002-04:00

Waterboarding Torture

2008-02-13T16:39:00.004-05:00

Just so we are all clear, and so there is no confusion, it is "waterboarding torture," not "waterboarding."

The Bush administration has committed the illegal act of waterboarding torture.

Impeachment is the only correct response.

Yesterday, The Constitution Died

2008-02-13T10:10:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, The Constitution died.

Yesterday, the Senate voted to de-criminalize the crimes of the White House and the telecommunication companies.

Yesterday, I lost all the hope that I gained after the Democrats won the House and Senate in 2006.

Yesterday, I lost faith in my country... again.

Yesterday, most people didn't even know about what the Senate did.

Yesterday, the Sensational Media was too busy to inform the public about this attack on our rights and the rule of law.

Yesterday, I sent the following message to Sen. Reid and many other Senators:

If telecom immunity passes, our Constitution will be effectively dead, and its blood will be on your hands.

Have you no shame? No decency? No respect for the rule of law? No respect for your oath to defend the Constitution?

We are lost. The Democrats are lost. They won't stand up for our rights and Bush and the Republicans our trying to take them away.

What hope is left for us? Where do we go now for leadership? Where do we go to restore our country to its former glory?

Yesterday, I wondered why I bother to contact members of Congress.

Yesterday, I started to question why I try to change things.

Yesterday, my hope for impeachment hearings faltered.

Then yesterday, I realized that the fight isn't over.

Then yesterday, I realized that we have to work to get the House to deny amnesty for the telecoms (and, by default, Bush).

Then yesterday, I watched Australia apologize to the Stolen Generation, and I realized that we can't give up no matter how long it takes.

Then yesterday, Donna Edwards defeated Al Wynn, and I realized that we can defeat politicians who choose corporations over the people.

Then yesterday, I saw votes for Democratic candidates outnumber votes for Republican candidates by huge margins, and I realized that we can succeed.

Then yesterday, I began to hope again.

U.S.A. Guilty of Torture

2008-02-06T10:07:00.000-05:00

I have not written a post for this blog in quite some time. Partly, this was because of being busy or lazy or both, but mostly, it was because of the tremendous amount of disappointment and hopelessness that I felt due to the lack of action by the now Democratic-controlled Congress to hold the Bush administration accountable for their crimes.

Where is the IMPEACHMENT?!

The people, this country, our Constitution require impeachment if we are to retain our freedom, our democracy, our ideals.

And now this:

U.S. Acknowledges Use of Waterboarding

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats demanded a criminal investigation into waterboarding by government interrogators Tuesday after the Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that the tactic was used on three terror suspects.

In congressional testimony Tuesday, CIA Director Michael Hayden became the first administration official to publicly acknowledge the agency used waterboarding on detainees following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

[...]Hayden said Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003. Hayden banned the technique in 2006, but National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell told senators during the same hearing Tuesday that waterboarding remains in the CIA arsenal — so long as it as the specific consent of the president and legal approval of the attorney general.

Congress, there is NO excuse for not beginning impeachment hearings.

I want my country back.

I want my country to be one that does not torture. Impeachment is the only way to bring that about.

If Congress fails to begin impeachment hearings IMMEDIATELY, every member of Congress is violating their oath to defend the Constitution and they are guilty of supporting these vile acts of torture.

I'm waiting, Pelosi. I'm waiting, Reid. I'm waiting, Obama. I'm waiting, Clinton. I'm waiting for you to lead. I'm waiting for you to do what you were elected to do.

Debating Universal Public Health Care With A Conservative

2007-10-26T13:06:00.000-04:00

I try to avoid getting into debates with conservatives, not because I am afraid to stand up for what I believe in, but, rather, because I tend to be "long-winded" when the debate takes place online which is very time-consuming and I don't have a lot of time to spend. Plus, time spent doing such things is usually wasted because, as this study shows, conservatives don't deal well with change, so it is a waste of time if you expect to change their minds (not that it's impossible, just don't expect it to happen).

As a side note, I think this might explain why conservatives are so hopelessly devoted (like the song from the movie Grease) to the Republican Party. Or as Al Franken puts it, Republicans love their party the way a child loves its parent: uncritically and blindly. (How else could we explain the many conservatives who willingly would sacrifice American ideals, human rights, and freedom in exchange for authoritarian ideals, torture, and a law-breaking presidential administration.) Democrats, on the other hand, love their party like an adult loves its parent: critically and analytically.

Getting back to the topic at hand, I recently succumbed to the temptation to engage in a debate with a conservative (who was not my father for once), and I spent enough time on it that I wanted to post what I wrote so that it might not have been a complete waste of time.

I won't post what the conservative in the debate wrote because I haven't asked for his permission to do so (nor do I plan to), but my responses should be sufficient to help you guess at what was written by him.

The topic was health care, and here was my first response to what the conservative initially wrote (edited to ensure anonymity and proper grammar):

[...][I]t really infuriates me when conservatives accuse Democratic (with a capitol 'D') voters of "pretzel logic."

Pretzel logic is voting for Republicans who campaign on their belief that government doesn't work and then, when elected, ensure that the government doesn't work by bankrupting it (which is what Bush is doing). If they actually tried to make government work, then they would negate their entire belief system. It makes better sense to put your trust in someone who has trust in the American government and is willing to make it work. Democratic voters don't distrust the government; we distrust Bush and the people like him who are trying to destroy our government to
"prove" their self-fulfilling belief that government doesn't work.

Pretzel logic is wanting to continue a for-profit health care system with greedy private insurance companies who's goals are to make money, not keep their customers healthy. It makes more sense to have a health care system that is health-driven, not profit-driven.

Pretzel logic is believing the lie that our profit-driven health care system is somehow better than the universal health care system that EVERY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED NATION has that produces better results, a healthier general public, longer life expectancies, and lower overall cost. I don't understand conservatives who claim they want fiscal responsibility, but then ignore the BETTER results for a LOWER price
that public health care systems in other countries get.

Pretzel logic is saying other countries have long wait times. The long wait times thing is a myth. It exaggerates the wait times in other countries and ignores the wait times in our own country. My dad had to wait a month to see a specialist after having a transient ischemic attack (a mini-stroke), so don't believe the hype on wait times. Other countries have a sensible triage system that treats patients according to the urgency of their health needs. It's not like they have thousands of people dying because they can't see a doctor in time. That is what happens in OUR country. We have thousands of people dying each year because they can't afford to see a doctor at all. So I never want to hear another lie about the wait times in other countries when people in our own country our dying from waiting until it is too late because they have no insurance. The lack of compassion for those in our country without health insurance makes me physically ill and makes those people
without health insurance physically dead. There are serious consequences for our lack of universal public health care, and we need to take them seriously.

Pretzel logic is thinking it is okay for our government to be in charge of public roads, public schools, public police, public fire departments, public military, and so on, but somehow public medicine is the most evil concept ever conceived by mankind (despite the fact that we already have public medicine for some people through Medicare and Medicaid). If the government does such a good job with all these other public needs, why is it so hard to believe that a universal health care system run by our government would be desirable by the MAJORITY of Americans (55-65%, depending on what poll you look at)?

I wrote a post about this topic and Sen. Clinton's health care plan (which is a government mandate for everyone to buy health insurance (like how we have to buy car insurance), not a government run health care system, and not a good idea, in my opinion) on my blog. You can tell from the title (Worst Universal Health Care Plan Ever) that I am not a fan of her health care plan: http://the-liberal-media.blogspot.com/2007/09/worst-universal-health-care-plan-ever.html

-Bryan

Of course, that response elicited a response from the conservative, and here is my response to the response to the response (again, edited for blah blah blah):

[...]Anyway, since you asked, I feel compelled to answer your questions.

1. How much am I willing to pay out of my paycheck for public health care?

Well, looking at my paycheck, I already pay about 7% on health and dental insurance, so 5% sounds like a bargain.

Note: I recently recalculated that percentage. I pay over 8%.

But this is before I account for deductibles and co-pays. Some people pay more than they make if they have serious medical issues like cancer. So, if you gave them a choice between paying, say, 300% of their paycheck and paying 5% or 10% or even 20%, I am certain they would not choose 300%.

According to an article from The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/08/29/050829fa_fact):

"Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world’s median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year."
Wow! Americans spend more than DOUBLE the world's median on health care. But wait there's more:

"What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries. American life expectancy is lower than the Western average. Childhood-immunization rates in the United States are lower than average. Infant-mortality rates are in the nineteenth percentile of industrialized nations. Doctors here perform more high-end medical procedures, such as coronary angioplasties, than in other countries, but most of the wealthier Western countries have more CT scanners than the United States does, and Switzerland, Japan, Austria, and Finland all have more MRI machines per capita. Nor is our system more efficient. The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year—or close to four hundred billion dollars—on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita. And, of course, every other country in the industrialized world insures all its citizens; despite those extra hundreds of billions of dollars we spend each year, we leave forty-five million people without any insurance."
You ask me if I would be okay with more of my paycheck going to taxes. The answer is yes, if it meant we spent less overall. Public health care would save money for our country and for all Americans. The question I would ask you is: why don't you want to save money?

Other countries spend less on universal health care, but we spend more and more every year. From The Raw Story (http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_health_insurance_costs_rise_near_09122007.html):

"US Health Insurance Costs Rise Nearly Twice As Fast As Pay: Survey

The cost of health insurance in the United States climbed nearly twice as fast as wages in the first half of 2007, with family coverage costing employers around 1,000 dollars (714 euros) a month, a poll showed Wednesday.

Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose an average of 6.1 percent in 2007, while wages went up by 3.7 percent, the Employer Health Benefits Survey released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust showed.

The 6.1 percent rise in health insurance premiums marked a slowdown from the rate of increase last year, but also strongly outpaced inflation, running at 2.6 percent.

'In 2007, the increase in health insurance premiums was about twice the rate of inflation and not quite twice the increase in workers' pay,' Kaiser vice-president Gary Claxton said in a webcast.

Premiums for family coverage have surged by 78 percent since 2001, while wages have gone up 19 percent."
That is what happens when health care is PROFIT-DRIVEN rather than HEALTH-DRIVEN. Costs spiral out of control. So much for free market competition keeping prices low for consumers, huh? This is what happens with deregulation of public needs. Right now, I'm listening to a report on the radio about how pro-energy deregulation people are now regretting their stance in Ohio. I lived in California when deregulation of power companies caused energy prices to sky rocket and numerous brownouts. That was in the good old days of Enron. Now they REALLY knew how to exploit deregulation.

I am all for strongly-regulated free market capitalism, but not when it comes to public needs like utilities, roads, schools, police, fire departments, judicial system, et cetera.

2. Do statistics exist for people dying in the U.S. from lack of insurance?

I'm glad you asked because the cost of human life is way more important than the cost of money. Yes, statistics exist, and they are harrowing.

From USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/healthcare/2002-05-22-insurance-deaths.htm):

"18,000 Deaths Blamed On Lack Of Insurance

By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care, researchers report in a landmark study released Tuesday.

The 193-page report, "Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late," examines the plight of 30 million — one in seven — working-age Americans whose employers don't provide insurance and who don't qualify for government medical care.

About 10 million children lack insurance; elderly Americans are covered by Medicare.

It is the second in a planned series of six reports by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) examining the impact of the nation's fragmented health system. The IOM is a non-profit organization of experts that advises Congress on health issues.

Overall, the researchers say, 18,314 people die in the USA each year because they lack preventive services, a timely diagnosis or appropriate care."
18,314 people die YEARLY from lack of health insurance. That is horrific. It is disgusting. It is wrong. I don't know about you, but that is not something that I am willing to live with in the greatest country in the world.

Many people like to claim that this is a Christian country. Well, if that is the case, then how are over 18,000 people dying each year from a lack of medical care. From what I remember in Sunday school, Christ was pretty concerned with taking care of the sick. As a Christian, I think that we should be taking care of the least of our brethren and making sure everyone has health care coverage.

So far, I've shown that other industrialized nations get BETTER health care for LESS money. From what I can tell, conservatives want WORSE health care for MORE money. It defies logic.

3. Your concerns about giving health care to the lowest bidder is moot. That is not at issue here. We don't have contractors bid on running public schools, fire departments, or our law enforcement. Why would we have contractors bid on public health care?

Also, the reason why public schools, public police, public fire departments, and other public services are public is because we need those services to focus on their jobs and not on maintaining profit margins for stock holders.

As an example, it would not make sense to have privatized fire departments because if people couldn't afford to pay the fire department when their house is on fire, then their house would burn down. And yet, this is what is happening to people without health insurance, only it is their lives instead of their houses that are being destroyed.

4. Competition does not belong in the health care industry, at least not in the way that you mean. Competition in our current health care system is driven by profits. With health care providers, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies, a significant portion of that money goes to advertising, not to Research & Development, because they are in competition with other entities. Other countries don't have this problem. Competition in other countries are driven by health. For example, doctors in England are given paycheck bonuses when they get their patients to quit smoking. If you want competition, it should be for health, not greed.

Your idea that health care would plateau or decline is false. That has not happened in other countries because they don't let that happen. Their governments support scientific research, as opposed to this country where we can't even get our government to support stem-cell research.

5. You say that you don't want the government running our health care system and that we should let the insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals figure it out. Well, they already have it figured out. They figured out how to squeeze more money out of the American people. Every other industrialized nation has already figured out how to solve the problems we have today. They solved those problems with public health care.

6. As for people that cannot pay for health care, gratis and payment plans are short-term and expensive. Do you know who ends up paying the difference? We do. When doctors and hospitals are required to perform expensive services for people who can't afford them, it drives up medical costs and insurance premiums.

Here is what happens. Billy has no health insurance. Billy gets sick, but doesn't go to the doctor because Billy has no insurance. Billy gets sicker. Billy still doesn't go to the doctor. Billy gets really sick and passes out. Billy's family calls an ambulance. The ambulance takes Billy to the emergency room. Doctors at the hospital try to save Billy's life with expensive procedures and machines and tests. Billy dies. Who pays the ambulance? Who pays the doctors and nurses? Who pays the hospital? Not Billy. Not Billy's family, they have no money. The hospital has to make up the difference so they raise their prices on customers who HAVE health insurance. The health insurance companies don't want to lose their profit, so they raise their premiums and their co-pays and their deductibles. Americans lose more of their hard-earned paychecks.

Now here is what would happen if we had public health care. Billy is covered by public health care. Billy gets sick. Billy goes to the doctor. Billy gets cheap medicine and cheap preventative care. Billy gets better. Hospitals don't need to raise their prices. Private health insurance companies don't have to worry about profit margins because they don't exist. Americans get to keep more of their money for themselves. They spend money on other things. The economy grows.

Now what conservative could be against Americans saving money and a growing economy? And what human being could be against preventing Billy's death?

Well, take a look at the White House. That's who is against all that. Take a look at the Republicans and in Congress. They're against all that too. These so called fiscal conservatives are against saving money. These hypocrites are against saving human lives. No, they want US, the hard-working American public, to keep paying more money while their stock portfolios increase and they get more campaign contributions from insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and health care provider groups.

And the Democrats are not much better because they say they want universal health care coverage for all Americans, but some of them, like Hillary Clinton, want to continue to give all our hard-earned money to greedy insurance companies through mandating that we all buy health insurance, and the other ones are too spineless to provide public health care which is what the majority of Americans (55%-65%) want. The majority of Americans want it, but some Democrats are afraid some mean conservative talk show host will call them names like "socialist" or "commie." What they don't realize is that conservatives will call them those names regardless. At least if they provided public health care for all Americans, the majority of Americans would be on their side and be inspired to continue to vote for them. As it is, Americans are frustrated with the lack of action on this issue.

This is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and if the majority of Americans want public health care, then we should have it. Instead, we get a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, and a very small minority in power (the politicians) is willing to do the bidding of the corporate lobbyists because of all the money they donate to political campaigns.

The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States states, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I would argue that we need public health care if we are going to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty. We need public health care to live up to the ideal that all men are created equal. If we want to uphold the standards that this nation was founded on, we need to remove corporate influence from our government, and remove profiteering from our health care system. Because this is America, and Americans deserve better.

-Bryan

P.s. I am sorry for the length of the e-mail, but this is a topic that I am very passionate about. I've had to live without health care before. I know how scary it can be.

That e-mail was probably my best contribution to the debate (and obviously influenced by Michael Moore's SiCKO), so if you feel satiated, now is a good time to stop reading this post.

The conservative did respond again, but the response was more of a friendly farewell. He did concede that I made some good points, but he was ultimately not convinced that the U.S. should have a universal public health care system.

So, maybe the whole debate was a waste of time, maybe not. I don't know. Anyway, here was my final response (once more, edited for blah blah blah):

Well, right, I didn't mean to imply that Democratic politicians don't have stock portfolios. They can be just as easily influenced by campaign contributions and stock portfolio increases. That's why I dislike Hillary Clinton's health care plan. She receives a lot campaign contributions from the health insurance companies, which explains why her plan mandates that everyone buy health insurance from them. However, I still tend to be in opposition to Democrats much less than I am to Republicans.

Also, I appreciate that Al Gore is working to fight global warming, but carbon offsets are not a good solution in my opinion. If you ask me, buying carbon offsets while using fossil fuels is like if I bought some bullet-proof vests for some people and then went around shooting other people. That wouldn't make sense.

It is not uncommon for people to do what Al Gore is doing, pushing something that he is financially invested in. Everyone does that. That's business. The problem I have is when people in charge of our government push things they're financially invested in through legislation or executive order, like how Cheney pushes Halliburton. It's unethical.

In any case, you and I probably won't end up agreeing on much, but at least we agree that politicians in power need to spend more time working for the American people rather than themselves. You should hear my rant on why we need publicly-financed elections to oust corporate influence from government. :) However, you would probably rather talk to my father. You and he have a lot in common politically, and you would probably find more agreement with him. He's been the unfortunate recipient of most of my rants, and would probably be glad to know that he's not alone anymore.

-Bryan

THE END

(for now)

Bush Isn't Even Trying To Catch Bin Laden

2007-10-26T12:34:00.001-04:00

There are no words to express how furious this makes me. There is nothing I can say about this that would satisfy my outrage. I am speechless.

Did The White House Miss A Chance To Catch OBL Again?

By: Nicole Belle on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 12:14 PM - PDT

[...]I’d think that it would be in the public’s interest to know how well we are going after known enemies before they create even more in Iran, wouldn’t you?

Col. David Hunt (ret.) on FOXNews.com (I’m citing the relevant portion if you don’t want to give them the hits):

Besides, these things are of little consequence when you realize how we missed, squandered, screwed up, made a mess of and were massively risk adverse - again - when we did not kill Usama bin Laden in Afghanistan just two short months ago.

We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty - which is huge in the world of intelligence - that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world’s best hunters/killers - Seal Team 6 - nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it. Nice job again guys - now, pull the damn trigger.

Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden.

You cannot make this crap up; truth is always stranger and more telling than fiction. Our government, the current administration and yes, our military leaders included, failed to kill bin Laden for no other reason than incompetence.

The current “boneheads” in charge will tell you all day long that we are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan to stop terrorists there so they do not come here. Nice talk, how about - just for a moment - acting like you mean what you say? You know walk the walk. These incidents, where we displayed a total lack of guts, like the one in August, are just too prevalent. The United States of America’s political and military leadership has, on at least three separate occasions, chosen not capture or kill bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri. We have allowed Pakistan to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda. We have allowed Al Qaeda to reconstitute, partially because of money they (Al Qaeda in Iraq) have been sending to Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Losing The Debate? Change It.

2007-10-23T15:56:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, I feel the need to put in a post just because I don't want to forget something. This time, the thing I don't want to forget is a post by georgia10 on DailyKos:

Over There

[...]On the merits, the GOP knows full well that it has lost its audience. Poll after poll shows that when it comes to issues, Americans overwhelmingly support the Democratic agenda. Political survival then depends on misdirection from this fact. At any cost.

The most common form of misdirection employed by the idea-barren Republican Party is to avoid talking about ideas altogether. And the most common method used to accomplish this goal? Deflecting attention from the policy to the personal.

And oh, what masters of deflection Republicans have become. A debate about whether to invade Iraq becomes a debate about whether Joe Wilson's undercover CIA wife hooked him up with a sweet junket overseas. A debate on stem cell research becomes a debate about whether Michael J. Fox exaggerates his symptoms. A debate about the right to privacy becomes a debate about whether Terri's blinks were voluntary. A debate on Iraq policy becomes a debate about how mean people are to General Petraeus. A debate about health care becomes a full-blown investigation into the lifestyles of 12 year old Graeme Frost and 2 year old Bethany Wilkerson. A debate about curbing global climate change becomes a debate about how many compact fluorescent light bulbs Al Gore has in his house. A debate about the shameful level of poverty in this country becomes a debate about how much money John Edwards spent on a haircut. A debate about who's qualified to be president becomes a debate about who does or does not wear a lapel pin. A debate about executive accountability becomes a debate about whether Representative Stark hurt Mr. Bush's feelings.

Knowing that they cannot emerge victoriously out of a battle of ideas, Republicans latch on to individuals instead. Public figures and private citizens alike are fair game as the right-wing noise machine turns its cacophony-creating media apparatus in non-discriminating fashion upon any individual, any prey that can serve to distract even for one minute from the utter vapidity of the Republican platform today.

Air Force Official Commits Suicide

2007-10-16T11:28:00.000-04:00

This is one of those tragedies that really seem to be hiding something bigger:

Air Force's No. 2 weapons buyer found dead

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force's No. 2 acquisition official, facing scrutiny for a temporary job arranged by the service while he awaited Senate confirmation, was found dead at his home in an apparent suicide, according to an internal Air Force memo obtained by Reuters on Monday.

"Mr. Riechers was found deceased in his home, cause of death appears to be suicide, time of death is unknown," said the memo, which was issued late Sunday.

Charles Riechers, principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition, was working on the Air Force's highest priority weapons programs, including a $40 billion aerial refueling tanker that is due to be awarded late this year or early next, and a $15 billion combat search and rescue helicopter.

People do not normally commit suicide while they are waiting for a Senate confirmation. So what is going on here?

Like many similar questions, this one may go unanswered and be condemned to conspiracy theory hell.

The article mentions this:

[...]The Washington Post reported on October 1 that Riechers was hired for two months by defense contractor Commonwealth Research Institute at the request of the Air Force while Riechers was out of work and awaiting Senate confirmation for his new position. The job paid $13,400 a month.

$13,400 A MONTH! I don't know about you, but that is a lot of money to me. He must have been doing some important work for defense contractor CRI:

[...]"I really didn't do anything for CRI," Riechers told the newspaper. "I got a paycheck from them."

Or not.

So let me get this straight. A guy who is the Air Force's No. 2 acquisition officer was getting $13,400 per month from a defense contractor. Then, he kills himself two weeks after this conflict of interest is revealed to the public.

Now, I'm no lawyer, but Riechers' conflict of interest has to be illegal:

[...]Riechers' predecessor, Darleen Druyun, served nine months in jail in 2005 for violating federal conflict of interest laws by taking a job with Boeing while still overseeing billions of dollars of its work for the Air Force.

So it is illegal.

Well, I am sure Bush's Department of Justice will get right on this... oh, wait, they won't do anything. It is Bush's culture of corruption that allowed this to happen in the first place (and in the second place and in a whole bunch of other places). It's all part of their "free market" idealogy. See, the "free" in free market means "free" to break the law and enable corruption if it helps the greedy corporations get more money at the expense of American taxpayers.

Well, I am sure the Congress will do something about this... oh, wait, I forgot how busy they were capitulating to the worst President in U.S. history on Iraq and FISA and SCHIP.

So, carry on. Nothing to see here. Our government is too busy screwing us out of our hard-earned cash and giving it to corporate welfare programs. It's too busy stealing from the poor to give to the rich. It's too busy racking up record levels of debt that our grandchildren will be slaves to.

It doesn't have time to weed out corruption, establish a fair market economy, eliminate corporate welfare, and give us what this country actually needs like an exit stratagy from Iraq, a universal public health care program, and a serious plan to end the threat of global warming.

::sigh::

Look, we don't have to put up with this. We can change our country for the better if we all work together. We, the people, are supposed to be in charge of this country, and corruption occurs easily when we aren't paying attention and aren't demanding better from our representatives in government. We are their bosses, not the other way around.

Outrage Overload

2007-10-11T11:04:00.000-04:00

There is too much to be outraged about these days, and today is no exception.

I am feeling a little overwhelmed by it all, which makes me just want to take a break from it all, but there are some things I feel the need to mention.

First on my mind are the Democratic presidential candidates who have decided that they are against democracy:

Five Democratic hopefuls pull names off Michigan ballot

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff

October 10, 2007

WASHINGTON - Five Democratic presidential contenders yesterday yanked their names off the Michigan ballot, delivering a group snub to a state feuding with the national Democratic Party over its decision to move its primary to mid-January in violation of party rules.

The removals reinforce the authority of the Democratic National Committee to impose order on a tumultuous campaign in which dozens of states have pushed up their nominating contests in hopes of attracting more money and attention from the presidential candidates. The DNC has threatened to unseat the delegates of states that defy the primary rules set by the party.

The candidates' decisions provide a symbolic boost for New Hampshire, which is anxiously trying to protect its historic status as host of the first-in-the-nation primary. DNC rules allow for early contests in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada, but Michigan and Florida defied the DNC by scheduling their primaries for Jan. 15 and Jan. 29, respectively.

[...]Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware - joined by John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, and Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio - declared yesterday that they would not be candidates in the state's primary. Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Chris Dodd of Connecticut - who, like all of the Democratic candidates, have pledged not to actively campaign in the state - chose to remain on the ballot.

Congratulations to these losers: Obama, Biden, Edwards, Richardson, and Kucinich. Their stance against democracy has effectively made it much easier for me to decide who I will be voting for in the primary election because I won't be voting for any ot them.

I am not happy that Clinton and Dodd have stated that they won't campaign in Michigan, but their stance is the much lesser of two evils in this case. As an Ohioan, I will show my solidarity with Michigan (a rare thing for an Ohioan to do) by not voting for anyone who Michigan voters can't vote for.

The DNC and their anti-democratic rules can rot for all I care. They won't be getting a dime from me. My money is much better spent elsewhere like MoveOn.org or some other entity that is willing to fight for democracy and fight against an archaic and unfair system that places Iowa and New Hampshire above all other states.

By the way, before I move onto another topic, there's this article about Kucinich:

Kucinich remains on Michigan ballot after trying to withdraw

By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
The Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan voters will have a choice of four candidates in the Democratic presidential primary, even though Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich tried to join four other Democrats who have decided not to be on the ballot.

[...]But Kucinich twice filed incorrect paperwork with the Michigan secretary of state's office, and had not filed a notice of withdrawal with his notarized signature by Tuesday's 4 p.m. deadline, said the office's spokesman, Ken Silfven.

A campaign manager first signed the paperwork, then the campaign sent in another withdrawal notice signed by Kucinich. But the signature had not been notarized as required.

Either Kucinich's staff is absent-minded or they are being very crafty by pandering to Iowa and New Hampshire while still remaining on Michigan's ballot. Either way, I am still not voting for him.

So it guess it is down to Dodd, Clinton, and Gravel for me. At this point, I am leaning towards Dodd, but Clinton or even Gravel could steal that away by coming out against the anti-democratic Iowa-and-New-Hampshire-always-go-first nomination process. (C'mon, Gravel! What have you got to lose?)

We need a national primary. Period. Anything else is a crime against democracy.

Quickly, (because I don't have a lot of time right now) here are the other things that have recently caused me to be outraged:

Dems Fail Litmus Test

The Washington Post reported today that Sen. Harry Reid ☼ has informed private-equity funds that the Senate will not be closing the obscenely inequitable tax loophole that allows mega-billionaires to be taxed at 15 percent – lower than most working Americans. Harry says there simply isn't time in the busy Senate schedule. Seriously. And the Post points out that if there isn't time in 2007, there almost certainly won't be in 2008 either – "Congress tends to be leery of tax increases in election years."

I'm sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with the private-equity firms and hedge funders putting "more than 20 lobbying firms" to work for them in the Halls of Congress. Nor is Reid's about face a sign of the Wall Street Execs "increasing their campaign donations to members of Congress." It's simply a jam-packed schedule – who has time to address the shafting of revenues for public infrastructure investment? Rebuilding the shredded social contract? funding health care, education, or new sustainable energy programs? Making up for lost revenues due to insane Bush tax cuts?

As I posted previously, this was a litmus test for Democrats – to see whether the party > is capable of truly taking a stand for working people. They have failed it. Rick Perlstein blogged today of Democratic capitulations on this issue and FISA.

Steamier Earth Likely, Due to Global Warming

John Roach
for National Geographic News

October 10, 2007

[...]Scientists expect the rising humidity to cause heavier rains, stronger hurricanes, and increased human heat stress.

[...]Climate scientists have long predicted that a warmer world will allow more water to evaporate, thus making the planet more humid.

Indeed, several studies have shown trends of increasing surface humidity around the planet, but until now scientists were uncertain what was driving the trend.

The new study combined a fresh data set of surface humidity with climate models, "and actually attribute[s] those trends to human influence," said study co-author Nathan Gillett, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.

Partisanship Accusation Expanded in Alabama

By PHILIP SHENON WASHINGTON, Oct. 10

The son of Alabama’s current Republican governor boasted that a Republican judge would “hang Don Siegelman,”

Sorry, I don't have more of a quote for that last one. I can't access the link right now.

One more thing before I go, this last subject I am outraged about not because former President Carter said these things, but because not enough people are saying it with him:

Carter: US has abandoned 'basic principles of human rights'

Associated Press
Thursday October 11, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Former US president Jimmy Carter last night told CNN the US tortured prisoners in violation of international law, following an assertion last week from George Bush that the US "does not torture".
The 2002 winner of the Nobel peace prize accused Mr Bush of making up his own definition of torture and the hawkish vice president, Dick Cheney, of being a "militant".

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Mr Carter told CNN.

Bush Administration Endorses Torture

2007-10-04T11:06:00.001-04:00

This comes as no surprise to those of us in the reality-based community, but it still infuriates me:

Bush’s Justice Department secretly endorsed torture

Posted October 4th, 2007 at 8:10 am

In December 2004, Bush’s Justice Department issued a statement insisting that “torture is abhorrent.” It was an encouraging step from administration officials who were willing to concede that there were limits to presidential authority when it came to brutal interrogations.

But it was a lie — shortly thereafter, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed off on a secret legal opinion, which, as the New York Times reported today, endorsed “the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.”

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.
And here we are. Given their conduct and contempt for the rule of law, administration officials are apparently well beyond the capacity for shame, but if they’re capable of embarrassment, now would be a good time for it. Indeed, now might be an equally good time to wonder whether criminal charges should be brought against several high-ranking officials in the Bush administration.

Every time Bush was asked about this, he merely replied, "We don't torture." And he was lying.

He and his administration have betrayed this country. They are traitors to the ideals of this country. We have always held ourselves up to a higher standard, and because of Bush, we can no longer do that.

Such a traitor to our country should not be president. Such traitors do not belong in our government. Such traitors should be impeached and punished for their crimes. They have committed crimes against our country, our people, our humanity.

After all the war crimes, the illegal spying, the torture, it is abundantly clear that they have broken the law and their oaths of their offices. They do not deserve to be in power. They should be in prison.

And the insane 30% of this country that still approves of this traitor and his criminal administration need to wake up and know the truth that is so hard for them to hear: Bush is a liar, and a criminal, and a torturer, and he doesn't deserve to be our president.

NPR Features Bribed Pundit Armstrong Williams

2007-10-02T16:06:00.000-04:00

Last Wednesday, NPR did a stupid thing. They let Armstrong Williams on their airwaves. They had him on the Political Junkie segment of Talk of the Nation to discuss the Republican "debate" at Morgan State University. I put "debate" in quotes because the frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination skipped this debate. They skipped it because the debate was geared towards African-American voters and Republicans don't support African-Americans...

because African-Americans don't support Republicans...

because Republicans don't support African-Americans.

So NPR decided to have on African-American Republican Armstrong Williams. My, my, my, how quickly we forget:

From Wikipedia:

Selling the Bush Administration's "No Child Left Behind" policy

In January 2005, USA Today reported that documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that Williams had been paid $240,000 to promote the controversial No Child Left Behind Act ("NCLB") of the Bush administration. According to USA Today, Williams was hired "to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same."

As part of the agreement, Williams was required "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004." The contract with Williams was part of a $1 million contract between the U.S. Department of Education and the public relations company, Ketchum Inc.

Melanie Sloan from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington told USA Today that the contract may be illegal "because Congress has prohibited propaganda," or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government. "And it's propaganda," she said. Representative George Miller, a member of the House Education Committee, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington was founded in 2001 by Melanie Sloan, a former aide to Representative John Conyers (D-MI) and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY).

After the USA Today revelations, Tribune Media Services terminated its syndication agreement with Williams. In a statement to Editor and Publisher (not available on its website), TMS stated: "[A]ccepting compensation in any form from an entity that serves as a subject of his weekly newspaper columns creates, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest. Under these circumstances, readers may well ask themselves if the views expressed in his columns are his own, or whether they have been purchased by a third party."

What? NPR couldn't find an African-American Republican pundit who HADN'T BEEN BRIBED to promote a Bush policy?

I know there aren't a lot of African-American Republicans, but come on. Having on Armstrong Williams is completely disrespectful to African-Americans, pundits, and the NPR audience (but completely typical of Bush Republicans).

Why Do Anti-Abortion Activists Choose To Have Abortions?

2007-09-28T11:34:00.000-04:00

Apparently, some anti-abortion advocates are deciding that it is okay for themselves or their family members to have abortions while simultaneously advocating that others should not be able to make the same choice. This is really taking hypocrisy to new heights (from a diary on DailyKos):

Pro-life: their abortions are different, unique.

by ShawnGBR
Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 02:50:28 PM PDT

[...]But like I say, an anti-choice advocate's opinion is set in stone.

Even on the day she's having an abortion.

As one page chronicles:
"I've had several cases over the years in which the anti-abortion patient had rationalized in one way or another that her case was the only exception, but the one that really made an impression was the college senior who was the president of her campus Right-to-Life organization, meaning that she had worked very hard in that organization for several years. As I was completing her procedure, I asked what she planned to do about her high office in the RTL organization. Her response was a wide-eyed, 'You're not going to tell them, are you!?' When assured that I was not, she breathed a sigh of relief, explaining how important that position was to her and how she wouldn't want this to interfere with it." (Physician, Texas)
That's right. For everyone else, it's clear-cut murder. All the hooey about needing the abortion because the child will ruin your life just won't do. Unless it turns out that you need the abortion because the child will ruin your life. Then it's OK.

[...]These aren't the only examples from the link I've provided. Although few studies have been made of this phenomenon, a study done in 1981 (Henshaw, S.K. and G. Martire. 1982. Abortion and the Public Opinion Polls: 1. Morality and Legality. Family Planning Perspectives. 14:2, pp 53-60, March/April.) found that 24% of women who had abortions considered the procedure morally wrong, and 7% of women who'd had abortions disagreed with the statement, "Any woman who wants an abortion should be permitted to obtain it legally."

A 1994/95 survey of nearly 10,000 abortion patients showed 18% of women having abortions are born-again or Evangelical Christians.

And a previous Planned Parenthood handbook on abortion noted that nearly half of all abortions are for women who describe themselves as born-again Christian, Evangelical Christian, or Catholic.

The diary offers a couple other examples of women who actively protest abortion clinics, then go to the same clinic for an abortion, and then go back to protesting the same abortion clinic later. Can someone please try to explain the logic behind this hypocrisy? Or is there no logic at all? How do these women arrive at the idea that it is okay for them to have an abortion, but it is wrong for everyone else?

That is crazy. It is one thing to be against abortions, but if you are against them, then you shouldn't choose to have one for yourself (or your underage daughter). I can understand if an anti-abortion activist needed to get an abortion out of medical necessity, rape, or incest, but that doesn't appear to be the case in the examples from the article.

I read a statement once that sums up how I feel about this. I am paraphrazing, but the statement was basically this:

For any right that you claim for yourself, you must also be willing to allow others to claim that right for themselves.

For example, if straight people are going to claim the right to all the legal benefits of marriage, then they should be willing to allow gay people to have the same right. Christians should willingly offer the same rights that they claim for themselves to other religions. No race should have more rights than any other. We should pass the Equal Rights Amendment.

It all comes down to a matter of equal rights whether the issue is race, sex, religion, creed, sexual orientation, et cetera. If anti-abortion activists are going to exercise their right to choose to have an abortion, then they shouldn't be trying to take away that right from others.

John Stossel, Professional Insensitive Hack

2007-09-18T15:26:00.000-04:00

Anti-consumer advocate John Stossel did a story on anti-truth network ABC which is owned by anti-people corporation Disney. I did not watch his story because I knew it would be filled with lies and propaganda to promote Stossel's crazy libertarian views and irrational free market religion. This guy has no concept of what a fair market is and couldn't care less if consumers are harmed by the greedy corporations he worships.

His propaganda, this time, was specifically about Michael Moore's documentary SiCKO. I'll give you one guess about whether Stossel agreed with it or not.

From Crooks And Liars:

Wife Of Victim From Michael Moore’s Sicko Responds To Stossel Hit Piece

By: Logan Murphy on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 6:38 AM - PDT

ABC News, the same network that neo-cons use to further their agenda, decided to look at the question of Universal Health Care in the US. Who better to investigate it than John “The Free Market Trumps All” Stossel? As is evident from the promo from last Friday’s Good Morning America, Stossel’s program looks like little more than a way to demonize Michael Moore:

Crooks And Liars then offers a video clip of the bully himself, and then reprints the open letter response on MichaelMoore.com from the woman Stossel mentions in his story:

Open Letter to ABC's John Stossel ... from Julie Pierce, American SiCKO

September 14th, 2007 11:03 pm

Dear John,

My name is Julie Pierce. My husband was Tracy Pierce. I am featured in Michael Moore's documentary 'SiCKO.' In the movie, I share my deceased husband's story — his unsuccessful battle with our insurance company to receive what could have been life-saving treatments for kidney cancer.

I just read your Wall Street Journal article written on Sept. 13, 2007, titled "Sick Sob Stories." You begin by talking about Tracy's role in 'SiCKO,' and claim the bone marrow transplant denied by our insurer would not have saved him. You also accuse me of "sneering" over our situation.

In your 'reporting' of this story, you did not contact me, and you did not contact my husband's doctors. I cannot believe that a publication like the Wall Street Journal would print such an accusation without talking to anyone involved — especially in such a personal matter, which resulted in the death of my 37-year-old husband and the father of my child.

Read the whole letter to get the full picture of what a coward and jerk Stossel really is.

In a recent CBS News Poll (from PollingReport.com), they found that 55% of Americans want a single-payer, government-run, universal health insurance program. A CNN poll (from the same site) finds that 64% of Americans think that "the government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes." So if this what most Americans want, my question is: Why does John Stossel hate America?

Worst Universal Health Care Plan Ever

2007-09-18T10:20:00.000-04:00

Hillary Clinton just lost any chance she had of getting my primary vote with her awful health care plan. It is the same bad idea that Romney pushed for in Massachusetts and that Schwarzenegger is pushing in California:

Clinton Calls for Universal Health Care

By BETH FOUHY – 12 hours ago

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton called for universal health care on Monday, plunging back into the bruising political battle she famously waged and lost as first lady on an issue that looms large in the 2008 presidential race.

[...]The New York senator said her plan would require every American to purchase insurance, either through their jobs or through a program modeled on Medicare or the federal employee health plan. Businesses would be required to offer insurance or contribute to a pool that would expand coverage. Individuals and small businesses would be offered tax credits to make insurance more affordable.

Here's where the corruption comes into play and why we need publicly financed elections to take greedy corporations our of our government. The greedy health care companies want more money. They give some money to Romney, Schwarzenegger, and Clinton. Then Romney, Schwarzenegger, and Clinton push for legislation that forces everyone to buy health insurance from the greedy health care companies. The greedy health care companies get more money. See how easy that is?

Unfortunately, this is the way our government usually works in almost all areas of politics. The corporations pay for the legislation that benefits them, and the American taxpayer gets screwed.

That's why Republicans love this plan. They'll do anything to please their corporate masters.

And most of the Democratic presidential candidates are rushing to get in line to screw us with this awful health care plan. Didn't any of them watch SiCKO?

Yes, the American health care system is awful and broken, but that does not mean we should replace it with something just as awful and broken. It will remain awful and broken as long as private, for-profit health insurance companies are part of the system.

We need socialized medicine. Period.

Just like we need socialized public schools. Or socialized public roads. Or socialized police and fire departments. Or a socialized military.

We need socialized medicine like Germany. Like France. Like the United Kingdom. Like Canada. Like Japan. Like Australia. If it works for them, it will work for us, but our current system does not work.

It is evil to have health care be a for-profit industry. Health care should be a for-health industry, and greedy, private corporations should have no part in it.

And all Americans (and especially Democrats) should only support a presidential candidate who supports that concept.

General Petraeus Did Betray Us

2007-09-18T10:02:00.000-04:00

MoveOn.org has been getting a bit attention for their Petraeus ad. Republicans who refuse to listen to the content of the ad have been calling for Democrats to denounce it. Why should they? Why should the denounce an ad for telling the truth?

Gen. Petraeus did betray us. He lied to Congress. He lied to the American people. He lied to save the liar-in-chief George W. Bush.

MoveOn.org told the truth. And I still believe that telling the truth is a good thing, especially when you speak truth to lying power:

General Petraeus or General Betray Us?

Iraq Confronts Evil Blackwater

2007-09-18T09:10:00.000-04:00

It is one of many sins in the long list of crimes against humanity that Bush has committed in his illegal war. The use of private mercenary forces that have no accountablity for the people they kill or harm is one of the more horrendous aspects of Bush's criminality.

Finally, it looks like Iraq is doing something about groups like Blackwater. It is a sad state of affairs that a country that barely has it together has to do this for us:

What happens to private contractors who kill Iraqis? Maybe nothing

Blackwater USA employees are accused of killing several civilians, but there might not be anyone with the authority to prosecute them.

By Alex Koppelman and Mark Benjamin

An incident this past weekend in which employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm that has become controversial for its extensive role in the war in Iraq, allegedly opened fire on and killed several Iraqis seems to be the last straw for Iraqi tolerance of the company. Iraqi government officials have promised action, including but not limited to the suspension or outright revocation of the company's license to operate in Iraq.

But pulling Blackwater's license may be all the Iraqis can do. Should any Iraqis ever seek redress for the deaths of the civilians in a criminal court, they will be out of luck. Because of an order promulgated by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the now-defunct American occupation government, there appears to be almost no chance that the contractors involved would be, or could be, successfully prosecuted in any court in Iraq. CPA Order 17 says private contractors working for the U.S. or coalition governments in Iraq are not subject to Iraqi law. Should any attempt be made to prosecute Blackwater in the United States, meanwhile, it's not clear what law, if any, applies.

Of course, not paying for crimes and escaping justice is all part of the Bush plan for himself, Scooter Libby, his administration, and Blackwater. If this world has any sense of justice, all of them will see the inside a jail cell for 20 years or more.

Boehner (R-OH) Thinks Losing Troops' In Iraq Is A 'Small Price'

2007-09-14T13:18:00.000-04:00

Many blogs have already run this story, but it is still being ignored by the traditional media. So maybe if the blogs keep the story alive, the TM will pick up on it:

"Small price"

by kos
Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 08:24:03 AM PDT

Remember how 4,000 dead, tens of thousands of wounded, and half a trillion spent was "a small price to pay" for the mess we've made in Iraq? No?

Well, for House Republican Leader John Boehner, that's a wee nothing:
"The investment that we're making today will be a small price if we're able to stop al Qaeda here, if we're able to stabilize the Middle East, it's not only going to be a small price for the near future, but think about the future for our kids and their kids."

Boehner still has yet to apologize.

Democrats Need To Make A Stand

2007-09-14T12:49:00.000-04:00

I just want to echo what Kos wrote:

Sort out post

[...]Who cares if Bush vetoes? Let him. Don't worry about 66. Don't even worry about 60. If Republicans want to filibuster, let them. Turn it into a real one -- where Republicans have to hold the podium and read from the phone book for days. Let people see who is filibustering funding for the troops and legislation mandating a withdrawal.

If Bush vetoes? Send it back to him. Again and again. Congress is a co-equal branch of government, at least theoretically. There's no reason to capitulate to Mr. 25% on a war that even fewer want. Show the public that the Democrats have fight in them. Give David Broder the middle finger. Hang up on Joe Klein. And start paying attention to what the masses are demanding outside of D.C.

I couldn't agree more.

The reason why Congress' approval ratings are lower than the historic lows of Bush's approval ratings are because of the Democrats' refusal to stand strong, hold the line, and do what we elected them to do: get us out of Iraq.

If they listened to what the people are saying, we would have a better opinion of them. Our government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people, but if our government refuses the even listen to the people, then it has failed to live up to the ideals of a democracy.

Director of National Intelligence Lied To Congress

2007-09-13T10:16:00.000-04:00

He the Director of National Intelligence, but I don't think that lying to Congress is a very intelligent idea. Plus, it's against the law.

Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report wrote about it:

When the Director of National Intelligence lies to the Senate

On Monday, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on recent changes to the FISA law, which the Bush administration has insisted were necessary to keep Americans safe. In defending the law, McConnell seems to have lied to the Senate. Badly.

Steve Benen links to the Newsweek article about McConnell's violation of the law and public trust:

Spy Master Admits Error

In a new embarrassment for the Bush administration top spymaster, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is withdrawing an assertion he made to Congress this week that a recently passed electronic-surveillance law helped U.S. authorities foil a major terror plot in Germany.

Benen also asks some good questions:

[...]At this point, I have a few questions. First, how does anyone expect lawmakers to negotiate policy matters with the White House in good faith when administration officials lie with impunity? Second, will there be any consequences for McConnell in light of these revelations?

And third, isn’t it against the law to lie to Congress?

To answer his last question, yes, it is against the law to lie to Congress. However, there never seems to be any consequences for breaking that law. So there seems to be no reason to stop lying to Congress.

Alberto Gonzales lied just about everytime he spoke before Congress. Gen. Petraeus lied to Congress earlier this week. Karl Rove just skips the whole process by refusing to go in the first place. It doesn't make a difference. The results are the same: no consequences.

Congress needs to start acting like an equal branch of government and put a stop to this. I know it's a cliche, but the Democrats need to grow a spine. (At least, more of them need to grow a spine. There are some tough Democrats like Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), et cetera. We need more like them.) Democrats need to stop giving their milk money to the White House bullies, and stand up for our country, our Constitution, and all Americans. That's why we voted them into power. Now, it's time for them to keep their end of the bargain and use that power.

Bush Lies, Petraeus Lies, Traditional Media Doesn't Care

2007-09-12T13:16:00.000-04:00

I talked a little about this last week in a post called "Did Bush Escalate So That He Could De-escalate?", and it seems like my theory might prove to be correct (or at least close).

Gen. Petraeus talked about bringing troops home next year when he gave his white-wash of a report to Congress this week. Today, news reports are claiming that Bush will soon announce that he will bring troops home next year per Petraeus's suggestions.

This appears to be all a charade because our military will be stretched to its limits by next year, and Bush will be forced to reduce troop numbers in Iraq regardless.

The clueless traditional media seems so eager to report the future troop reductions that they are overlooking the fact that such reductions will occur not by Bush's choice but because Bush has no other options. In overlooking that fact and not reporting on it, the TM is making it seem like Bush IS choosing to bring troops home because he and Petraeus are claiming that the ~~surge~~ escalation has worked and conditions are improving in Iraq.

Of course they're not improving, the ~~surge~~ escalation hasn't worked, and Bush and Petraeus are lying, but the TM is too lazy or too foolish to report that either. Thank goodness we have Media Matters for America to correct the TM:

Myths and falsehoods about progress in Iraq

Summary: Supporters of the Iraq war -- rather than waiting for testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on the effect of President Bush's troop increase in Iraq -- have engaged in a campaign to convince the media and public that progress is being made in Iraq and that the "surge" is "working." Media Matters has compiled some of the most pervasive myths and falsehoods advanced by opponents of withdrawal in service of the "surge is working" message, which many in the media have been complicit in perpetuating.

[...]On the August 20 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume said that "evidence mounts that the troop surge is working as planned." An August 16 editorial in Investor's Business Daily was headlined, "A Surge of Success." And on the August 21 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, U.S. News & World Report editor-in-chief Mortimer B. Zuckerman asserted: "[T]he fact is that, by far, the consensus is that the surge is working." However, by the administration's own standards, the national political reconciliation that the Bush administration identified as essential for the success of its escalation strategy has not occurred.

[...]an August 25 Associated Press article reported that while violence is down in Baghdad "from peak levels ... the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago." Moreover, McClatchy Newspapers reported on August 15 that while U.S. officials have said civilian casualties have decreased in Baghdad, they have "declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don't support the claim."

[...]Statistics compiled by the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count on its website iCasualties.org, which publishes death count totals provided by the Department of Defense, show that more U.S. troops have died in Iraq during June, July, and August this year than the same three-month period in 2003, 2004, 2005, or 2006. The website currently lists the total U.S. death count for this period at 264.

Read the whole article for MMfA's list of myths and their debunking of those myths.

The ONLY way to support the troops, at this point, is to bring them home. Period. Not one more should die for Bush's lies.

Salt Water Power?

2007-09-12T12:59:00.000-04:00

David Sirota points out this interesting article:

Salt water as fuel? Erie man hopes so

Sunday, September 09, 2007
By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For obvious reasons, scientists long have thought that salt water couldn't be burned.

So when an Erie man announced he'd ignited salt water with the radio-frequency generator he'd invented, some thought it a was a hoax.

John Kanzius, a Washington County native, tried to desalinate seawater with a generator he developed to treat cancer, and it caused a flash in the test tube.

Within days, he had the salt water in the test tube burning like a candle, as long as it was exposed to radio frequencies.

His discovery has spawned scientific interest in using the world's most abundant substance as clean fuel, among other uses.

Whether or not salt water could be a viable fuel to replace fossil fuels is yet to be seen. The larger issue here is that there are all kinds of discoveries going on in the scientific world, and we need to support science and research that may lead to green energy and, by doing so, avoiding a global catastrophe from global warming.

To do that, we need to defeat the Republicans in their Global War on Science. Republicans don't support science or green energy (or peace or human rights or privacy, for that matter), and, therefore, they don't support this world. They don't support human life. They don't support you.

So... you know... Don't support Republicans. It's that simple.

2007 September 11

2007-09-11T09:59:00.000-04:00

It's six years after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Does your president know where Osama bin Laden is?

Seriously, it's been SIX YEARS!

Why has Bush been unable to capture him? Only a complete and utter failure of a president and human being could have failed to do so. Either that or Bush doesn't want to capture him. It may be that Bush prefers bin Laden to remain free to be a continuous distraction from Bush's horrific presidency and unconstitutional actions.

The victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks and our country deserve better.

Arctic Ice Melting Faster

2007-09-07T12:08:00.000-04:00

More bad news about global warming for Republicans to ignore or deny while our world falls further into danger because of their ignorance and disdain for truth and science:

NOAA Scientists Say Arctic Ice Is Melting Faster Than Expected

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 7, 2007; Page A06

The Arctic ice cap is melting faster than scientists had expected and will shrink 40 percent by 2050 in most regions, with grim consequences for polar bears, walruses and other marine animals, according to government researchers.

Of course, without all that ice to reflect energy from the sun, the earth will get warmer which will melt more ice which will make the earth warmer which will...

See a pattern? A very destructive pattern?

Net Neutrality = Free Speech

2007-09-07T11:55:00.000-04:00

The politicized and discredited Department of Justice has come out against Net Neutraility. They might as well come out against the 1st Amendment also:

Justice Dept. Opposes Network Neutrality

Associated Press
Friday, September 7, 2007; Page D02

The Justice Department said yesterday that Internet service providers should be allowed to charge extra for priority Web traffic.

The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to network neutrality, the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user.

[...]The public-advocacy group Public Knowledge criticized the Justice Department filing. "It is at odds with reality for a Justice Department that approved the largest telecommunications merger in history . . . to now claim that market forces and antitrust enforcement will be able to protect the free and open Internet," the group's president and co-founder Gigi Sohn said in a written statement.

"Perhaps the Department has forgotten that many consumers have little or no choice at all for their high-speed broadband services."

Not One More!

2007-09-07T10:33:00.000-04:00

Not one more American should die in Iraq. Not one more soldier or marine should die for Bush's lies. Not one more parent, spouse, or child should lose a loved one in an occupation that never should have been started.

I am sick of all the stupid slogans from the Right that debase the argument and deny the truth. I am sick of "cut and run" and "defeatist." I'm sick of all their lies and propaganda. They want to fight with simple slogans and demogoguery? Fine. Here's my stupid slogan: "Not one more!"

I am tired of Democrats not willing to stand up for what the American people elected them to do. I am tired of Democrats being frightened by a presidential administration with 25%-30% approval ratings with insipid claims that they "support the troops" or "we're winning in Iraq." Democrats act like they don't have the support of 70% of the country and they have nothing to fight back with. Well, Democrats, fight back with this: "Not one more!"

I don't want to have to see any more news like this:

U.S. military reports seven troops killed in Anbar, northern Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — Four U.S. marines were killed in fighting in Anbar province, and three were killed by a roadside bomb in northern Iraq, the military said Friday.

Not one more!

I don't want any more capitulation from the Democrats:

Democratically Controlled Congress Stands on the Brink of Irrelevance on Iraq

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted September 6, 2007.

[...]The Democrats are reacting to this charade by conceding the battle before it begins, with Michigan's Carl Levin offering to remove a deadline from the amendment he and Jack Reed, D-R.I., co-sponsored (the deadline was already riddled with loopholes) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offering to "compromise" with Senate Republicans by dropping his already watered-down demand for a spring "withdrawal."

As Dick Durbin, the senate majority whip, told the Chicago Tribune, "When it comes to the budget, I face a dilemma that some of my colleagues do." He opposes the war, but "felt that I should always provide the resources for the troops in the field."

Not one more!

Not one more American should have to die for Democratic cowardice. Not one more should have to die for Republican deceit. Not one more should have to die for Bush's lies and war crimes:

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

Salon exclusive: Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.

By Sidney Blumenthal

On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Not one more!

I am really far beyond fed up with this. I impatiently waited for Magic September, and the thought of the Democratic-controlled Congress giving more money to allow troops to continue to die in Iraq for lies and more lies has put me over the edge.

Not one more!

Tell your Representatives and Senators: Not one more!

And if they don't support "Not one more!", tell them you will support someone else who does (or run against them yourself).

Tell the presidential candidates: Not one more!

Tell the traditional media: Not one more!

Tell everyone: Not one more!

Repeat it over and over again until it becomes entrenched in the mind of every American like all those stupid slogans from the Right that we have to endure daily.

Repeat it until every American troop is safe at home with their families.

NOT ONE MORE!

Bush Knew Iraq Had No WMDs And Lied To Go To War

2007-09-06T17:00:00.000-04:00

This news is huge, but I won't hold my breath while I wait for the traditional media to report on it.

Of course, it isn't really news to those of us on the left who have been saying this all along, but this reinforces our stance that Bush lied us into the war in Iraq. If he had any decency, Bush would resign for this, but since he doesn't, we should impeach him and prosecute him for the war criminal he is.

A diary by Chomskyface called "Bush Knew There Were No WMDs BEFORE Iraq War - New Salon Piece" on DailyKos.com first made me aware of this article on Salon.com:

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

Salon exclusive: Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.

By Sidney Blumenthal

Sept. 6, 2007 | On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

Read the whole article, and tell your friends and family about it. If they aren't outraged, then they aren't paying attention.

Did Bush Escalate So That He Could De-escalate?

2007-09-05T12:55:00.000-04:00

I was reading this post "Magical April" by BarbinMD on DailyKos.com when I had a thought.

Did Bush only escalate our involvement in Iraq so that, when he is forced reduce troop levels in April 2008, he could fool people into thinking that he is working to bring our troops home?

In April 2008, our military will be stretched to its limit, and Bush will be forced to reduce the number of troops in Iraq, and he may try to use that to deceive people into believing that he is making a proactive choice to bring some troops home from Iraq so that they will continue to support his failed policies. His defenders will say, "Look, he's not such a bad guy because he's bringing troops home, and that means we're succeeding in Iraq, and this isn't the worst mistake in the history of American foreign policy after all!"

I am not predicting that this is what will happen for certain, but I am putting this out there in case it does.

The End of Oil?

2007-09-05T12:36:00.000-04:00

I hate to get my hopes up, but this sounds pretty exciting:

Reclusive green-tech startup whispers a eulogy for the battery

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Millions of inventions pass quietly through the U.S. patent office each year. Patent No. 7,033,406 did, too, until energy insiders spotted six words in the filing that sounded like a death knell for the internal combustion engine.

An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 800 kilometres roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline.

By contrast, some plug-in hybrids on the horizon would require motorists to charge their cars in a wall outlet overnight and promise only 80 kilometres of gasoline-free commute. And the popular hybrids on the road today still depend heavily on fossil fuels.

This could mean the end of oil and a major step in the fight against global warming. I hope that this is real and that it moves to the market as quickly as possible.

...oh, and I hope that the oil industry doesn't buy them out.

Culture Of Corruption Continues

2007-09-05T11:33:00.000-04:00

The 2006 elections didn't end the Republican culture of corruption. The investigations continue:

Doolittle Aides Subpoenaed in Probe

By ERICA WERNER – 17 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two of GOP Rep. John Doolittle's top aides have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury investigating ties between Doolittle, his wife and jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The grand jury subpoenas from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia were issued to Chief of Staff Ron Rogers and Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Blankenburg. They were announced on the House floor as Congress returned from its August recess Tuesday after the aides informed the House speaker about the subpoenas, as required under House rules.

Doolittle is under investigation. As is Ted Stevens (R-AK):

Contracts, ties to Stevens probed

By Erika Bolstad and Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating the National Science Foundation's award of $170 million in contracts to the oil-field-services company that oversaw renovations on Sen. Ted Stevens' home, an NSF spokesman said Wednesday.

Veco won a five-year NSF contract in 1999 to provide logistics and support for polar research, although it had no previous experience in that field. During the same time period, Veco's top executive managed renovations that doubled the size of the longtime Republican senator's Girdwood, Alaska, home — the scene of a July 30 FBI search.

Then there is Sen. Vitter's (R-LA) ties to the DC Madam, and Sen. Craig's (R-ID) ties to soliciting an undercover police officer for sex. Other GOP Senators are demanding Craig's resignation, but are pretty quiet about Vitter. That hypocrisy is due to the homosexual nature of Craig's crime. Both Vitter and Craig have admitted to doing something illegal, but the GOP wants Craig to resign because of their wanton bigotry and blatant hypocrisy. I can't figure out if they are too stupid to realize this absurd double standard or too amoral to care.

Regardless, there you have it. The culture of corruption continues, and now that the Democrats are in control of Congress they appear to be too spineless to do anything about it... or about our occupation of Iraq... or about global warming... or about illegal, warrant-less wiretapping... or about a presidential administration usurping power and increasing corruption more than any administration before it... or about much of anything.

I'm glad the Democrats are in control because at least they aren't as bad as the Republicans were for the past decade, but the Dems are still allowing too much to slip by in the form of inaction or caving to pressure. That they allowed the Bush FISA bill to pass is unforgivable. That they allowed the Leslie Southwick nomination past the Senate Judiciary committee is horrific and awful.

The culture of corruption continues, and whether the politicians are guilty of being directly involved with it or guilty of inaction toward shutting it down, the fight goes on. It was a big feat getting the Democrats in control of Congress, but it has become clear to me that it was not enough. We need to continue to set goals that improve upon past accomplishments.

Jonathan Singer at MyDD.com set a goal to elect More, Better Democrats. I would like to set a similar goal to elect more liberals and progressives who have the resolve to end the culture of corruption, stand up for their beliefs, counter the neo-con insanity, get our troops out of Iraq, fight global warming, and work toward single-payer universal healthcare for this country.

I had some hope that when the Democrats took control of congress in January 2007, that there would be some relief from the constant barrage of reasons to fight for a better America. I was wrong.

See, We Don't Need To Violate The Constitution To Fight Terrorism

2007-09-05T10:46:00.000-04:00

The Germans are fighting terrorism without warrantless wiretapping:

Germany arrests three over 'serious and massive bomb plot'

Mark Tran and agencies
Wednesday September 5, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Three men have been arrested for allegedly plotting "massive bombings" greater than the explosions in Madrid and London, German officials said today.
Monika Harms, the German federal prosecutor, said the three suspected terrorists had trained at camps in Pakistan and obtained some 680kg (1,500lb) of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives.

[...]The three suspects first came to the attention of authorities because they had been observing a US military facility at the end of 2006, officials said.

All three had undergone training at camps in Pakistan run by the Islamic Jihad Union, and had formed a German cell of the group. The Islamic Jihad Union was described as a Sunni Muslim group based in central Asia that was an offshoot of an extremist group called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

[...]The website of the German news magazine Der Spiegel said investigators made the arrests yesterday afternoon after the men were observed moving chemicals from one storage place to another.

Global Warming Is Happening

2007-08-08T10:21:00.000-04:00

... and yet the Republicans still deny it and/or refuse to do anything to stop it. Despite this, the MSM still claims that the Republicans are strong on national defense.

How about this, MSM? Republicans are stupid on national defense.

They waste billions of dollars with ineffecient and illogical defense spending like the missile defense system that has failed every test in its history. Then, when it comes to national defense against the damaging effects of global warming, they refuse to spend a dime. They will deny it, ignore it, lie about it, or pretend to care about it, but ultimately the result is the same: nothing gets done.

Well, soon, they will no longer have any constituents who put up with their destructive stalling because everyday more proof of global warming is manifested:

World enduring weather extremes

Wednesday, August 08, 2007Marc KaufmanWashington Post
Washington - A monsoon dropped 14 inches of rain in one day across many parts of South Asia this month. Germany had its wettest May on record, and April was the driest there in a century. Temperatures in Bulgaria reached 113 degrees last month and 90 degrees in Moscow in late May, shattering longtime records.

The year still has almost five months to go, but it has already experienced a range of weather extremes that the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday are well outside the historical norm and are a precursor of much greater weather variability as global warming transforms the planet.

The warming trend confirmed in February by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - based on the finding that 11 of the past 12 years had higher average ground temperatures than any others since formal temperature recording began - appears to have continued with a vengeance into 2007. The WMO reported that January and April were the warmest worldwide ever recorded.

Swifter decline for coral reefs

Coral reefs in the Pacific and Indian oceans are disappearing faster than had previously been thought, a scientific study has shown.

Nearly 1,554 sq km (600 sq miles) of reef have disappeared each year since the 1960s - twice the speed at which rainforest is being lost.

[...]The UN says that a third of the world's coral reefs have already died. By 2030, that figure is predicted to be closer to 60%.

The Democrats Betray Us

2007-08-06T12:45:00.001-04:00

Capitulation.

Capitulation and betrayal, that is what the Democrats have given us, capitualion to the Bush administration and betrayal to the American people.

I really had hope for the first time in a long time when the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in last year's elections.

Now that hope is gone:

U.S. Congress yields to Bush to pass spying bill

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led U.S. Congress yielded to President George W. Bush on Saturday and approved legislation to temporarily expand the government's power to conduct electronic surveillance without a court order in tracking foreign suspects.

Civil liberties groups charged the measure would create a broad net that would sweep up law-abiding U.S. citizens. But the House of Representatives gave its concurrence to the bill, 227-183, a day after it won Senate approval, 60-28.

What was all our work for? Why did we work so hard to elect Democrats into power? I worked to get friends and family members to vote for Democrats, to get them majority control of Congress, because I believed that surely the Democrats would fight to protect the Constitution and our civil rights.

I was wrong.

I feel so hurt and betrayed by this traitorous action. I don't know if I will get over it by the next election. The problem is: if neither Republicans nor Democrats will stand up for the Constitution and our civil rights, who will?

I thought that after the 2006 elections, that this long, national nightmare of rule under the Bush regime would soon be over. I thought that the Bush administration would have to pay for their crimes, and America would see a rebirth of the idea that no man, not even the president, is above the law.

Now, Congress has moved to legalize the crimes of the Bush administration. I have lost all hope. I have lost hope that I will see Bush and Cheney in prison. I have lost hope in my country. I have lost hope in the "Democratic-controlled" Congress. I have lost hope in humanity.

If we cannot even prevent the regression of American idealism, how can we possibly hope to be progressive? How can we possibly hope to stop global warming? How can we hope to gain universal healthcare? How can we hope to eradicate poverty? How can we hope to end pollution? How can we hope to bring peace to the Middle East? How can we hope to restore our good reputation in the world? How can we hope to end the causes of terrorism? How can we hope to restore the rule of law? How can we hope to restore the Constitution?

I'm so sick of this. I feel so sick. I am sick of myself that I dared to have any hope. I am sick that I put my trust in the Democrats to do the right thing and stand up to the evil Bush administration. Sick, sick, sick.

Michael Moore's SiCKO and H.R. 676

2007-07-26T11:51:00.000-04:00

If you haven't already seen Michael Moore's SiCKO, run, don't walk, to a local movie theater that is showing it.

Michael Moore is also issuing a challenge for people to get active on moving our country towards universal health care coverage.

Part of the challenge includes getting a Republican to see the movie. One lucky Republican who sees the movie will win an opportunity to have Michael Moore do their laundry.

Another part of the challenge is to have everyone call their representative in Congress and urge them to co-sponsor H.R. 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act. More information on that is provided at Healthcare-Now.org.

Every other industrialized nation has universal health care coverage, and our country should have it too. Our country needs it. If we are to truly uphold the moral beliefs that we say we believe in, universal health care coverage should be a priority. It is a moral obligation, and a vast majority of the population wants it. It is up to us to demand that our government, which we control, fulfills its role to protect us and sustain equality by providing health care to everyone in this great country of ours.

Global Warming Makes North Pole Swim Possible

2007-07-16T11:48:00.000-04:00

A new mark in the horror of global warming has come to pass:

19 mins, -1.8C: the first swim at the North Pole

Had it been just one degree further down the thermometer, not even the polar bears could have managed what Lewis Pugh achieved in the early hours of yesterday.

Mr Pugh, a maritime lawyer and environmental campaigner from London, swam a kilometre (.62 miles) at the Geographic North Pole to highlight the effects of global warming. At -1.8C (28.76F), it is believed to be the coldest water a human has ever swum in.

Clad only in his Speedo trunks, cap and goggles as required by the rules of the Channel Swimming Association – which also forbid any buoyancy aids, swimming caps that offer any thermal protection or trunks cut above crotch level – Mr Pugh spent just under 19 agonising minutes in the melted sea ice navigating a path in a crack between broken floes.

The feat would not have been possible ten years ago, when the water was entirely frozen over, even in summer.

Pugh is a smart guy. By learning to swim in such harsh conditions, he is really getting ready for the effects of global warming.

That sounds like a solution straight from the Bush administration. They would probably rather teach everyone how to swim than stop global warming because it would be cheaper in their minds.

In reality, it is cheaper to stop global warming than it is to deal with all the damage that it would cause, but, hey, Republicans only care about fiscal responsibility when it supports their politics.

Gonzales Lies Again

2007-07-10T12:04:00.000-04:00

No shock or awe from this story, but still it is good to know the Bushies don't get away with all their lies:

Report: Gonzales Knew of FBI Violations

The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 10, 2007; 2:37 AM

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales received reports detailing legal or procedural violations by FBI agents in the months before he told senators that no such abuses had occurred, The Washington post reported Tuesday.

In April 2005, while seeking renewal of the broad powers granted law enforcement under the USA Patriot Act, Gonzales said, "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse" from the law enacted after the 9/11 terror attacks.

According to the Post, Gonzales had received a least half a dozen reports describing such violations in the three months before he made that statement. The newspaper obtained the internal FBI documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

We really need to impeach Gonzales.

Sen. Vitter (R-LA) On DC Madam's Phone List

2007-07-10T10:05:00.000-04:00

We now pause for a moment in our coverage of the endless string of Bush administration crimes and horrors to bring you latest in Washington, D.C. sex scandals:

Senator's Number on 'Madam' Phone List

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 10, 2007; Page A03

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) apologized last night after his telephone number appeared in the phone records of the woman dubbed the "D.C. Madam," making him the first member of Congress to become ensnared in the high-profile case.

The statement containing Vitter's apology said his telephone number was included on phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates dating from before he ran for the Senate in 2004.

Vitter is another one of those conservatives who is against gay marriage rights.

From Wikipedia.org:

In June 2006, Vitter came out strongly in favor of amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same sex marriages. He said, "I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one ... I think this debate is very healthy, and it's winning a lot of hearts and minds. I think we're going to show real progress."

It is more important for this guy to do something evil like pushing an amendment that would be the first to limit freedom and discriminate against a minority group than solving problems that Americans actually care about like our occupation of Iraq, global warming, or our broken healthcare system. Could someone explain to me why the world is so insane that a guy like this gets elected to the U.S. Senate?!

He doesn't want gay people to have equal rights to the benefits of marriage, but he is free to enjoy those same benefits, which he so easily wants to deny to others, while he abuses his own marriage by committing adultery?

I think that marriage rights should be equally accessible to everyone, but if anyone deserves to be banned from marriage rights, it is adulterers like Sen. Vitter, not homosexuals.

Note To Self: Do Not Trust Bush On Nuclear Power

2007-07-10T09:47:00.000-04:00

Bush keeps promoting nuclear power as "clean" energy, but while nuclear energy may not produce greenhouse gases, only a complete idiot would call it clean energy.

There is just no reason to trust someone on nuclear power when that person can't even pronouce "nuclear."

Bush Administration Is Soft On Terror

2007-07-09T11:54:00.000-04:00

I don't know if this will be the final nail in the coffin of the lie that the Bush Administration is effective against terrorism, but this certainly is one of the nails:

U.S. Aborted Raid on Qaeda Chiefs in Pakistan in ’05

MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, July 7 — A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.

The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.

But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning.

Mr. Rumsfeld decided that the operation, which had ballooned from a small number of military personnel and C.I.A. operatives to several hundred, was cumbersome and put too many American lives at risk, the current and former officials said. He was also concerned that it could cause a rift with Pakistan, an often reluctant ally that has barred the American military from operating in its tribal areas, the officials said.

We are approaching the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the Bush Administration continues to fail to capture the psychopaths who planned those attacks. This story is another example of their monumental incompetence.

An Admission That We Are In Iraq For Oil

2007-07-05T09:46:00.000-04:00

Finally, a conservative in government admits the real reason we are still in Iraq: oil.

Of course this conservative isn't from our government:

Australia 'has Iraq oil interest'

Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has admitted that securing oil supplies is a key factor behind the presence of Australian troops in Iraq.

He said maintaining "resource security" in the Middle East was a priority.

[...]In comments to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Mr Nelson admitted that the supply of oil had influenced Australia's strategic planning in the region.

"Obviously the Middle East itself, not only Iraq but the entire region, is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world," he said.

"Australians and all of us need to think what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq.

"It's in our interests, our security interests, to make sure that we leave the Middle East, and leave Iraq in particular, in a position of sustainable security."

There you have it, folks: A conservative admits the truth about why we are in Iraq.

It is not because we want to spread freedom or democracy. It is because the greedy men in power want oil, and they have sacrificed the blood of the innocent for that oil.

Naturally, this admission wasn't from an American conservative (I'm not going to hold my breath for that to happen), and naturally, this is something we liberals have been saying throughout this tragic debacle.

We have the capability to ween ourselves off of oil and convert to a eco-friendly energy infrastructure, but evil men in power like Bush and Cheney would rather sacrifice the lives of Americans to keep us slaves to the oil industry. They are traitors to this country, and even if they spend the rest of their lives in prison (and they should), it wouldn't be enough of a punishment for all the evil they have wrought.

Bush Stabs Justice In The Back

2007-07-03T10:02:00.001-04:00

Bush has absolutely ZERO credibility left now. He has, once again, proved to be a national disgrace and the worst president ever:

President commutes Libby's sentence

Calls 30-month term for ex-Cheney aide 'excessive'

By Mark Silva
Washington Bureau
Published July 3, 2007

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine -- President Bush, calling the prison sentence for Lewis "Scooter" Libby "harsh" and "excessive," on Monday commuted the 30-month term that had been handed to the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney.

[...]Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice and lying to a federal grand jury in special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity. Libby had spoken with reporters about Valerie Plame, the CIA operative whose husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence in the run-up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Libby was convicted of making conflicting statements to the federal prosecutors and the grand jury investigating the leak.

I can only hope Bush lives long enough to regret this and every other horrific mistake of his failed presidency, but I doubt that, even if he lives a thousand years, Bush will ever understand the evil and damage he has caused our nation and our world. He lacks the mental capacity.

Mars Rovers Keep Going And Going On Solar Power, So Why Can't We?

2007-06-28T17:00:00.000-04:00

This recent article about the Mars Rovers got me thinking:

NASA: Mars rover ready to enter crater

WASHINGTON, June 28 (UPI) -- National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists said the Mars rover Opportunity is ready to descend into that planet's massive Victoria Crater.
The latest trek presents a high degree of risk for the long-lived robotic explorer, but NASA and the Mars Rover science team expect it to provide valuable data.

Although NASA has planned the descent to enable an eventual exit, scientists said Opportunity might become trapped inside the crater or lose some capabilities. The rover has operated more than 12 times longer than its originally intended 90 days.

Now when NASA designed the Mars Rovers, they did not consult ExxonMobil about powering the rovers with fossil fuels. No, NASA wanted something more sustainable and advanced.

It seems to me that we could learn from NASA's good example. The Mars Rovers prove that we have the ability to convert to renewable and enviromentally-friendly energy sources, and the threat of global warming provides the necessity.

What are we waiting for?

Bush's Supreme Court Effectively Overturns Brown v. Board Of Education

2007-06-28T12:35:00.000-04:00

I am so disgusted by this that I cannot write about it right now because I am so upset and shocked (from ThinkProgress.org):

BREAKING: Supreme Court Strikes Down Public School Desegregation Law

Another Bush Administration Criminal: Griles

2007-06-27T12:20:00.000-04:00

I cannot wait for Bush and Cheney to go to jail for their crimes, but until then, we can get some satisfaction from seeing other Bush administration criminals sentenced:

High ranking Bush administration official sentenced in lobbying scandal

WASHINGTON: A federal judge chastised a senior U.S. government official and doubled his proposed prison term to 10 months Tuesday for lying to senators in a lobbying scandal. He was the highest Bush administration official sentenced in the probe.

J. Steven Griles, the Interior Department's deputy secretary, pleaded guilty to obstructing a congressional investigation, but on Tuesday his lawyers tried to deflect blame for his faulty testimony.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle was not pleased.

"Even now you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct," she told Griles before doubling the five-month prison term he and prosecutors had agreed on.

Griles admitted to lying to Senate investigators about his relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the central figure in a corruption investigation that has led to convictions of a former congressman, legislative aides, lobbyists and officials in the Bush administration.

26%!

2007-06-22T12:18:00.000-04:00

I do not regularly write posts about the polls, but I pay very close attention to them by visiting PollingReport.com almost daily. Often, I will look at the job approval ratings for George W Bush and find the average of the five most recent ratings.

Yesterday, I was excited to see a post on DailyKos.com that had a 26% job approval rating for Bush, a new record low for Bush (at least, out of all of the polls that I have seen). Today, I saw that PollingReport.com reported the same Newsweek poll Bush job approval rating of 26% and the disapproval rating of 65%, which is one point away from the record disapproval rationg of 66% from a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from last week.

That NBC/WSJ poll and a Quinnipiac poll had the Bush approval ratings of 29% and 28% respectively. Before those two polls came out, my five poll average had never been below 32%, but after those polls, the average hit a new record low of 31.4%.

Now with the new 26% approval rating, a new record low average has broken the last record in only one week. The new record low Bush job approval rating is (drumroll, please): 29.8%!

This marks the first time that my five poll average of Bush job approval ratings has gone below 30%. That is quite a significant milestone. Similarly, the five poll average for Bush job disapproval ratings has reached a new record high of 64.6%.

With numbers like these and all the news that has been coming out about the Bush administration's illegal activities and unethical behavior, impeachment cannot be far behind. Happy days are here again.

Green Google

2007-06-20T12:39:00.000-04:00

Google is setting a good example to the "old dog" companies who refuse to learn planet-saving new tricks:

Google turns on solar panels, plans $10 million in grants

Google activates the solar panels covering the roof space on its campus and says it will provide $10 million in grants for hybrid cars.

Nancy Gohring
PC World
Tuesday, June 19, 2007; 9:32 AM

Google Inc. on Monday turned on the solar panels covering nearly all the roof space on its corporate campus and announced that its philanthropic arm plans to dole out over US$10 million in grants to support hybrid cars.

The announcements follow one last week made from Google's offices in Mountain View, California that launched an industry-wide initiative around improving the energy efficiency of PCs and servers.

I really need to invest in Google stock. (I hope that, someday, I will be able to afford it.)

PG&E Studies Tidal Power

2007-06-20T12:29:00.000-04:00

I have been talking about tidal power for years. It is long past time for a power company to seriously consider it and move us closer to energy independence and, eventually, an end to global warming.

PG&E backs new study of bay's tidal power

Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

In September, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom held a news conference on the shores of the San Francisco Bay -- the perfect photo op with the iconic Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop -- and announced a plan to study whether it would be possible to submerge giant turbines below the choppy waters as a means of generating alternative energy.

On Tuesday, Newsom stood at the same Crissy Field location in front of the same backdrop and announced another study on how to harness the tides in the bay to create power.

It's the third city-backed study on tidal power in two years

Bush's Assault On The Constitution And The Law

2007-06-20T11:30:00.000-04:00

Bush does not seem to understand what every fifth grader is taught regarding the three branches of government and the checks and balances between them:

'Signing Statements' Study Finds Administration Has Ignored Laws

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 19, 2007; Page A04

President Bush has asserted that he is not necessarily bound by the bills he signs into law, and yesterday a congressional study found multiple examples in which the administration has not complied with the requirements of the new statutes.

Bush has been criticized for his use of "signing statements," in which he invokes presidential authority to challenge provisions of legislation passed by Congress. The president has challenged a federal ban on torture, a request for data on the administration of the USA Patriot Act and numerous other assertions of congressional power. As recently as December, Bush asserted the authority to open U.S. mail without judicial warrants in a signing statement attached to a postal reform bill.

[...]The instances of noncompliance were not as dramatic as some of the signing statements that have caused the most stir, such as Bush's suggestion that he was not bound by a ban on torture in U.S. military detention facilities. But congressional aides said they were significant.

Bush is essentially rewriting laws in violation of our U.S. Constitution. Bush should be impeached, convicted, and imprisoned for this.

Bush's Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds

2007-06-20T10:25:00.000-04:00

If there was an Olympic gold medal for hypocrisy, Bush would win it by an exponential lead:

Bush Threatens To Veto Bill To Allow More Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Washington, D.C. (AHN)- President Bush plans to veto legislation that would have relaxed the ban on federally funded stem cell research.

[...]President Bush has criticized the Democrat-led Congress of recycling a measure he already vetoed, which passed in a Republican-controlled Congress. He said that the bill would mean that taxpayers would be deliberately funding the destruction of human life.

The man has ZERO intelligence if he does not comprehend the incredible, dumbfounding hypocrisy of that statement.

ATTENTION, GEORGE W BUSH: Taxpayers ARE deliberately funding the destruction of human life on DAILY BASIS in IRAQ! Your hypocrisy disgusts me, as it should disgust any human being with at least an ounce of gray matter! You are the worst president ever, and even if you had not broken the law with your warrant-less wiretapping, unconstitutional signing statements, and violations of the Hatch Act, you should still be impeached for your horrific job performance! If you want to value incinerator-bound embryos more than the lives of American troops in your personal life, that's fine, but don't force the rest of us to endure the consequences of your primitive, illogical, and hypocritical ideology!

Miliatary Mental Health

2007-06-19T11:02:00.000-04:00

Add this to the list of ways we are failing to support our troops:

Report finds mental care for GIs lacking

By Renee Nadeau
Sunday, June 17, 2007

The Pentagon on Friday released its latest report on mental health care of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing to light disturbing statistics and shortfalls.

“Our troops give our country their brave service,” Sen. John Kerry said in a statement. “And we owe them the very best care when they come home, including healing the wounds of war, even those that might not be visible.”

The Mental Health Task Force Report found that 38 percent of returning troops show signs of combat stress. Adding to the problem is the stigma attached to mental health care among military members, which discourages many from seeking help. Other findings include the lack of accessible care and resources in the military system.

Magnetic yellow ribbons are not real support, and this is a sign of the hypocrisy by those who, like Bush, claim to support the troops, but do little to actually support them.

More White House Crimes

2007-06-19T10:54:00.000-04:00

Add this to the list of crimes committed by the Bush administration:

Bush aides may have illegally lost e-mail, Dems say

By Andy Sullivan
Reuters
Monday, June 18, 2007; 4:34 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Karl Rove and dozens of other White House staffers appear to have illegally routed official e-mails through a Republican group that subsequently deleted them, a congressional report said on Monday.

By using Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for official business, senior White House aides may have broken a law requiring them to preserve presidential records, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said in an interim report.

Seriously, how many more crimes can they commit before the American public demands impeachment?

Taliban Gaining Ground

2007-06-19T09:59:00.000-04:00

Add this to the list of examples for why George W Bush is a failure and why we should not have invaded Iraq:

Taliban step up attacks in southern Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: Taliban militants overran a district in southern Afghanistan and were pushing for control of another critical area, prompting clashes with NATO and Afghan forces that have left more than 100 people dead over three days, officials said Tuesday.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters raided police posts near the strategic town of Chora in Uruzgan Province on Saturday, forcing NATO, backed by fighter jets, to respond.

Fighting was continuing Tuesday, and some officials reported that there had been dozens of civilian casualties.

The spike in violence has led to a mounting number of civilian casualties, which are sapping support for foreign troops and the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Lieberman Has Lost His Mind

2007-06-13T13:21:00.000-04:00

Joe Lieberman, and anyone else who says that things are improving in Iraq and that we should consider attacking Iran, needs to have a psychiatric evaluation.

Lieberman says strike on Iran is an option

By Associated Press | June 11, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Senator Joseph I. Lieberman said yesterday that the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's alleged involvement in Iraq.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

Lieberman has no proof for these accusations (which the article fails to mention). He is just wildly throwing out accusations and threats like some war-mongering madman (e.g. George W. Bush). Well, Bush isn't fit to be U.S. president, and Lieberman isn't fit to be a U.S. senator.

Problems With VA Bonuses

2007-06-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

VA Acknowledges Problems With Bonuses

By HOPE YEN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The VA on Tuesday acknowledged problems in its award of $3.8 million in bonuses to senior officials who put health care at risk and said it would consider changes to avoid conflicts of interest and improve oversight.

Isn't it funny how they always acknowledge problems like this AFTER the problem occurs?

Seriously, nobody considered this to be a problem beforehand?!

I am not sure that the people who did not think that these bonuses were a problem BEFORE they were given out should be in charge of an institution that is so important to our veterans. They need to be fired... now.

False Memorial

2007-06-13T11:08:00.000-04:00

There is a new memorial in Washington, D.C.:

Questions arise over memorials

Monument selection scrutinized in D.C.

By Leora Falk
Washington Bureau
Published June 13, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The nation's capital, a city of monuments and statues of long-dead warriors and politicians, gained another memorial Tuesday.

This one, however, does not commemorate a specific event or luminary, but rather the terrors of communist regimes. The monument in memory of the millions killed under communist regimes is a 10-foot bronze replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue that student demonstrators erected during the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989.

[...]Lee Edwards, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, said the Vietnamese community in the U.S. was instrumental in helping raise the $1 million needed to build the memorial.

The dedication was the culmination of a 14-year effort. The choice of the Goddess of Democracy "symbolizes both the worst about tyranny and the best about freedom and democracy," Edwards said.

Now... I know what you're thinking: "Bryan, you love democracy and hate brutal regimes that kill millions of people. What can you possibly have against this memorial?"

Well, I am glad you asked. I am not against the memorial itself, but I do disagree with its title "Victims of Communism Memorial." I would argue that there are no victims of "communism," but rather victims of tyranny, oppression, and dictatorships.

Communism is ~~simply~~ basically an economic ideology, not a form of government.

As a political movement, communism was attempted by brutal, oppressive regimes made up of evil people seeking power and wealth (both of which communism seeks to dilute). These people never succeeded in implementing the economic policies of communism because they were only using communism as a pretense to hide their true ambitions. They deceived, pludered, and killed for their own personal gain. They did this not through democracy or the true will of their people; they did this through brutal force and the exploitation of their people's trust.

Communism seeks to advance economic equality for everyone, which is, by itself, a noble sentiment, but the "communists" never sought and therefore never acheived such an ideal.

Communism was not our enemy during the Cold War, but tyranny was. When Joseph McCarthy was seeking to combat "communism," he should have realized this. Perhaps then he would have avoided becoming tyrannical himself.

Tyranny is the enemy of democracy, and tyranny is not exclusive to "communists". It has existed in many forms thoughout human history, and if this memorial is to be a true memorial it should be a memorial for all the victims of tyranny, not just the victims of "communism."

Update (regarding the comment from Anonymous):

Anonymous,

Wow, your hypocrisy beyond is hilarious. How can you so completely misunderstand my point and then call me "stupid" with a straight face? You describe me as "naive" and "ignorant" while failing to comprehend communism, Lenin, Mao, Che, and everything I just wrote.

Here is some advice for you. When making an argument, have some evidence or supporting statements to back it up. Otherwise, your argument is ineffective. If name-calling is your only defense, it really makes you seem unintelligent.

So for the sake of your apparent lack of education and inability to comprehend basic concepts, I will go into greater detail about what I wrote.

Lenin, Mao, and Che may have been considered communists in terms of economics, but they were dictators in terms of politics. True communism supports the idea that the people should control the government, not the other way around. That concept is known as democracy, and it is an idea that Lenin, Mao, and Che discarded from their communist belief system.

Lenin, Mao, and Che were tyrants, and THAT is what made them evil. Even if they had been capitalists, they still would have been evil because they were tyrants. (For example, Hitler was a tyrant but not a communist. He sent communists to concentration camps.)

My point still stands: tyranny is the enemy of democracy, not communism.

I will agree with you that I should not have said "communism is simply an economic ideology," and I have changed the word "simply" to "basically" in my post because that is what I meant to express. Communism is basically an economic ideology, but if you delve deeper, communism is much more complex than that. Wikipedia.org states that communism "is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production." If you want to know more about the complexity of communism, read the rest of the Wikipedia article. For the purposes of this addendum however, I would like to focus on the basics.

If you had taken the time to understand what I was trying to communicate instead of resorting to your narrow-minded Right-wing name-calling, you might be able to make an intelligent argument about why you think communism is not a good economic system.

And I might agree with you because, despite your illogical conclusion that I am a Trotskyist, I am actually not one. I do not think that communism is better than capitalism, and I don't know anything about Trotsky. I actually prefer a well-regulated fair market form of capitalism. (My previous post goes into greater detail about my views on a fair market economy.)

I would like to reiterate, that communism has only ever been attempted by tyrannical regimes that never actually acheived a true communist economy. If everyone in a democracy voted for an economic system that was based on communism, you could disagree with their decision, but you would have to agree that they have the right, in their democracy, to do that. In a free, democratic society they might have a chance of making communism work, but communism has never had a chance to work because it has always been pushed by oppressive dictatorships that ultimately only served the dictators' selfish desires for power and wealth. I am not saying that I think that a communist economy would work; I am just saying that it has not been given a real chance to work.

Lenin, Mao, and Che may have believed that communism was the best economic system, but their governments were dictatorships, and dictatorships are wrong regardless of what ideology they base their economy on. Lenin, Mao, and Che probably thought that their communist intentions or communist ideals were good, but they never could have acheived those ideals, whether they were sincere or not, because their tactics were inherently evil and corrupt. They blocked freedom and forced communism onto people through deception, thievery, and violence, and, as we are seeing in Iraq and have seen throughout history, when you use such tactics to force your beliefs onto people, you get failure.

I have no problem with being against communism as an economic system, and I am not defending it as an economic system. I am trying to correct the historical error that conflates communism with tyranny when they are actually two different things. Again, in human history, communism has only ever been attempted by tyrannical governments, so I understand why that error was made.

However, tyrants are evil regardless of whether they are considered to be communists (Lenin, Mao, and Che) or capitalists (Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Mobutu Sese Seko, King George III, or Jefferson Davis), and both types are enemies of freedom and democracy.

I stand by my statement that this memorial to democracy should honor all the victims of tyranny and dictators, not just the victims of communist tyranny and communist dictators.

Update 2007-06-19 (regarding the comment from Zak):

Zak,

Thank you for your comment. As oppossed to the comment that preceeded yours, your comment actually used thought and reason.

I don't really think that we are in disagreement. I wasn't trying to defend communism. I just think that dictators and their brutality are to be blamed for the deaths of thousands (or millions), not communism.

The aspects of communism that you listed sound like an extremist form of communism. Such an extreme form of communism is obviously inherently flawed and would never work, but I think almost any system would fail if it becomes extremist. (As to whether a moderate form of communism would work, I honestly don't know and don't really care. I am certainly not willing and do not I have the patience to try it and find out.)

An extreme form of capitalism can also be dangerous (as the Great Depression proved). Even freedom cannot be entirely absolute without causing chaos. Absolute freedom would be anarchy, so to combat that we have laws and punishments that limit freedom for the purpose of sustaining order and justice.

The fight between ideologies (just like fights over where to set the thermostat) is seldom one extreme against another. Usually, it is between two different levels of moderate.

However, whether a given form of communism is extreme or not, or whether communism is inherently flawed or not, is not an integral component of the original point of my post that it should not matter whether an genocidal maniac is communist (like Stalin) or not (like Hitler) and all victims of such demons deserve to be memorialized.

I don't care whether a person, a faction, or a state is communist or not, but I care immensely about whether or not they are enslaving, raping, and killing people. I criticize China because of their human rights abuses and extreme restrictions on freedom, not because they are ruled by a communist party. I criticize China as much as I criticize Sudan for genocide in Darfur and Saudi Arabia for torture, brutality and inequality.

If people want to only think memorialize the victims of communist regimes, that is their choice, but I think they risk neglecting the victims of other brutal regimes both past and present. That is how America has ended up supporting many evil and deadly regimes in the past (like that of Saddam Hussein) and in the present (like Saudi Arabia). This hypocrisy and moral ambiguity in American foreign policy might be our biggest flaw, and it leads to horrific consequences and more victims.

We really need to fix this uneven treatment of brutal regimes in both our minds and our foreign policy. Only by consistently condemning all brutal regimes and working through sensible approaches to end them all can we truly memorialize and honor all victims of tyranny.

Poisoned Patriots

2007-06-13T09:56:00.000-04:00

What kind of world do we live in where horrors like this happen?

House Panel Probes "Poisoned Patriots"

Ex-Marines Seek Nearly $4B For Exposure To Chemicals At Camp Lejeune

WASHINGTON, June 12, 2007

(CBS/AP) Marine families who lived at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina over three decades drank water contaminated with toxins as much as 40 times over today's safety standard, federal health investigators said Tuesday.

The government disclosed results from a new scientific study on the same day that some families testified for Congress about cancers and other illnesses they blame on drinking tainted tap water at the sprawling training and deployment base.

The House Energy and Commerce panel on oversight and investigations, which is holding a hearing on the subject, describes the sickened Marines as "poisoned patriots."

Chemicals from a local dry cleaners seeped into Lejeune's water for three decades, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. During that time, 75,000 people lived there and some 20,000 children were born.

I do not know who should be blamed for this tragedy, but on some level we are all to blame. Whoever is directly responsible for this needs to be punished, and we, as a civilization, need to do a better job of ensuring this never happens again. Through our collective power, that is administered through government, we must do a better job of protecting ourselves and our world.

That is why I do not understand the propensity of those on the Right who claim that "goverment doesn't work." They then run for office in government based on that ideology and set about proving their ideology by running government badly. If they fail to make sure government fails, they run the risk of invalidating their own belief system.

Ronald Reagan, the ideological leader of the Right, claimed "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" With that as their mind set, it is no wonder then that when the Republicans had complete control of government for the first six years of this century, they succeeded in making the government dysfunctional.

Capitalism without government regulation and oversight is dangerous. It leads to tragedies like the story above. The conservative and libertarian pursuit of an unrestrained free market and their worship of the "almighty" dollar is hazardous to the health and welfare of everyone.

If unregulated capitalism were a good thing we would not need entities like the FDA, the EPA, and the SEC, but neccessity was the mother of invention for those government agencies. History has proven their worth, but despite this, when Republicans get into power, they do everything they can to diminish the power of those agencies to protect the public.

And the public is still willing to vote for them? This is insane behavior. About half of the public actually buys the Republican lie that says "government doesn't work," yet those same people depend on the government for public services. Roads, police, fire departments, national defense, public schools, and more are needed and used by the public constantly. That is why I do not understand the conservatives' opposition to "socialized" medicine. All the public services that I just mentioned are forms of socialism, yet "socialism" has become some sort of scary word used by Republicans to frighten people away from something that 70% or more of Americans want: socialized medicine.

We have and need public roads, public schools, and public defense; we should have and do need public medicine. It is that simple.

I know that no system is perfect, and certainly government is no exception, but why do Republicans want us to believe that a "free market" is. The only thing that is "free" about a "free market" is the freedom of the wealthy to exploit the health and welfare of the poor to gain more wealth. And "free trade agreements" are just an extension of that practice; they are used by the wealthy to exploit the poor in other countries for greed.

We need to change the debate in this country and in the world so that our ideals are to have a "fair market" supported by "fair trade agreements." Because in a fair market we would have regulations and protections that benefit not just the wealthy but the poor as well.

By exemplifying the ideals of a fair market economy, we can strive to better our country, improve the poor conditions in other countries that lead to war and terrorism, and put an end to the poisoning of patriots.

Mitt Romney: Liar Or Idiot?

2007-06-08T11:50:00.000-04:00

My Mormon mother recently asked me if I would consider voting for the Mormon Mitt Romney for President in 2008.

Let me again reiterate that after eight long and destructive years of George W. Bush there is NO chance that I would even think of considering voting for a Republican in 2008. In fact, after George W. Bush, I may never vote for a Republican for president. Republicans like Nixon, Reagan, and especially George W. Bush have proven to me that Republicans care little for humanity, equality, Christian values, the rule of law, our Constitution, and our country.

But I do not want to get into all that right now. Now, I want to talk about Romney, and why he, in two recent debates, has proven a man like him should never be president. In two short statements, he has cemented my resolve to never vote for him in a million years.

Here is the first one:

Romney: ‘We Ought To Double Guantanamo’

As Crooks and Liars noted , former governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) said tonight that instead of shutting the prison at Guantanamo Bay, “we ought to double Guantanamo,” in part so that detainees “don’t get access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil.”
ROMNEY: I am glad [detainees] are at Guantanamo. I don’t want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil. I don’t want them in our prisons, I want them there. Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo.

Wow, that's crazy!

I mean it is one thing to support Bush when he is down to a 32% approval rating in the polls, but to come out and be MORE evil than Bush while running for president indicates Romney is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.

Romney wants to double that crime against humanity, Guantanamo Bay?! He wants to double that place of evil that is both a symbolic and actual representation of torture, our abuse of human rights, and the degradation of our American values?!

Where are your supposed Christian morals, Romney?!

In my book, wanting to "double Guantanamo" is enough of a dealbreaker, but Romney manages to "double" my disdain for him with this:

Memo to the Media: Mitt Romney doesn’t know “Jack” about Iraq

By: John Amato on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 12:15 PM - PDT

CNN: Romney: Well, it’s a setting that’s almost a null set. Which is, if we knew that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, and if he had complied with the United Nations resolutions to allow IAEA inspectors into his country, we wouldn’t be having this conversation…

This statement by Romney is why I titled this post the way I did, because this statement is blatantly false. Hussein did allow the IAEA inspectors into his country, the IAEA inspectors were in Iraq before the war, and they told us that THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ! So Romney is either a liar or an idiot, and it enrages me that the MSM is letting this slip by.

The CrooksandLiars.com post above goes on to link to Matthew Yglesias for the information that proves that Romney's statement is false, and I will link to it also:

Null Set Blogging, Part Three

Almost a null set, eh? Brian also notes that this is "evidence that he didn't just screw up his Iraq history at the debates on Tuesday, but rather that he's in a constant state of either denial, ignorance, or deception."

On March 7, 2003 Muhammed ElBarradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency told the world, "After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq."

The person who actually ordered the IAEA inspectors to leave Iraq was... (drumroll, please)... George W. Bush! And why did he do that? So that he could begin bombing Iraq.

Does Romney believe Americans have such a bad memory that we would forget all that and believe his inaccurate version of recent history? Well, he may be partially right because the MSM isn't doing its job by rushing to correct him and remove this flagrant deception from the public conversation.

In short, no, I will not be voting for Romney.

I usually take pride in being a Mormon, but deceitful, pro-torture, anti-human rights Mormons like Romney, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and professional bigot Glenn Beck make me ashamed of my religion. (Thank goodness for our Mormon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) who restores some of my lost pride.)

Romney wants to double Guantanamo and lies about Iraq? Hmm. I think we got more than enough of that line of thinking from Bush. We definitely do not need another four years of that from a Bush clone like Romney.

Retrial For Teacher Framed By Spyware Porn

2007-06-07T10:39:00.000-04:00

Common sense gets a second chance to prevail:

Teacher to get retrial over internet porn

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian

A US judge yesterday ordered a retrial of a schoolteacher found guilty of computer porn charges after a sustained campaign by internet specialists proclaiming her innocence.

Julie Amero, 40, was convicted in January of being responsible for a series of sex advertisements that popped up on a classroom computer and were seen by pupils, in a case that has caught nationwide attention and raised important questions about content control on computers.

The prosecution at the trial in Connecticut had claimed she must have clicked on the websites for the adverts to begin appearing. But after the trial, 28 computer science academics in the state sought to prove that the rapid-fire sequence of pop-up sex advertisements could have appeared automatically.

Bush Makes Polluting Easier

2007-06-07T10:22:00.000-04:00

Honestly, does Bush have any shame at all?

EPA makes it harder to protect wetlands

By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration made it harder Tuesday for non-permanent streams and nearby wetlands to be protected under the federal Clean Water Act.

The new guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers requires that for such waters to be protected there must be a "significant nexus" shown between the intermittent stream or wetland and a traditional waterway.

[...]Environmentalists said the new rules will put in jeopardy many of the intermittent streams and headwaters that now fall under the Clean Water Act, and result in less protection of wetlands.

"This guidance adds unnecessary and unintended hurdles for agencies and citizens trying to protect our wasters," said Jan Goldman-Carter, an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation, and she called it a "retreat from protecting many important headwaters streams and wetlands."

Glaciers Flowing Faster

2007-06-06T11:34:00.000-04:00

The WoT and WoD have not made much progress since their inception, but let us check in on the War on Global Warming. There might be some good news there:

Hundreds Of Antarctic Peninsula Glaciers Accelerating As Climate Warms

Science Daily — Hundreds of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula are flowing faster, further adding to sea level rise according to new research published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Climate warming, that is already causing Antarctic Peninsula increased summer snow melt and ice shelf retreat, is the most likely cause.

Using radar images acquired by European ERS-1 and -2 satellites, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) tracked the flow rate of over 300 previously unstudied glaciers. They found a 12% increase in glacier speed from 1993 to 2003. These observations - that echo recent findings from coastal Greenland - indicate that the cause is melting of the lower glaciers, which flow directly into the sea. As they thin, the buoyancy of the ice can lift the glaciers off their rock beds, allowing them to slide faster.

::Sigh:: Or not.

Schlozman On Crossing The Line

2007-06-06T11:09:00.000-04:00

Schlozman says he never 'crossed the line' in hiring at Justice Department

By DAVE HELLING
The Kansas City Star

Former U.S. attorney and current Justice Department lawyer Bradley Schlozman says he never “crossed the line” by asking political views and affiliations of potential employees of the department.

Fortunately for us, he is not the one who decides whether he "crossed the line" or not.

William Jefferson (D-LA) Should Resign From Congress

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

Why?

Why did Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District re-elect William Jefferson? There was a run-off election between Jefferson and another Democrat, and the district could have voted to send the candidate who wasn't under investigation by the FBI, but no, they had to vote for Jefferson.

This is a major, MAJOR problem with American politics. Most people do not pay enough attention until things get really bad like it did with the Republican corruption during their twelve year reign in Congress. That is part of the reason the Democrats were voted into majority control of Congress in 2006. We cleaned up some of the corruption by doing so, but we still need to finish the job regardless of party affiliation. It looks like Congress is heading in that direction by getting the House Ethics Committee involved now that Jefferson has been indicted:

House Approves Speedy Jefferson Probe

The House ordered a speedy internal investigation that could oust indicted Rep. William J. Jefferson from Congress before his bribery trial.

Mindful of anti-corruption sentiment among voters last November, the House passed two resolutions Tuesday that require the ethics committee to investigate charges more quickly than in the past.

Jefferson, meanwhile, resigned his seat on the Small Business Committee in response to his indictment on federal charges of taking more than $500,000 in bribes. Democrats already had moved to take that seat from him. Jefferson admitted no wrongdoing.

I know that, in our country, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, but I have noticed a trend of late regarding indicted members of Congress. The trend follows the pattern of investigation, proclaimed innocence, indictment, resignation from House committee while proclaiming innocence, conviction, and finally, resignation from Congress with apology for crimes they committed. This was the case with Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham. They kept denying and denying and denying, for months, that they are guilty, then all of a sudden, almost overnight, they admit that they were guilty all along.

I wish that we could skip all that with Jefferson. If he is guilty, he should resign from Congress ~~now~~ yesterday, plead guilty, and stop wasting our time. We should not have to endure this prolonged process every time a member of Congress gets caught being corrupt. Additionally, if we do go through this process and Jefferson is found guilty, Jefferson will be a tool of the Right to counter our claim that we are fighting corruption in Congress. In fact, they are already using him to do just that.

If Jefferson is guilty, (and considering the trend, the fact that he was hiding money in his freezer, and that some of his former aides have already pleaded guilty, he probably is guilty) after doing so many things wrong, he should do the right thing and end this now.

Capitulation

2007-05-25T11:18:00.000-04:00

I don't really have anything to say that hasn't already been said, and I am so weighed down by my disappointment with the Democrats in Congress that I don't have the will to say much anyway.

I will, at least, reinforce some points with which I agree:

We voted the Democrats into power in Congress to end the war in Iraq, and their capitulation to Bush and his desire to continue the occupation in Iraq yesterday goes beyond betrayal. What kind of democracy do we have when 70% of the public wants to end our occupation in Iraq and our President and our Congress act in opposition to the will of that 70%?

For all our politicians' claims of supporting "democracy," they sure have a hypocritical way of showing it.

More Proof of Global Warming

2007-05-17T11:48:00.000-04:00

How much more proof do we need before deceivers like Glenn Beck stop denying the truth?

Vast Regions Of West Antarctica Melted In Recent Past, NASA Finds

Science Daily — A team of NASA and university scientists has found clear evidence that extensive areas of snow melted in west Antarctica in January 2005 in response to warm temperatures. This was the first widespread Antarctic melting ever detected with NASA's QuikScat satellite and the most significant melt observed using satellites during the past three decades. The affected regions encompass a combined area as big as California.

MoveOn.org Petition For General Batiste

2007-05-16T07:26:00.000-04:00

CBS fired General Batiste for making a commercial in which he criticizes George W. Bush's handling of Iraq. If he had made a commercial that supports Bush, the hypocrites at CBS would never have considered firing him. It part of the "IOKIYAR" double standard.

MoveOn.org is fighting back with a petition:

Subject: Help Stop Censorship at CBS

Hi,

Remember when shock-jock Don Imus used racist and misogynistic terms to refer to a women's college basketball team? Well, it took CBS two weeks to fire him for that but it only took them TWO DAYS to fire a respected General from Iraq for speaking out against the president on the war.

CBS shouldn't be censoring or firing people for speaking their mind. I signed a petition urging CBS to re-hire General Batiste -- can you join me at the link below?

http://pol.moveon.org/batiste/?r_by=10331-5988583-D8WKFt&rc=paste

There's more information on the firing on that page, too.

Thanks!

Global Warming Worse Than We Thought

2007-05-02T10:36:00.000-04:00

It may seem like every war waged by George W. Bush has been a prolonged disaster, but there is one war he wages that is going extremely well and is ahead of schedule: The War on Ice.

Arctic ice cap melting 30 years ahead of forecast

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent | May 1, 2007

WASHINGTON --The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.S. ice expert said Tuesday.

This means the ocean at the top of the world could be free or nearly free of summer ice by 2020, three decades sooner than the global panel's gloomiest forecast of 2050.

No ice on the Arctic Ocean during summer would be a major spur to global warming, said Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Center in Colorado.

"Right now ... the Arctic helps keep the Earth cool," Scambos said in a telephone interview. "Without that Arctic ice, or with much less of it, the Earth will warm much faster."

That is because the ice reflects light and heat; when it is gone, the much darker land or sea will absorb more light and heat, making it more difficult for the planet to cool down, even in winter, he said.

Middle East Update

2007-04-30T10:13:00.000-04:00

How are things going in the Middle East?

U.S. April death toll in Iraq passes 100

By Kim Gamel, Associated Press Writer | April 30, 2007

BAGHDAD --Five U.S. military personnel were killed over the weekend in Iraq, including three by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, the military said Monday, pushing the American death toll past 100 in the deadliest month so far this year.

Iraq reconstruction 'not working

Six out of eight Iraqi reconstruction projects hailed as successes by the US government are in fact failures, a US federal investigation has found.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Sigir) examined works including a hospital, a barracks and Baghdad international airport.

Blaming ongoing unrest and spiralling corruption they said most were falling apart within as little as six months.

Faulty plumbing and wiring and looting have reportedly worsened the situation.

Corruption amongst Iraqi officials is cited as one of the main causes for the chaos.

According to the report $5bn is lost annually to the fraud and abuse which "afflicts virtually every Iraqi ministry", particularly the oil, interior and defence ministries.

Anti-US rallies follow deadly raid in Afghanistan

Civilians killed in attack on militants

By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press | April 30, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A US-led raid yesterday on a suspected militant cell killed as many as six Afghans, including a woman and a teenage girl, and spawned protests by hundreds of angry Afghans chanting "Death to Bush!"

The United States said four militants were among the dead, but it was the civilian deaths that infuriated the protesters, who carried five bodies to a main highway and blocked traffic with felled trees during the demonstration. The bodies of the women were entirely covered by sheets, while the men's faces were revealed.

"Their operation was based on incorrect reports, and they carried out a cruel attack on these houses," resident Akhtar Mohammad said at the protest. "We are not the enemy, we are not Al Qaeda. Why are they attacking us?"

Republican Track Record

2007-04-26T10:38:00.000-04:00

I usually write for my blog whenever something inspires me, but sometimes I get inspired to write yet find myself speechless. Fortunately, when that happens, I usually come across another writer's words that say exactly what I would write if I was not stumped.

This time Hunter on DailyKos beautifully articulates my feelings about Rudy Giuliani's recent suggestion that if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, then we will be more susceptible to more attacks like 9/11:

Not Breaking: Rudy Giuliani Is A Fearmongering Jackass

[...]Yes. If a Republican is elected, they can "anticipate" terrorist attacks. You know, perhaps because staff members with their "hair on fire" are warning them of the high risk of terrorist attacks. Perhaps because staff members are trying to educate them in vain about a recent ongoing history of terrorist attacks. Perhaps because somebody practically staples a memo to the Republican President's forehead dramatically entitled, in a large and bolded font, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S." MAYBE SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

[...]I was pondering over this last night, as a matter of fact, so let's think about this for a minute. Under six years of President Bush, there have been major terrorist attacks on two American cities, public-safety-threatening electricity blackouts artificially created by major energy corporations in an effort to extort the recipients of that electricity, deficits that have reached crisis proportions, criminal indictments of Republican congressmen nationwide and even of Republican White House staffers, one of Americas "crown jewel" cities was in large part destroyed and its population turned into refugees battling a national government response that ranged from incompetent to absent, the defacto suspensions of habeas and other Constitutional rights, the international diplomatic isolation of America, and there have been two major wars, both ongoing.

I recommend reading the whole post.

I honestly do not understand how the numbers between potential presidential candidates in polls are even close between the opposing political parties. I look at everything... EVERYTHING that has happened during Bush's terms, and I cannot fathom how anyone could even consider voting for another four years of a Republican presidency. (Then again, I cannot fathom how anyone voted for Bush in 2004 after they had four years to experience his incompetence.)

Some moderates may claim, "Oh, all politicians are the same." They are wrong. That might have been true twenty or fifteen years ago, but it just is not true anymore.

I used to be a moderate and an independent before George W Bush became president. From the moment the Supreme Court installed him as president over the will of the majority of the American people, I knew his presidency would be terrible. Even before his inadequacies as a leader became so blatantly obvious, before he even took the oath of office (which he has broken countless times since), I never imagined he could ever be re-elected. Then he not only proved to be the very definition of incompetent but also proved to essentially be an evil dictator.

Because of Bush:

we were attacked on 9/11

we invaded Iraq because of lies.

we did not finish our job in Afghanistan.

we did not capture Osama bin Laden.

we are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

we have not properly aided the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

we have record deficits and a record national debt.

we have a shrinking middle class.

we have prolonged the fight against global warming.

we have an increase in terrorism worldwide.

we are viewed negatively by the rest of the world.

we are responsible for Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and other examples of torture and abuses of human rights.

we have the Jack Abramoff scandal.

we the fired US Attorneys scandal.

we have the Valerie Plame scandal.

we had the Enron scandal.

we have evil men like Cheney and Rove in positions of power.

we have incompetent men like Gonzales in power.

we have corporation advocates overseeing their own industries.

we have had corporations writing the laws that affect them.

we have our troops held hostage by a President who ignores the public which he is supposed to work for.

we have an White House that ignores reality and the rule of law.

we have seen an increase in poverty.

we have seen an increase in job-killing Free Trade Agreements.

we have seen an increase in CEO pay benefits and an decrease in pay and benefits for everyone else.

we have an extreme right-wing Supreme Court.

we have a Supreme Court who has begun to dismantle Roe v. Wade at the expense of women's health.

we have had illegal wiretapping of Americans.

we have had illegal searches of our phone records.

we have had the Geneva Conventions violated by the White House.

we have had our Constitution violated by the White House.

we have had the right to habeas corpus violated by the White House.

we have had the breakdown of our system of checks and balances.

we have the most criminal and unethical White House in our nation's history.

The list just goes on and on, and after all that has happened in the last several years, how anyone could even think of voting for another Republican president is beyond insanity.

Giuliani and the other Republican presidential candidates cannot offer any positive change or reform because they agree with almost everything the Bush administration has done.

I cannot take another Republican presidency after Bush. Our country cannot take... cannot afford another Republican presidency after Bush.

We need to restore our country to what it once was, and no current Republican candidate is willing to do that.

All politicians are not the same, not anymore. Things are so unbalanced these days that I do not recognize my country anymore.

Could you imagine if a Republican was arguing against habeas corpus and for torture twenty years ago? They would not be in politics anymore if they did that twenty years ago, but today they can be Attorney General or Vice President.

Everything has been so unbalanced these last several years. I would expect the current political climate from an episode of the Twilight Zone or some Orwellian story, but not in reality in America in the 21st century.

I want my country back.

(I guess I was not so speechless afterall.)

Update: Olbermann did one of his impressive Special Comments on this topic and CrooksandLiars.com has the video. Watch it.

President Bush Is Against Democracy

2007-04-20T11:33:00.000-04:00

Bush is (once again) a hypocrite (h/t to ThinkProgress.org):

House Approves A Full D.C. Seat

A bill giving the District its first full seat in Congress cleared the House yesterday, marking the city's biggest legislative victory in its quest for voting rights in nearly three decades.

Democrats on the House floor burst into applause, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) grabbed the arms of the District's nonvoting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, as the 241 to 177 vote was announced.

"There was nothing but joy in the chamber this afternoon, because we knew we had given this bill the kind of send-off that can get it through the Senate," Norton (D) said later.

But the bill faces considerable obstacles. Democrats don't appear to have enough votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster, and the White House has threatened a veto. If the measure becomes law, it probably will be challenged in court.

Bush is a liar and a hypocrite when he says he is wants to spread democracy, but he refuses to spread democracy IN HIS OWN COUNTRY!

This bill would give a voting rights to the congressional representative in Washington, D.C. and, to make things "fair", give Utah an additional seat in the House of Representatives. However, I would contend that because it is unfair and unjust that residents of D.C. have no current representation with voting rights then simply giving them a voting representative would make it fair; you should not have to give Utah an additional seat.

I am happy that this effort was made to give D.C. residents a voting representative in Congress, but I am disappointed with its inadequacy. D.C. residents are Americans, and as such, they deserve represenatation in Congress equal to what all other Americans have. That means they need to be represented by one Representative in the House of Representatives and two Senators in the Senate. Period.

Now, I know no Republican in Congress or the White House is going to allow the strongly Democratic constituency of D.C. its own set of Senators and most are hesitant to even allow D.C. a voting Representative, but that is no excuse to punish residents of D.C. by denying them the rights given to all other Americans. It is a blatant form of voter fraud and morally reprehensible to deny D.C. residents Congressional representation because of their party affiliation, and the Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for continuing this unethical practice.

At the same time, I am not satisfied with this current bill, and I think we should do more than what it proposes. My solution would be to allow D.C. residents to be represented by and to vote for the Senators of another state (preferably a bordering state) and another congressional district (preferably a bordering congressional district). Then there would be no need to create any new seats in Congress or to have to spend any more tax dollars on such seats or their staff. It does not matter whether their represenatation comes from more than one state as long as they have the same amount of representation that all Americans are due.

Denying Americans their right to full representation in Congress is morally wrong. After over 200 years of this violation of our democracy, it is time we make amends.

It Is Over For McCain (and Gonzales)

2007-04-20T09:30:00.000-04:00

I would now like to reiterate my belief that John McCain has lost the election:

Bomb Iran, sings US candidate

REPUBLICAN 2008 presidential candidateJohn McCain crooned the words "Bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann in a joking response to a question about any possible US attack over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program.

"That old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran ... bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb," the Vietnam War veteran warbled softly to the band's Barbara Ann when he was asked when the United States would send an "airmail message" to Iran.

It's bad enough when some ignorant racist makes this joke, but when a candidate for the President of the United States (the person who can decide to bomb a country) makes this joke (especially when they are campaigning), their candidacy is over.

It might be over for Alberto Gonzales too. I listened to most of his testimony to the Senate yesterday, and it did not sound good. He is a disgrace. He should have resigned as soon as his testimony ended. Of course, someone who promotes torture and thinks the Geneva Conventions are quaint never should have become Attorney General in the first place, but such is life in the Twilight Zone-like world of the Bush administration.

Not even the Republican Senators on the committee could defend Gonzales except for Senator Hatch (R-UT) who is an incredulous hack and Senator Kyl (R-AZ) who cowardly and absurdly changed the topic to "internet gambling." Is Kyl insane? Our country is experiencing some very serious Constitutional and ethical violations from the executive branch, and all he cares about is internet gambling?

Thanks a lot, Arizona. Reelecting Kyl in 2006 was a great idea![/sarcasm]

In The Mix

2007-04-16T11:48:00.000-04:00

I saw some interesting posts today that I did want to mention briefly.

From DailyKos:

Here's the Friday News Dump -- Abstinence Only FAILS

by pontificator

Fri Apr 13, 2007 at 01:40:15 PM PDT

So, the Bush administration releases, late on a Friday, a government report showing that abstinence-only education programs have utterly failed to stop teens from having unprotected sex, or indeed from having sex at all

The Mahablog (via CrooksandLiars.com) eviscerates Fred Thompson's use of Pres. Calvin Coolidge's tax cuts to support the baseless, conservative lie that tax cuts grow the economy:

Shameless Hustles and Tax Cuts

One of the triumphs of the Coolidge Administration was the passage of his tax program in 1926; the photograph shows him signing it. The Coolidge program “repealed the gift tax, halved estate taxes, substantially cut surtaxes on great wealth, and reduced income taxes for all,” it says here. The photo is dated February 26, 1926. Assuming that is accurate, We Now Know that the Stock Market Crash of 1929 was only slightly over three years and seven months away. The Great Depression followed soon after.

Paul Wolfowitz Scandal

2007-04-13T12:50:00.000-04:00

I would write something about the Paul Wolfowitz scandal, but I could not possibly do a better job than this post on DailyKos:

Sex, Lies, and Wolfowitz

by Devilstower
Fri Apr 13, 2007 at 07:23:39 AM PDT
Even the most hackneyed of Hollywood schlockmeisters wouldn't dare to reuse a plot so often. Iraq. Katrina. The story is always the same. It starts with some vaguely formed plan that, while it may be packed in words we usually think of as good (freedom, democracy, etc.) lacks any real substance or detail. Said plan is then executed with blind arrogance, and a stiff-necked insistence that reality must be ignored until it can be made to conform with the goals. And while the rest of the world is forced to smash its nose against the fantasy, those in charge bumble on with the confidence that their vision is so innately superior that they can act as they will.

No one executes this script like Paul Wolfowitz. As the chief architect of Iraq policy, Wolfowitz was "certain we will be greeted as liberators." His plan called for us to march along flower-strewn streets wearing crowns of laurel leaves, watch as Iraqi's renamed their capital Georgebushdad, and ride the tidal wave of freedom that would sweep the Middle East. Funny thing is, that's still the plan. One of the core concepts of any neocon fantasy is that if at first you fail, just keep putting more people in harm's way until the bad guys tire of killing them. 100,000 U.S. casualties, maybe a million dead Iraqis. Then comes the flowers, just you wait and see.

After failing upward into the leadership of the World Bank, Wolfowitz launched a crusade against corruption.

The rest of the post goes on to dissect the neo-con way of thinking and how Wolfowitz abused his power to benefit his girlfriend.

[...]Having secured for his girlfriend a job at the State Department where the World Bank treated her to a $193,000 tax free salary (which is, by the way, greater than that of Condoleezza Rice), Wolfowitz's credentials as a fighter of corruption are now on par with Kim Jung Il's bona fides for pushing democracy.

He's followed the neocon script to the letter. Launch a quixotic but laudable-sounding quest, disregard how your actions may be harming the people you are supposedly helping, and demonstrate your disdain for the rules as they apply to yourself. Truly, nobody does it better.

I strongly recommend reading the whole post. ThinkProgress.org also has some good stories on Wolfowitz.

And can I just mention how much it sickens me that Wolfowitz got his girlfriend a raise of over $60,000 (from $132,660 to $193,590 tax free). I wish I could make $60,000 a year, but this woman got a raise of $60,000! That's almost a 46% raise! I am not gay nor am I remotely attracted to Wolfowitz, but I can understand why it would be tempting to date him.

Republican Hypocrisy On Stem Cell Research

2007-04-12T11:34:00.000-04:00

There is good news and bad news on the issue of stem cell research. The good news is that the Senate voted for funding it. The bad news is that Bush will veto it, and while an override seems close, it ultimately may be out of reach:

Senate OKs stem cell bill; veto likely

WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted Wednesday to ease restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research, ignoring President Bush's threat of a second veto on legislation designed to lead to new medical treatments.

The 63-34 result was four votes shy of the margin needed to enact the measure over presidential opposition.

If the three Democrats (Dodd (D-CT), Johnson (D-SD), Landrieu (D-LA)) who abstained from voting, were to vote to override Bush's expected veto, that would bring the tally to 66-34, one vote away from an override. And if one of the two Democrats (Casey (D-PA), Nelson (D-NE (I am very disappointed in them)) or any of the Republicans who voted against this bill switch their vote for the override (very unlikely), then Bush's veto would be moot (if the House overides it too). However, that is a lot of "if"s, and I do not think that all that will happen.

Federal funding for stem cell research will probably be delayed until after Bush leaves office. As for the Republicans who voted against this, they are are now in for a tough fight to keep their seats, especially those with elections in 2008. Just so I do not forget who they are, here is the list of Republicans who voted against this bill. I'll put a "*" next to the ones whose seats are up for election in 2008 (at least as far as I can remember right now):

Allard (R-CO)*
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Chambliss (R-GA)*
Coburn (R-OK)
Coleman (R-MN)*
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)*
Craig (R-ID)*
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)*
Domenici (R-NM)*
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)*
Graham (R-SC)*
Grassley (R-IA)
Hagel (R-NE)*
Inhofe (R-OK)*
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Martinez (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY)*
Roberts (R-KS)*
Sessions (R-AL)*
Shelby (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)*
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)

The senators who voted against federal funding for stem cell research may feel that they have done the right thing, and I can respect that. However, I also strongly believe that their votes are inherently immoral, and, if they claim to be "pro-life", their vote is hypocritical. I, and many others who feel the same, will strongly campaign against them for this.

Stem cell research has the potential to save lives, and the embryos that would be used for stem cell research will instead be incinerated. They will never have a chance to become a human life, so those who are against stem cell research because they claim it destroys human life are either lying or misguided.

Claiming to be "pro-life" and being against stem cell research is hypocrisy, and on top of this hypocritical "pro-life" position on stem cell research, there is this:

"This legislation crosses a moral line that would use taxpayer dollars to destroy human embryos, and that's a moral line the president said he would not cross, and for those reasons he would veto this bill as well," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

I strongly disagree with those who voted against this stem cell research bill and feel their reasons for doing so are greatly flawed, but I can, at least, understand why those reasons exist. What I do not understand and what makes me immensely irate is the hypocrisy of stating that using taxpayer dollars to "destroy human embryos" crosses a moral line while simultaneously USING TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO DESTROY ACTUAL HUMAN LIVES IN IRAQ! Why do "pro-lifers" like Bush think it is acceptable use taxpayer dollars to destroy American and Iraqi lives? "Pro-lifers" tend to equate embryos with human lives, but by their own ridiculous logic, they seem to value embryos more than our troops.

Additionally, the premises of their argument are aggravatingly false. "Pro-lifers" would not save any embryos from destruction by preventing stem cell research, and their hair-splitting differentiation over the "morality" of whether an embryo is destroyed for stem cell research or just plain destroyed is absurd and, given the potential of stem cell research, possibly deadly.

Bush and his followers may be "anti-stem cell research", but their claim of being "pro-life" is a joke, and it is hypocrisy.

The Occupation Of Iraq Getting Worse, Not Better

2007-04-12T09:37:00.000-04:00

Every day we get more and more bad news about the situation in Iraq, and everyday we get someone from the White House (or McCain or Lieberman) to say how great things are in Iraq. So who are we going to believe, them or our own eyes?

Well, let's see, in my almost thirty years of life my eyes have never lied to me. Politicians, on the other hand, do not have such a trustworthy reputation.

I think I am going to go with what my own eyes are telling me, and from what the polls are showing, around 70% (give or take) of Americans also are believing their eyes rather than the White House's lies.

As for the other 30%, well, they might be a lost cause, but that does not mean we should give up hope. We must continue to speak out against politicians like Senator John McCain everytime he lies about Iraq like this:

McCain firm on Iraq war

WASHINGTON -- Attempting to restart his flagging presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain delivered a dark and detailed portrait of the situation in Iraq as he assailed Democratic opponents of the war in an address at the Virginia Military Institute on Wednesday.

He maintained that the military has made "measurable progress" in securing Baghdad and fighting insurgents in Anbar province, an assertion that has drawn ridicule from war opponents. At the same time, the Arizona Republican said, "to deny the difficulties and uncertainties ahead is an egregious disservice to the public."

[...]"Will this nation's elected leaders make the politically hard but strategically vital decision to give Gen. Petraeus our full support and do what is necessary to succeed in Iraq?" McCain said. "Or will we decide to take advantage of the public's frustration, accept defeat and hope that, whatever the cost to our security, the politics of defeat will work out better for us than our opponents? For my part, I would rather lose a campaign than a war."

Politics of defeat? How about the politics of delusion, McCain?

Everything McCain and Bush and their ilk are saying about Iraq is based on lies. Every argument for invading Iraq was a lie, and the lies continue. Bush did not begin a "surge" in Iraq; he started an escalation. The situation in Iraq is not getting better; it is getting worse. This is not a "war"; this is an occupation. The war was over when four years ago when Baghdad fell. This is an occupation that Bush has escalated because things were getting worse, and that has not changed despite the escalation:

Red Cross: Iraqi Situation Getting Worse

GENEVA (AP) - Millions of Iraqis are in a ``disastrous'' situation that is getting worse, with mothers appealing for someone to pick up the bodies on the street so their children will be spared the horror of looking at them on their way to school, the international Red Cross said Wednesday.

[...]Medical professionals also have been fleeing the country after cases where their colleagues were killed or abducted, the group said in a 13-page report. ``Hospitals and other key services are desperately short of staff,'' Kraehenbuehl said. ``According to the Iraqi Ministry of Health, more than half the doctors are said to have already left the country.''

The report, ``Civilians without Protection: The Ever-Worsening Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq,'' was produced over the past two to three weeks, a spokesman said - well after the stepped-up American-led military operations in the capital began Feb. 14.

[...]``Once I was called to an explosion site,'' it quoted a young Baghdad humanitarian worker named Saad as saying. ``There I saw a 4-year-old boy sitting beside his mother's body, which had been decapitated by the explosion. He was talking to her, asking her what had happened.''

That news is horrible enough, but today, insurgents were able to attack members of the Iraqi parliament within the Green Zone, the most heavily protected area in all of Iraq. This is solid proof that things are getting worse:

Explosion hits Iraqi parliament; 2 dead

BAGHDAD (AP) — A bomb exploded in the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone Thursday, killing at least two lawmakers and wounding 10 other people.

The blast in the parliament building came hours after a suicide truck bomb blew up a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.

The bomb in parliament went off in a cafeteria while several lawmakers were eating lunch, media reports said. In addition to the two dead, state television said at least 10 people were wounded.

If that does not convince the other 30% of the populace that still believes the Bush administration that they are being lied to, then I do not know what will. Maybe this:

Army Extends Iraq Tours to 15 Months

WASHINGTON (AP) - Stretched thin by four years of war, the Army is adding three months to the standard yearlong tour for all active-duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, an extraordinary step aimed at maintaining the troop buildup in Baghdad.

The change, announced Wednesday by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is the latest blow to an all-volunteer Army that has been given ever-shorter periods of rest and retraining at home between overseas deployments.

Or this:

Report: Claims Reveal Toll of U.S. Wars

NEW YORK (AP) - Iraqi and Afghan civilians have received more than $32 million in compensation from the Army for noncombat-related killings, injuries and property damage, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The details of hundreds of the claims, obtained from the Army by the American Civil Liberties Union through a Freedom of Information Act request, offer a glimpse into the daily violence that has marred the lives of civilians in both war zones.

And these are just the stories from today.

The ratio of these reports on the worsening situation in Iraq per day are horrifying. I am amazed that anyone still supports this war, but 30%?! That is beyond absurd.

Our military occupation of Iraq must end now.

The White House likes to call us defeatists, but they have already been defeated in the public's perception here and abroad. The majorities of both Americans and Iraqis want our troops out of Iraq.

The White House likes to question our patriotism. Well, I question theirs with their insulting and immoral penchant to lie daily to the American people, sacrifice our soldiers for Bush's "glory", waste our hard-earned money, risk our economic stability, exploit Iraq for greed, and destroy the Iraqi people.

This is an escalation of conflict, not a surge. The situation in Iraq is getting worse, not better. This is an occupation, not a war. Occupations cannot be won or lost, but they do end. Occupations end when the occupiers decide to leave or when the occupiers eliminate everyone who wants them to leave.

I would prefer it if we just leave.

Rendering The Electoral College Obsolete

2007-04-11T12:03:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, I get the feeling that some people believe that the founding fathers of our country were incapable of making mistakes. (I usually get that feeling whenever I hear or read something Justice Scalia said.) Many times, people use the founding fathers as an excuse or "support" for their beliefs as if the founding fathers were human infallible.

Now, I truly appreciate that the founding fathers have us the incredibly strong foundation upon which a great country was built, but to think of them as infallible is just infantile. Their misguided, racist, misogynistic views on race and gender allowed for deplorable policies like the continuation of slavery, the hypocritical three-fifths compromise, the mistreatment of native americans, the denial of women's suffrage, and the second-class citizenship of anyone who wasn't a white, male landowner.

While there have been many successful attempts to correct the mistakes of our founding fathers throughout our nation's history, there are still problems they created that have not yet been rectified. Two of these problems are blaring failings in our devotion to democracy. These failings are the Electoral College and the denial of representation in the House of Representatives and in the Senate for the citizens of Washington, D.C. (Washington, D.C. does have a Congressperson in the House of Representatives, but that position does not have the ability to vote in Congress.)

Fortunately, there are organizations who are trying to correct these inadequacies in our democracy, and in Maryland, progress was made in rendering the Electoral College obsolete (As for the D.C. issue, visit DCVote.org for more information on their campaign to support voting rights for Americans in D.C.):

Maryland sidesteps Electoral College

ANNAPOLIS, Md. --Maryland officially became the first state on Tuesday to approve a plan to give its electoral votes for president to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the candidate chosen by state voters.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, signed the measure into law, one day after the state's General Assembly adjourned.

The measure would award Maryland's 10 electoral votes to the national popular vote winner. The plan would only take effect if states representing a majority of the nation's 538 electoral votes decided to make the same change.

If our country was a true democracy, the Electoral College would not exist, Gore would have won the 2000 election without any need for a recount, and Bush would not have become president. Unfortuately, even though the Electoral College system is unfair, unpopular, and not democratic, ridding oursleves of it would take a Constitutional amendment which would be very difficult to pass because Republicans think that fair elections will hurt their chances in presidential elections. I do not know why they think fair elections will hurt them, but what does it say about a party if they are against fair elections?

Hopefully, enough states follow Maryland on this issue, and then we can bypass the Electoral College entirely. Then, perhaps, we will prevent another disastrous presidency like that of George W. Bush.

U.S. Known For Torture Because Of Bush

2007-04-10T12:50:00.000-04:00

I remember a time, before George W. Bush was President, when my country, the United States of America, was considered a champion for human rights.

Now, thanks to Bush, we are known for torture. We are known for Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and denying habeas corpus in violation of our own U.S. Constitution.

And those who claim to have been tortured cannot seek justice:

Judge Rejects Padilla Torture Argument

MIAMI (AP) - A federal judge refused to dismiss terrorism charges against Jose Padilla over claims that the alleged al-Qaida operative was tortured in U.S. military custody, removing one of the last major obstacles to the start of his trial next week.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke stressed in a 12-page order filed late Monday that she was not passing judgment on the torture allegations. Rather, she said the effort to dismiss the case for ``outrageous government conduct'' was faulty on legal grounds.

Padilla's lawyers claim that during the 3 years Padilla was held as an ``enemy combatant'' at a Navy brig he was routinely subjected to harsh treatment and torture.

And it becomes harder to deny stories like this (whether they have merit or not):

Iranian Diplomat Alleges CIA Torture

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - An Iranian diplomat freed two months after being abducted in Iraq accused the CIA of torturing him during his detention, state television reported Saturday. The United States immediately denied any involvement in the Iranian's disappearance or release.

Jalal Sharafi, who was freed on Tuesday, said the CIA questioned him about Iran's relations with Iraq and assistance to various Iraqi groups, according to state television.

``Once they heard my response that Iran merely has official relations with the Iraqi government and officials, they intensified tortures and tortured me through different methods days and nights,'' he said.

Sharafi's comments came a day after 15 British sailors released by Iran said they had been subject to psychological pressure and coercion in captivity. The sailors were captured in the Persian Gulf on March 23 for allegedly entering Iranian waters and released Wednesday.

What does it say about our country and our world when Iran has a better reputation in the world for how it treats its prisoners? I am not saying that those reputations are correct or fair, but this is America and there should be NO reason to doubt that we do not torture.

However, thanks to the Torturer-in-Chief, Bush, and his sidekick, Alberto "The Geneva Conventions Are Quaint" Gonzales, there is a devastatingly large amount of doubt.

Bush stole my country, and I want it back.

Another FOX Debate Bites The Dust

2007-04-10T12:23:00.000-04:00

Edwards, Obama, and Clinton are out of the Fox ~~News~~ Propaganda Channel debate:

Obama, Clinton to Skip Fox-Backed Debate

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will not participate in a Democratic debate co-hosted by Fox News Channel this fall, campaign aides indicated Monday.

The decision by the two Democratic presidential candidates follows an announcement last week by John Edwards, another White House contender, that he would forgo the Fox event.

The Sept. 23 debate, set for Detroit, is co-sponsored by the cable news network and by the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute.

Without Obama, Clinton and Edwards, however, Fox and the CBC institute would be missing three of the marquee contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination.

F"N"C has been legitimized for far too long by the Democratic targets of the F"N"C attacks, and killing a second F"N"C debate is a good start to rectifying that mistake.

Naturally, I think that Democrats should take this further and freeze out F"N"C entirely. I cannot imagine Dick Cheney agreeing to a one-on-one interview with Air America Radio, so why do Democrats think that it is okay to go on Fox?

Bush Defines Hypocrisy

2007-04-09T12:55:00.000-04:00

This just makes me sick:

Bush Prays for Peace at Easter Service

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - President Bush prayed for peace Sunday at an Easter service during a visit to an Army post that has sent thousands of soldiers to war in Iraq.

"I had a chance to reflect on the great sacrifice that our military and their families are making,'' Bush said outside the chapel after the service. ``I prayed for their safety and I prayed for their strength and comfort, and I prayed for peace."

Bush's warmongering has led to the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and he has the audacity to pray for peace!

He dares to pray for peace when he is the reason we went to war in Iraq! He is the reason there is civil war in Iraq now! He is the reason we are still in Iraq today!

As the President of the United States, it's not like prayer is his only option for making peace.

Actions speak louder than words, and his prayer for peace seems unapologetically hollow to me. It is the very definition of hypocrisy.

Can such a man possibly have a soul?

Everyone Wants Us Out Of Iraq Except Bush And The Bushies

2007-04-09T11:08:00.000-04:00

Americans want to get out of Iraq. Iraqis want us out of Iraq. The rest of the world wants us out of Iraq. Only Bush and his like-minded band of reality-deniers want us to stay.

The sky is blue, but Bush says it is orange, and his followers must agree that the sky is orange or else every argument they have ever made crumbles like the sand upon which they are built. It does not matter how wrong the argument is. The Bush chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so every delusional statement Bush makes must be held as absolute truth or else the chain breaks.

The situation Iraq is getting worse, but Bush says things are getting better in Iraq, so Bushies must believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Iraqis want us out of Iraq, but Bush says Iraqis want us to stay, so Bushies have to accept that Iraqis want us to stay. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Our presence in Iraq is an occupation, not a war, but Bush says our presence in Iraq is part of the Global War on Terror, so Bushies have to believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Iraq is in a civil war, but Bush says it is not in a civil war, so Bushies must believe that Iraq is not in a civil war. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Bush has ruined Iraq for oil and greed, but Bush says we are there for freedom and protection, so Bushies must believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Our troops are dying for Bush's lies and so that he can save face, but Bush illogically says we are fighting terrorists who would "follow us home" if we left Iraq, so Bushies must believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

The best thing for us to do is leave Iraq, but Bush says we must stay, so Bushies must believe that we must stay. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

We should not have invaded in Iraq in the first place, but Bush says we were right to invade Iraq, so Bushies must believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Hussein was not an immediate threat to us, didn't have WMDs, wasn't building nuclear weapons, and wasn't connected to 9/11, but Bushies have a hard time accepting all of that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush had no reason for failing to get Osama bin Laden, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush is doing a poor job at fighting terrorism, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush is violating human rights and torturing detainess, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush is breaking the law and lying about it, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush is lying about Global Warming, outing a CIA agent, warrantless wiretapping, firing US attorneys, Jack Abramoff, abstinence-only education, voter fraud, Iran, engergy independence, Halliburton, propaganda leaks, manipulation of pre-Iraq War intelligence, tax cuts for the rich, the national debt, the economy, privatization, healthcare, Medicare Part-D, immigration, free trade agreements, trading deficits, the cost of the war, no-bid contracts, the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, corporate welfare, tax cuts for rich oil companies with record-breaking profits, Walter Reed, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and pretty much everything the Bush administration has ever been involved in, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush should not be president and should be impeached and removed from office.

That is why Bush and the Bushies refuse to back down on Iraq. Their house of cards would come crashing down.

Well, it is long past time for the cards to fall because the sky is blue, not orange, and the situation in Iraq is getting worse:

Baghdad a ‘deadlier battleground.’

For American troops, Baghdad has become a “deadlier battleground” since President Bush implemented his escalation plan. “The rate of American deaths in the city over the first seven weeks of the security plan has nearly doubled from the previous period.” According to the Iraq Coaltion Casualty Monitor, U.S. casualties since the beginning of the escalation have been “running at 3.14/day, which is the highest of any period since the end of major combat.”

And Iraqis want us out of Iraq:

Iraqis protest to mark Baghdad's fall

BAGHDAD --Tens of thousands draped themselves in Iraqi flags and marched peacefully through the streets of two Shiite holy cities Monday to mark the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall. Demonstrators were flanked by two cordons of police as they called for U.S. forces to leave, shouting "Get out, get out occupier!"

Security was tight across Iraq, with a 24-hour ban on all vehicles in Baghdad starting from 5 a.m. Monday. The government quickly reinstated the day as a holiday, rescinding its weekend order that had decreed that April 9 no longer would be a day off.

The Najaf rally was ordered by Muqtada al-Sadr, the powerful Shiite cleric who a day earlier issued a statement ordering his militiamen to redouble their battle to oust American forces, and argued that Iraq's army and police should join him in defeating "your archenemy."

There go the first two of Bush's arguments that I listed. The rest are being disproven on a daily basis in old media (newspapers, networks) and new media (political websites, blogs). The Bushies are losing the foundation for their ignorance and stubborness. Soon, they will have to accept that the sky is blue.

Bush's Press Conference Beatdown

2007-04-04T12:01:00.000-04:00

I heard Bush's press conference on NPR yesterday. He really sounded like he was on the ropes and he only had weak lies to fight back with.

For the most part, Bush sounded like he was answering different questions then the ones the reporters asked. It was typical, but still disappointing.

Bush conflated lack of support for his war with lack of support for the troops. It is such a blatant misrepresentation of the debate that I don't understand why the press doesn't burst out into laughter when we does this. Which of these options shows support for the troops: continuing to send troops to die for a pack of lies, or bringing our troops home to their families? Democrats, liberals, and progressives support the troops, but that doesn't mean we have to support Bush or his war based on lies.

Bush kept telling us to give the ~~surge~~ escalation a chance to work. Meanwhile, things have gotten only gotten worse since the escalation began. How bad are things going to be when the escalation reaches its pinacle?

David Gregory asked a good question about Congress doing what the voters voted them into power to do, get out of Iraq. Bush claimed that the American people don't want to pull out of Iraq, and only some Americans are against the war. Could he be any more in denial? The polls have been showing for some time that the majority of Americans don't want Bush's ~~surge~~ escalation and they don't want the ~~war~~ occupation to continue. Bush is lying about this, ignorant of this, or both. In any case, it is just one more thing to add to the already astoundingly huge list of things that Bush is wrong about.

Bush said Congress should not tell generals how to conduct the war. Please! The only reasons we have the generals we have now is because Bush fired the ones who disagreed with him. How is firing generals until you get only generals who agree with you different from "telling" generals how to conduct the war? Bush's logic is also flawed in that our Constitution was set up so that the government is in charge of the military, not the other way around. And thrice Bush's logic is flawed in that Congress is not telling generals how to conduct the war, they are trying to end the war PERIOD. Ending the war does not tell the generals how to conduct it. If Congress ends the war, there is no war for the generals to conduct.

Bush brought up the tired and stupid talking point that if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will attack us at home. There are so many things wrong with that talking point that it basically amounts to a lie. Terrorists have already tried to attack us at home, so Bush's argument that fighting them "over there" means that we don't have to fight them "over here" is inherently and ridiculously false. Additionally, American troops are being killed by insurgents in Iraq who just want us out. I don't agree with the insurgents' methods, but if we leave Iraq, we remove their reason for killing American troops. There is no reason that the insurgents would attack us at home. The terrorists will try to attack us whether we are "over there" or at home. If we end their ability to attack us "over there", we will save American lives, and we can protect ourselves better at home.

He also stated that terrorists already attacked us on 9/11 so that he could deviously conflate Iraq with 9/11. First of all, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush has admitted that, but he still lies via conflation by always using 9/11 to defend his decision to invade Iraq and stay in Iraq. Second, the terrorists were able to attack us successfully on 9/11 because of Bush's incompetence and inaction. The August 6, 2001 PDB proves this. Bush should have been "fighting the terrorists over here" all along to prevent 9/11. Bush failed to fight the terrorists "over here" in 2001 because he wasn't focused on that, and now, he still isn't focused on that. He is focused on Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no ability to attack us at home. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda on the other hand had both, and they are still running free.

Bush warns about what would happen if we left Iraq, but there is no reason to believe his warnings now when all his past warnings about Iraq proved to be lies. He warns that Iraq would fall into chaos. Iraq is already in chaos, but he is too deceitful to admit it or too stupid to realize it. He warns that Iraq would become a haven for terrorists. It already is, but it was not a haven for terrorists before we invaded. It was Bush who made Iraq a haven for terrorists through his incompetence. If he had let Iraqis rebuild Iraq instead of Halliburton, we would not have so many unemployed, disgruntled, and angry Iraqis to become insurgents and terrorists. Bush also warned that terrorists would follow us home, but, as I mentioned earlier in this post, the insurgents just want us out and the terrorists are already trying to attack us at home. Bush also warned that setting a date for withdrawal, we would embolden the terrorists. They are already emboldened. They attempt to attack us at home and abroad. If they are not emboldended now, then what are they? If anything our invasion of Iraq has emboldened and encouraged more people to become terrorists. Cheney claims that ending the war in Iraq would validate the terrorist stategy, but he has been wholly deceived. The terrorist strategy is to increase their numbers and power by igniting a war that would cause more people in the Middle East to sympathize with the terrorists and become terrorists themselves, and Cheney and Bush have done nothing put play into the terrorists' hands by giving them exactly what they want. The Bush administration are the ones who have been validating the terrorist strategy.

Honestly, how can Bush be so wrong about everything? How can he be so wrong about everything and still be president? I already think he should be impeached for actual crimes he has committed, but shouldn't we be able to impeach him for his uninterrupted WRONGNESS!

If Clinton had committed half the crimes and been wrong about half the things Bush has, I would have supported impeaching him. In fact, the Republicans impeached Clinton (who was acquitted) for way less than what Bush has done. Why aren't the same Republicans willing to impeach Bush? Why the hypocrisy? If anything, their unwillingness to impeach Bush is proof that the impeachment of Clinton was nothing more than an insidious, dishonest, politically-motivated partisan attack.

Bush has forgotten that he is not the "decider." The American people are the "decider." The Constitution starts off with "We the people" not "I Bush." The people are in charge of this government. We are in charge. We are the boss. Bush has chosen to ignore the people. Bush has chosen to ignore reality. It is long past time for "We the people" to exercise our control over our government and remove Bush from power.

Boycott Glenn Beck

2007-04-04T10:37:00.000-04:00

Glenn Beck is an evil, homophobic racist, and I as a Mormon, I am ashamed that he considers himself to be Mormon despite the fact that his intolerance and his hateful views violate many Mormon and Christian standards.

It is because of Glenn Beck that I refuse to watch CNN or CNN Headline News, but apparently this personal boycott of mine is not moving CNN towards firing him, even though Media Matters for America has cited many of Beck's statements which would have gotten almost anyone else fired.

There is just something about right-wing extremists (like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael "Savage" Weiner, and Glenn Beck) that the traditional media just can't get enough of even though the same extremists despise or even threaten the traditional media. Limbaugh proves himself to be a racist again and again, but he still makes disgusting amounts of money. Hannity is just an outright liar (he still claims Iraq had WMDs when we invaded in 2003), and he is still working. Coulter finally got some much deserved flack for calling John Edwards a "faggot," but there are still many papers that carry her column. Weiner should be committed or even jailed for his hate speech and death threats, but he still enjoys having his own radio show. Then there is Beck with his hate-filled radio show and his CNN show of intolerance.

If any politician had said the things these people have said, they would probably no longer be an employed politician, so why are right-wing extremist commentators still employed?

I know the answer is money (the question is rhetorical). Listeners = ratings = advertising dollars. What I don't understand is why people listen in the first place. Do so many people really hate the truth so much that they would rather be lied to by Limbaugh than know the truth? Are so many people really so racist or homophobic that they enjoy listening to Beck? If that is the case, then I am extremely disheartened. Those people have entered an endless loop where their own lies and intolerance are reinforced by the lies and intolerance of the media they adhere to. Reaching those people may never happen.

However, we can reach the advertisers. Perhaps the listeners do not mind being associated with racism, sexism, or homophobia, but advertisers usually have a problem with such associations. Many advertisers pulled out from Ann Coulter's website after many people complained to them about supporting someone who used a homophobic slur.

I now realize that not watching CNN is not enough to get them to fire Beck. (Apparently, low ratings aren't enough either.) I need to boycott those who advertise on Beck's show. I realized this after ThinkProgress.org pointed out this blog, My Two Sense, and its Glenn Beck Boycott. If you are interested in supporting the boycott, click the link.

Whether the boycott is successful or not, it feels good to at least try. We may not be able to get bigots like Beck off the air, but at least we can choose not to help pay for them to stay on.

Tillman Death And The Web Of Lies

2007-03-28T13:16:00.000-04:00

Oh, what a tangled web Bush weaves.

Honestly, this may have no direct connection to Bush, but Bush has created and supported a system of deceit and lies. This merely follows along with the narrative of mendacity for the most dishonest White House since Nixon:

Officer probe demanded in Tillman case

Anger in Congress over possibility of cover-up in death

(03-28) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Members of Congress from both parties, angered by findings of an Army investigation into the 2004 friendly fire death of football star and Army ranger Pat Tillman, called on Tuesday for hearings to explore if top officers covered up the circumstances of his death.

The quick congressional reaction followed the release Monday of a Pentagon probe into Tillman's death and its aftermath that showed repeated bungling during initial military investigations and a pattern of keeping his family in the dark about how the 27-year-old Bay Area native died April 22, 2004, in Afghanistan at the hands of fellow American soldiers.

"I am disgusted, and that's the word I would use, that officers would try to cover up the truth,'' said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., a House Armed Services Committee member. "Anyone in a leadership position in the military who would cover up the truth should resign. I cannot imagine how the family would feel.''

Tillman was a true patriot, and he did not deserve this deceitful treatment by false patriots.

I do not care whether the Bush administration was directly involved in this or not because ultimately it was the Bush administration's policies of pathological lying, systematic propaganda, and covering-up the truth that set the stage for this and countless other scandals and disgraceful acts from the outing of a CIA operative to Abu Ghraib to Mark Foley to the political firings of US Attorneys.

I and many others have pointed out the many lies of the Bush administration many times, so I am not going to write another list right now. I think it is sufficient to mention that I would have a hard time coming up with a list of things that they have been right about or told the truth about.

Remember in 2000 when Bush said he was going to "clean up the White House". Well, when does he plan on starting that "clean up"? Because after spending all his time in office on making a mess out of... well, everything and bringing unprecedented digrace upon the White House (yes, even more disgrace than Monicagate), I imagine his "clean up" pledge is going to take a lot more time than he has left in his term. Or did he not mean for us to take "clean up the White House" figuratively?

The Civil War In Iraq

2007-03-28T13:05:00.000-04:00

The civil war in Iraq continues despite Bush's ~~surge~~ escalation:

At least 45 dead after police officers go on killing spree in northern Iraqi town

BAGHDAD---- Off-duty Shiite policemen enraged by massive bombings in the northern town of Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents there on Wednesday, killing at least 45 men execution-style, police and hospital officials said.
The policemen began roaming the town's Sunni neighborhoods on foot early in the morning, shooting at Sunni residents and homes.

A senior hospital official in Tal Afar said at least 45 men between the ages of 15 and 60 were killed with a shot to the back of the head and four others were wounded. He spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

But Joe Lieberman still claims Iraq it is not in a civil war. My question is: Is Joe Lieberman a liar or unintelligent or both?

John McCain vs. John McCain

2007-03-28T12:44:00.000-04:00

It was not too long ago that McCain seemed likely to be the next Republican presidential nominee. Now, it seems like he has lost his mind (from ThinkProgress.org):

Faced With Facts, McCain Denies His Own Straight Talk

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told CNN that that President Bush’s escalation in Iraq is going so well, “General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee.” On Monday, he told radio host Bill Bennett that there “are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today.”

This morning, during an interview with McCain, CNN’s John Roberts rebutted McCain’s assertions, stating, “I checked with General Petraeus’s people overnight and they said he never goes out in anything less than an up-armored humvee.” He added that a new report by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey “said no Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat reporter could walk the streets of Baghdad without heavily armed protection.”

Faced with overwhelming evidence that he was wrong, McCain denied he’d ever said it: “Well, I’m not saying they could go without protection. The President goes around America with protection. So, certainly I didn’t say that.”

The MSM might criticize McCain by speculating that he might be too old to be president. However, I do not have a problem with his age. What I have a problem with is that McCain is (1) in denial about the reality in Iraq and (2) in denial about the reality of what he said ONE DAY EARLIER.

After Bush, the last thing this country needs is another reality-denying president. McCain is out of the race as far as I am concerned. I do not think that even Republicans will support another delusional (or deluding, depending on your outlook) candidate. I highly doubt that McCain will win the GOP's nomination.

Money Wasted In Iraq

2007-03-22T10:27:00.000-04:00

I hate being right all the time:

Iraq Reconstruction Audit to Be Released

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. government must learn from its multi-million-dollar mistakes of poor contract oversight and bad planning in its Iraq reconstruction effort or risk repeating them there and elsewhere, investigators say.

The audit released Thursday by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, is the first to list in one place the series of mistakes, delays and missed opportunities in a four-year-old Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has cost taxpayers nearly $400 billion.

Characterizing the U.S. effort as chaotic and poorly managed, Bowen found the Bush administration's rebuilding effort riddled with problems - from a lack of strategy and unclear lines of authority to confusion and disarray between the Defense and State Departments.

I am not only angry because of this story. I am also angry because this is just another example of the countless ways we liberals were right but ignored regarding the war in Iraq.

Bush was WRONG about EVERYTHING. We were RIGHT about EVERYTHING. When are people going to, instead, start listening to us and stop listening Bush?

Universal Healthcare Saves $$$

2007-03-20T10:10:00.000-04:00

This is what I have been trying to tell you:

Universal health plan could yield savings

WASHINGTON -- Expanding government health insurance coverage to all Americans could reduce healthcare spending by as much as $60.7 billion a year, according to a study by a nonpartisan research center.

The estimated savings would include a $33.9 billion cut in the cost of prescription drugs, the New York-based Commonwealth Fund said in a report yesterday . The organization evaluated proposals introduced in Congress in recent years, including some that would allow everyone to enroll in Medicare, the government health insurance program that now serves older Americans and the disabled.

Liberals and progressives have been saying this for years. When are the so-called conservatives going to start conserving money and join us in supporting a universal health care plan.

Japan Continues To Lie About Sex Slaves

2007-03-16T11:23:00.000-04:00

Japan is really making me irate with this:

Japan Finds No Evidence of WWII Sex Slavery

The Japanese government has found no evidence that the military or the government forced women to work in World War II military brothels, the Cabinet said in a statement to a lawmaker Friday.

The declaration coincided with moves by conservative lawmakers to investigate the issue and soften a 1993 government apology for pressing thousands of woman to work as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers in Asia.

Seriously, why don't they just come out and say that World War II never happened? If they are going to deny one historical fact about WWII, then they might as well deny the whole thing.

Why don't they just deny the attack on Pearl Harbor or the rape and slaughter of the people of Nanking or Unit 731? Denying any one of those events would be just as ridiculous.

Where is Japan's sense of respect and decency? Where is their sense of honor? Japan's government is like a little child who lies to cover up something the child did that he knew was wrong when he did it and doesn't want anyone to know what he did. In doing that, they are making the horror of their crimes worse. If they had any decency, honor, or respect they would own up to their crimes, apologize, and try to make some restitution. Instead, they commit these disgraceful acts of denial.

Could you imagine if Germany's government denied the Holocaust or if the U.S. government denied the enslavement of Africans? There would be such enormous outrage and a strong uproar outside and inside their countries that such governments would be quickly replaced. Why isn't this happening in Japan?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe must resign, and any members of Japan's government who supports the denial of Japan's history of sex slavery must also resign. Japan's citizens must demand their resignations if they want to restore their country's humanity.

I realize that there probably are not a lot of Japanese people who will read this, but I refuse to be silent when I see this sort of injustice. We are all on this planet together, so it is important that we work together to promote justice and equality. That is why we must speak out against things like genocide, racism, apartheid, terrorism, and war. We cannot be idle or silent when injustice occurs whether it is in Japan or Sudan or anywhere.

Soros Fights TB

2007-03-15T13:25:00.000-04:00

Wow, Soros is helping to fight disease and poverty and using his wealth for good. You can really see why Bill O'Reilly thinks he is the spawn of Satan.[/snark]

Soros urges action against drug-resistant TB

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Health experts fear some of the success in managing Africa's HIV epidemic could be undone if donors ignore highly drug resistant tuberculosis, which is proving a serious threat to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Hoping to set an example, billionaire philanthropist George Soros announced $3 million in seed funding for a pilot project in the tiny southern African kingdom of Lesotho to develop a centre of excellence to research and treat virulent TB strains.

Soros, founder of the Budapest-baed Open Society Institute, said his donation was a call for urgent action and to encourage donors to add funds to help mitigate a looming health crisis.

Another Gap In Theory Of Evolution Is Filled

2007-03-15T13:20:00.000-04:00

The fundamentalist Christians hate when this happens:

Paleontologists Discover New Mammal From Mesozoic Era

Science Daily — An international team of American and Chinese paleontologists has discovered a new species of mammal that lived 125 million years ago during the Mesozoic Era, in what is now the Hebei Province in China.

The new mammal, documented in the March 15 issue of the journal Nature, provides first-hand evidence of early evolution of the mammalian middle ear--one of the most important features for all modern mammals. The discovery was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

"This early mammalian ear from China is a rosetta-stone type of discovery which reinforces the idea that development of complex body parts can be explained by evolution, using exquisitely preserved fossils," said H. Richard Lane, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences, which co-funded the discovery with NSF's Division of Environmental Biology and its Assembling the Tree of Life (AToL) program.

[...]The researchers discovered that the skull of Yanoconodon revealed a middle ear structure that is an intermediate step between those of modern mammals and those of near relatives of mammals, also known as mammaliaforms.

Record Deficit For 5th Straight Year

2007-03-15T13:16:00.000-04:00

Bush continues to talk about how well our economy is doing and live in his own fantasy world despite news like this:

Trade deficit reaches a record high for the fifth straight year

WASHINGTON - The deficit in the broadest measure of trade hit an all-time high in 2006 and for the first time the United States even ran a deficit on investment income.

The Commerce Department reported that the imbalance in the current account jumped by 8.2 percent to $856.7 billion, representing a record 6.5 percent of the total economy. It marked the fifth straight year the current account deficit set a record.

Investment flows turned negative by $7.3 billion from a surplus of $11.3 billion in 2005. It was the first time investment income has been negative on records going back to 1929. That means foreigners earned more on their U.S. holdings than Americans earned on their overseas investments.

While the U.S. has run deficits in its trade in goods every year since 1976, until last year it had still been able to record a surplus in investments.

Conrad Black On TrialWill He Pay George Will To Defend Him?

2007-03-15T12:40:00.000-04:00

Conrad Black is in trouble:

Ex-Press Lord's Fraud Trial Set to Begin

Former media baron Conrad M. Black's racketeering and fraud trial to get under way with defense lawyers seeking jurors who won't turn sour over his Park Avenue condo, antique Rolls Royce and expense-account vacation on the Pacific island paradise of Bora Bora.

And who is he, you ask?

[...]Black, 62, may no longer be chairman and chief executive of the sprawling Hollinger International newspaper empire, but he still commands attention from reporters, scores of whom are in Chicago to cover the trial.

[...]Hollinger once owned the Chicago Sun-Times, the Toronto-based National Post, The Daily Telegraph of London and the Jerusalem Post, as well as hundreds of community newspapers. The Toronto, London and Jerusalem papers have been sold and the company name has been changed to Sun-Times Media Group.

Black is charged with selling off hundreds of community newspapers and pocketing millions of dollars in payments from the buyers in exchange for promises not to compete in the markets where the newspapers circulated.

[...]Black also is charged with tapping the Hollinger till to pay for a vacation on Bora Bora, use of the company plane and most of a $62,000 birthday party for his wife, conservative writer Barbara Amiel Black.

He is not only married to one conservative writer, but he has personally employed another:

George Will’s Ethics: None Of Our Business?

Media Beat (1/1/04)

By Norman Solomon

[...]Late December brought to light a pair of self-inflicted wounds to the famous columnist’s ethical pretensions. He broke an elementary rule of journalism — and then, when the New York Times called him on it, proclaimed the transgression to be no one’s business but his own.

It turns out that George Will was among a number of prominent individuals to receive $25,000 per day of conversation on a board of advisers for Hollinger International, a newspaper firm controlled by magnate Conrad Black. Although Will has often scorned the convenient forgetfulness of others, the Times reported that “Mr. Will could not recall how many meetings he attended.” But an aide confirmed the annual $25,000 fee.

Even for a wealthy commentator, that’s a hefty paycheck for one day of talk. But it didn’t stop Will from lavishing praise on Black in print — without a word about their financial tie.

Can't we take away Will's Pulitzer Prize or something for that? Why are news organizations continuing to pay him after such a breach of journalistic ethics?

What is it with conservatives and financial corruption? Do you have to be financially corrupt to be a successful wealthy conservative or are there just an enormous amount of coincidences?

Well, maybe Black will be punished for his unethical behavior even if Will is not.

Justice For 9/11?

2007-03-15T11:29:00.000-04:00

So this happened:

Al-Qaida No. 3 Says He Planned 9/11

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed portrayed himself to a U.S. military tribunal as al-Qaida's most ambitious operational planner, taking responsibility for planning and supporting 31 terrorist attacks, topped by 9/11, according to an account of his confession.

[...]"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement read Saturday during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed's confession was read by a member of the U.S. military who is serving as his personal representative.

[...]The military barred reporters or other independent observers from the sessions for the 14 operatives and is limiting the information it provides about them, arguing that it wants to prevent the disclosure of sensitive information.

Legal experts have criticized the U.S. decision, and The Associated Press filed a letter of protest, arguing that it would be "an unconstitutional mistake to close the proceedings in their entirety."

I do not believe that anyone doubts that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is guilty of being a terrorist and guilty of planning and supporting terrorist acts that include 9/11. That is why the Bush administration's decision to try him in secret is all the more confusing.

There was no need to torture him and try him in secret without legal representation and without habeas corpus. They could have conducted a completely open, fair, and legal trial under the presumption of innocence and still have convicted him.

What good is "justice" if we commit injustice in seeking it? What good is it to fight terrorism if we intentionlly or unintentionally use terrorist tactics like torture, starting wars based on false premises, or killing innocent civilians in the process?

I think that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is an evil man and deserves to be punished for his crimes, but not at the price of our humanity. I try hard to be a good person based on my Christian beliefs and to not be a hypocrite. That is why I feel that this "confession" by Mohammed is a bittersweet event. Bush is not a good Christian and he is a hypocrite, and I have lost all trust in him and his administration to be morally upstanding in their prosecution of Mohammed or any "enemy combatant". To them the ends justify the means no matter how evil or unethical the means are.

How do we know this confession wasn't obtained through torture and coercion? The Bush administration has given us no reason to trust them; they have lied or been wrong about everything.

The "end" of Mohammed being punished for his crimes holds a far lesser value if the means to that end include evils like torture, secret trials, and unconstitutional behavior. If Bush and his administration were doing what is right, they would have no need to hide their works, but they know that what they are doing is wrong, and that is why they feel the need to hide what they are doing.

By the way, while we are on the topic of seeking justice, it has been FIVE AND A HALF YEARS since 9/11, and Osama bin Laden has not been captured.

NY Times Gives Platform To Global Warming Distorters

2007-03-15T10:21:00.000-04:00

The "liberal" New York Times published a blatantly biased attack piece on Al Gore and his movie An Inconvenient Truth. RealClimate.org does the debunking (so that I can be lazy):

Broad Irony

The first rule when criticizing popular science presentations for inaccuracies should be to double check any 'facts' you use. It is rather ironic then that William Broad's latest piece on Al Gore plays just as loose with them as he accuses Gore of doing.

We criticized William Broad previously (Broadly Misleading) for a piece that misrepresented the scientific understanding of the factors that drive climate change over millions of years, systematically understating the scientifically-established role of greenhouse gases, and over-stating the role of natural factors including those as speculative as cosmic rays (see our recent discussion here). In this piece, Broad attempts to discredit Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" by exaggerating the legitimate, but minor, criticisms of his treatment of the science by experts on climate science, and presenting specious or unsubstantiated criticisms by a small number of the usual, well-known contrarians who wouldn't agree even if Gore read aloud from the latest IPCC report.

This RealClimate.org article is really good. Click the link. Read the whole article. Educate yourself. It is worth it.

If the NY Times were really liberal or had higher journalistic integrity they would not have printed Broad's right-wing propaganda. To recompense for this error, they should retract Broad's article and print the RealClimate.org article.

That probably won't happen, but that is why the real liberal media, the countless liberal and progressive blogs (like mine), are trying to restore truth and balance.

Truth has a liberal bias as Stephen Colbert would say. While he was being ironic, many on the Right have, whether ignoranly or deliberately, come to that absurd conclusion, and decades of the Right repeating "the liberal media" myth has turned that myth into a religion for right-wingers and an influential scare tactic to the traditional media. By incessantly claiming the traditional media has a liberal bias, the Right has managed to pull an already balanced media off to the right. Through that and other similar tactics, they have moved the entire political debate further to the right by deceitfully demanding that the Right is the Center, the Center is the Left, and the Left is crazy and outside the mainstream.

Such deceit has wrought heavy damage to our country to the point that there became a need for blogs like DailyKos, MyDD, TalkingPointsMemo, Firedoglake, ThinkProgress, CrooksAndLiars. They, in turn, inspired many, many smaller blogs like mine. Our numbers are growing, and as our cause grows we will acheive success in repairing the political damage to our country and, eventually, the environmental damage to our world.

Texas House Loves Cancer And STD

2007-03-15T10:07:00.000-04:00

I am glad I don't live in Texas anymore:

TX House Votes to Override Vaccine Order

AUSTIN — The Texas House approved a bill Tuesday that would keep the human papillomavirus vaccine off the list of required shots for school attendance, tentatively circumventing Gov. Rick Perry's executive order.

The vaccine protects girls against strains of HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer.

The measure, approved 119-21, still needs final approval in the House and approval in the Senate. It's also possible that Perry will veto the legislation, but the 119 voters that approved the bill Tuesday are more than enough to override a veto.

It seems obvious to me from this decision that the Texas House does not care about the health and lives of Texas citizens.

Of course, I also think that Texas does not care about the health and lives of American citizens because they gave us George W. Bush, so perhaps I should not be surprised that the Texas House voted to help spread cancer and STD and voted against good health and saving lives.

Wake Up: Fox News Is Right-Wing Propaganda

2007-03-14T11:44:00.000-04:00

If you do not know by now that the Fox "News" Channel is in fact a outlet for right-wing propaganda, then you must either be living under a rock or watching the Fox "News" Channel.

Their first trick is to deceive their audience into thinking that they are not a right-wing propaganda outlet. After that, they can say whatever they want, and their audience will believe them because the audience thinks the propaganda is news.

While those of us who are realists have been denouncing the FNC for their right-wing bias, slant, propaganda, and tactics, the FNC and its audience has denied our claims, the traditional media has ignored our claims, and the majority of the public are too busy with their own lives to care.

Well, with a recent push by liberal and progressive blogs and entities, we are finally starting to gain some traction:

Republican Propaganda Is Not News

Over the past three weeks or so, the progressive movement – bloggers, Moveon.org, grassroots activists, filmmakers – pressured the Nevada Democratic Party to drop Fox News as the host of a presidential debate in August. In pursuing this short campaign, we made two basic arguments that were eventually accepted by party leaders.

First, we argued that Fox News is not a news channel, but a propaganda outlet that regularly distorts, spins, and falsifies information. Second, Fox News is heavily influenced or even controlled by the Republican Party itself. As such, we believe that Fox News on the whole functions as a surrogate operation for the GOP. Treating Fox as a legitimate news channel extends the Republican Party’s ability to swift-boat and discredit our candidates. In other words, Fox News is a direct pipeline of misinformation from the GOP leadership into the traditional press.

Thankfully, Fox News immediately proved our point with a press release after the debate cancellation that made the following remarkable claim: "News organizations will want to think twice before getting involved in the Nevada Democratic caucus which appears to be controlled by radical, fringe, out-of-state interest groups, not the Nevada Democratic Party."

John Edwards had already decided not to participate in the debate before it was cancelled, and the FNC attacked him for doing so. Barack Obama had been attacked by them several times before he decided to freeze them out completely. These men have set bold and appropriate examples of how to deal with the FNC's unfair and unbalanced brand of "journalism".

More and more, as the examples pour in, liberal and progressive watchdog organizations (like Media Matters for America and News Hounds) and blogs are pointing out the FNC's flaws and blatant bias. Here are two recent posts from Crooks and Liars:

Crazy Fox Propaganda

Fair and Balanced Propaganda Pt.2The FNC are only part of the right-wing machine, but they are a large part. Sen. Clinton talked about another part of the machine recently:

Clinton: Right-Wing Conspiracy Is Back

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday described past Republican political malfeasance in New Hampshire as evidence of a ``vast, right-wing conspiracy.'' Clinton's barbed comments revived a term she coined for the partisan plotting during her husband's presidential tenure and echoed remarks she made last weekend in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary.

[...]Clinton asserted on Tuesday that the conspiracy is alive and well, and cited as proof the Election Day 2002 case of phone jamming in New Hampshire, a case in which two Republican operatives pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and a third was convicted.

``To the New Hampshire Democratic Party's credit, they sued and the trail led all the way to the Republican National Committee,'' Clinton said.

``So if anybody tells you there is no vast, right-wing conspiracy, tell them that New Hampshire has proven it in court,'' she said.

The article's title is a bit misleading. The vast right-wing conspiracy never left, so it can't be "back".

The VWRC claim for which Sen. Clinton was ridiculed ten years ago was true then and it is true now. Whether the attacks come from

the well-documented efforts by conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife to fund a network of anti-Clinton investigations.

, the FNC, or the dirty campaign tactics of Karl Rove, the VWRC is alive and well, and all Americans should work to ensure that our country is free from their lies, their deceit, and their propaganda.

Sen. Johnson Recovering

2007-03-14T11:30:00.000-04:00

Here is some good news for a change. Sen. Johnson is still getting better and has issued a public statement:

Ailing Senator Issues Photos, Statement

The first public photos of Sen. Tim Johnson since his December brain hemorrhage show him looking pounds lighter and sitting in a wheelchair. According to a spokeswoman, he now has limited use of his right arm and leg.

[...]Johnson's office also issued his first public statement since the hemorrhage three months ago.

"I want to thank the people of South Dakota and all of our dear friends for their support and prayers," the statement read. "This has been an unexpected journey and there is a long road in front of me. I am determined and focused on my recovery, and I look forward to returning to the Senate on behalf of South Dakota."

It is good to hear that he is doing so well after such an ordeal, and I hope his health continues to improve.

Gonzales Aides Comedians

2007-03-14T10:50:00.000-04:00

Gonzales helped out comedians everywhere by taking responsibility for the politically-motivated firing of eight U.S. Attorneys and then quickly claimed he wasn't responsible:

Gonzales refuses to resign over firing of U.S. prosecutors

WASHINGTON -- Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales refused to step down yesterday in a widening scandal over the politically motivated firing of eight federal prosecutors, which has already led to the resignation of his chief of staff.

"I believe in accountability," Mr. Gonzales said during a hastily called news conference here. "Like every CEO of a major organization, I am responsible for what happens at the Department of Justice. I acknowledge that mistakes were made here. I accept that responsibility."

Yet Mr. Gonzales immediately placed the blame for the controversial firings on his top aide, Kyle Sampson, who resigned on Monday.

If this latest Bush administration scandal was the only one Gonzales was involved with, then I could understand his decision to refuse to resign, but it is one of many:

He argued that Bush had the right to torture prisoners.

He argued that Bush could break the law.

He supported Bush's illegal spying on Americans without a warrant.

He claims that Bush can ignore laws passed by Congress.

He supports Bush at the expense of the rule of law.

He supports Bush at the expense of the Constitution.

He pushed for the unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus.

Then there is this one: (from Discourse.net - h/t Crooks and Liars):

Alberto Gonzales's Role in the Plame Cover-Up

Everyone seems to have forgotten that then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales also presided over one of the more sordid aspects of the Plame scandal. When Gonzales first learned that the Justice Department had started an official investigation into the Plame leak, Gonzales waited twelve hours before putting the White House staff on notice that they had to preserve documents and electronic files. Which seemed than -- and seems now -- like an open invitation to "shredding and deleting," not to mention getting your story straight. In short, obstruction of justice.

And it's not as if Gonzales dithered trying to make up his mind what to do. He told White House Chief of Staff Andy Card about the investigation right away -- many hours before sending the official notification to preserve all evidence.

[...]Lest you think this is much ado about nothing, consider that when Patrick Fitzgerald came looking, key emails to or from the Vice President's office mysteriously could not be found in the White House computer system's archives.

Gonzales should resign or be impeached. Either way he should not be (nor ever have been) Attorney General of the United States of America.

Britain Fights Global Warming

2007-03-14T10:26:00.000-04:00

Britain abolished slavery about thirty years before the U.S. Hopefully, it will not take us as long to follow their good example on taking action against global warming.

Britain sets toughest carbon targets to beat climate change

Britain is to enact the toughest laws on carbon emission in the world to reduce its impact on global warming, the Government announced yesterday.

The UK will be the first country to impose legally binding five-year limits on carbon emissions as ministers aim to set an example to the world on how to beat climate change.

[...]The five-year limits are part of a rolling fifteen-year programme designed to achieve a statutory target of at least 26 per cent reduction of carbon by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050, compared with 1990 levels.

Halliburton Stops Pretending It's Patriotic

2007-03-12T11:51:00.000-04:00

Halliburton, with the help of Dick Cheney, has done a great job of exploiting the U.S. and Iraq. Progressives and liberals have been speaking out against them for a long time with little or no results. Meanwhile, Halliburton continued to bilk American taxpayers, and now they are getting out while the getting's good and taking their war profits with them. And guess where they are going:

Halliburton moving headquarters to Dubai

Halliburton Co., the energy services giant and controversial defense contractor, said Sunday it is opening a new corporate headquarters in Dubai in the Middle East.

The change from Houston to the United Arab Emirates by the world's second largest oil-field services provider was announced by Chief Executive Dave Lesar at an energy conference in neighboring Bahrain.

[...]Halliburton has been dogged by criticism that it overbilled taxpayers in a multibillion contract to feed and house U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Last month, federal investigators alleged Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of the $10 billion in contractor waste and overcharging in Iraq. The company has denied any wrongdoing.

The company's business dealings in Nigeria also are being investigated by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commissions. The company has said it is cooperating in the investigations.

The planned move surprised longtime critic Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He called for congressional hearings on the move, saying, "I want to understand the ramifications for U.S. taxpayers and national security."

Halliburton is probably leaving because the Democrats control Congress now, and they are worried about investigations into their shady business practices and war profiteering. Oh, and then there is the "patriotic" tax evasion:

One Washington corporate lobbyist said: "I think it ensures that there will be some interesting oversight hearings," since Democrats have been unhappy with Halliburton's no-bid contracts and what they believe is its poor performance.

The lobbyist, who requested anonymity so he would not jeopardize relationships with his clients, said the move raises several questions, among them how much did Halliburton receive in incentives to move to Dubai and what does it do to the company's tax structure.

"If there's a huge tax shift, then it's taking money from U.S. taxpayers while they're taking no-bid contracts," the lobbyist said.

Sure they'll take our money, but why should they have to pay taxes to the country that they have been profiting from?

Can you imagine the outrage if this company had been run by a Democrat instead of Cheney? Limbaugh and Hannity would be having a field day with this story, but because of the IOKIYAR (It's OK If You Are Republican) double-standard, they'll be hypocritically quiet about this.

This story is just one more sickening thing we on the left were right about, but nobody listens to us no matter how often our warnings turn out to be correct.

Here are some more links with more info on this topic if you are interested:

BREAKING - Halliburton moving headquarters to Dubai!

[...]For a company that gets such a significant portion of its income from the US government, this is quite a stunning move, to say the least. Unless it means that they expect that this revenue stream will end soon - or that there is so little oil left in the USA that this is no longer where business will be? Or that it is suddenly becoming safer to stay away from US law enforcement authorities?

The real reason Halliburton's moving to Dubai

In one of my first diaries on Dailykos, I wrote about how Halliburton was skirting the laws of the United States by having its "affiliate" in Dubai act as a "launderer" of business products and money so that it could sell illegal items to illegal countries[...]