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| ...---... Vote for a Man, Not a Puppet ...---... |
| 10.31.04 (12:32 pm) [edit] |
"Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers.
I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a frontman, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory." - The Online Beat, John Nichols, http://www.thenation.com/theb...
[b]It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press conference recently.[/b]
John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.
But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be.
People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush. Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but he won't fool me twice.
It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian.
It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that either you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an enemy combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?
This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration. Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.
I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with it. Go to Kerry's Web site and read some of the magazine profiles on him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.
Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey, windsurfs, ride motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and speaks French. It would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man and dispels all illusions about war.
[b]Source:[/b]
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years, reporting on everything from sports to politics. From 1969-71, he worked as a campaign staffer for gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional races in several states. He was an editor, assistant to the publisher, and columnist for the Orlando Sentinel from 1971 to 2001. He now writes a syndicated column three times a week for King Features, which is carried on Antiwar.com. Reese served two years active duty in the U.S. Army as a tank gunner., http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
[b]In addition, for your information ...[/b]
"Read this http://www.dispatch.com/elect... to learn about how OH is trending away from Bush, and this to see Zogby's latest poll showing Kerry +2 in Florida." - Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com
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| ...---... The Mad King George On Leadership ...---... |
| 10.31.04 (11:19 am) [edit] |
"You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Mad King George is [i]NO[/i] leader ... The meglomaniac, sociopath Bush is a MISERABLE FAILURE ... Refer to "This Self-Obsessed Sociopath[i] Isn't Fit [/i]To Be President [Picture]" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...
[b]George W. Bush on leadership, as told http://www.cbsnews.com/storie... to Bob Woodward ...[/b]
"I do not need to explain why I say things. — That's the interesting thing about being the President. — Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
-- Josh Marshall, [i]TalkingPointsMemo[/i], http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| ...---... This Self-Obsessed Sociopath Isn't Fit To Be President [Picture] ...---... |
| 10.31.04 (10:30 am) [edit] |
[b] Psychologist Speaks Out on Sociopathic Personality Disorder:
An Analysis of the President, his Administration and their Global Behavior [/b]
[b]by
Leanne E . Watt, Ph.D.[/b]
As American voters consider which Presidential candidate will provide the best protection against future terrorist attacks, citizens should evaluate the impact that President Bush’s character style has on his decision-making ability and the safeguarding of our nation. Before discussing the more pressing issue of homeland security, the reader should be aware that the President’s historic pattern of behavior, evidenced by many well-documented but over-looked news stories, meets the diagnostic criteria for an Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD), formerly and more commonly known as Sociopathic Personality Disorder. As offensive as this diagnostic label may be to some, it is important to look at the evidence and consider the clinical picture of the President, if one is to honestly assess his ability to lead. While other Presidents have also displayed sociopathic traits, this article will focus on how President Bush’s sociopathic weaknesses make him especially vulnerable to poor decision-making during this time of profound global tension, ultimately undermining the security of our homeland.
[u]Bush’s Documented Actions Fit the Sociopathic Profile[/u]
APD or Sociopathic Personality Disorder (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-TR) includes the following pattern of behaviors: Deceitfulness as indicated by repeated lying; impulsivity; lack of remorse; irritability, bullying and aggressiveness; failure to conform to social norms with regard to lawful behavior, reckless disregard for safety of self or others; and consistent irresponsibility. Cruelty to small animals is another behavioral indicator of sociopathy, and part of the pattern of Conduct Disorder, an adolescent pre-cursor to APD. (Only three traits need to be present to meet the diagnostic criteria for this disorder.)
The following news items illustrate George W. Bush’s patterned use of deception leading up to his election in 2000:
1) Mr. Bush lied about the length of his sobriety in his 11/2/00 press conference claim: “I quit drinking in 1986 and have not had a drop since then.” (CNN.com, 11/2/00). A videotaped interview, filmed by cameraman T. Patrick Murray, contradicts that claim by revealing an apparently intoxicated Mr. Bush at the August 29, 1992 wedding of Jamie Weiss, daughter of the President's former campaign manager, Mike Weiss. In the tape, Mr. Bush’s mental status is marked by slurred speech, perseverative thought, nonsensical statements, and loquaciousness, all clinical features that are indicative of alcohol intoxication (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders-IV-TR). Mr. Bush’s alcohol-oriented remarks during the interview regarding the bride’s father are noteworthy: “Mike Weiss? Very boring person… doesn’t like to drink, doesn't like to smoke." http://www.thesmokinggun.com/...).
2) Mr. Bush changed his driver's license number in 1995 in order to hide his 1976 DUI arrest, a "highly unusual" thing to do, according to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (MSNBC, 1999, Nov. 4, 2000). MSNBC's source stated: "He has an arrest record that has to do with drinking... he's worried it will come out, but his handlers keep assuring him it won't."
3) Mr. Bush, while Governor, lied in a 1998 interview with reporter, Wayne Slater, of the Dallas Morning News, denying that he had ever been arrested after 1968 (Abilene Reporter-News, 11/5/00).
4) In the 11/2/00 press conference, Bush lied about his driver's license suspension, following his DUI arrest, claiming it was suspended for only “30 days” (Washington Post, 11/28/00), when it was actually suspended for 2 years (Maine Department of Motor Vehicles). According to the state of Maine ’s 1976 statutes for DUI suspensions, a two-year suspension indicates the presence of two earlier DUI arrests (Maine Legislative Reference Librarian, 207-287-1600).
Mr. Bush characterologic lack of remorse was evidenced in his response to the media, after the cover-up of his 1976 DUI arrest became public. Rather than apologizing for his lies to the American people during his 11/2/00 press conference, the soon-to-be-President pointed his finger at the media and Al Gore for playing "dirty tricks" (CNN, 11/3/00). Please see below for further examples, at the Administrative level, of President’s Bush lack of remorse.
Mr. Bush’s pattern of impulsivity is revealed in his history of driving under the influence of intoxicating substances. As described above, his 1976 DUI appears to be one of three DUI arrests, based upon the two year suspension of his driver’s license, following his 1976 arrest (per Maine Legislative Reference Librarian regarding Maine Statues for 1976 DUI arrests.)
President Bush also has a patterned history of irritability and aggression, which includes his 1988 public threat and verbal assault on Wall Street Journal's bureau chief, Al Hunt, after Mr. Hunt predicted a 1988 GOP failure for his father. According to the Washington Post (7/25/99), Mr. Bush cursed at Mr. Hunt in a restaurant, in front of his wife and four-year-old son: "You f-cking son of a bitch! I saw what you wrote! We're not going to forget this."
And the President has a repeated record of operating outside of the law, including several SEC violations which would have led to incarceration if they had occurred in this present age of big business hyper-scrutiny. In 1990, the SEC began its investigation into insider trading, after Mr. Bush sold close to a million dollars worth of stock in Harken Energy Corporation, just prior to the stock price plummeting. Stuart Watson, a fellow board member with Mr. Bush, reported that they were both privy to Harken’s financial difficulties, prior to Mr. Bush’s sale of stock, but the SEC never interviewed Mr. Watson. And although U.S. News & World Report discovered that "there was substantial evidence that Bush knew Harken was in dire straights”, the SEC (whose five directors were all appointed by George H.W. Bush) decided to end its investigation during his father's Presidency.
The public record on President Bush’s childhood indicates that he has a history of cruelty to small animals, considered to be one of the most predictable signs of future violence, criminality and sociopathy in adults by law enforcement professionals, sociologists and psychologists (International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 45, No. 5, 556-573, 2001). Mr. Bush’s childhood friend, Terry Throckmorton, revealed to Nicholas Kristof in a May 21, 2000 New York Times article: “We were terrible to animals", explaining that he and George used to "put firecrackers in frogs and throw them and blow them up."
[u]Bush Administration’s Sociopathic Behavior Undermines Homeland Security[/u]
President Bush’s sociopathic tendencies are also reflected in his Administration, and more importantly, they are manifested in policies and actions that have direct impact on America ’s homeland security. In order to fully appreciate this particular charge, the reader must become familiar, first, with the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and its close ties with the Bush Administration. PNAC is a little known, but highly-influential, neo-conservative think tank, based in Washington D.C., that advocates an imperialistic policy of war-mongering in order to establish the United States as the “world’s only superpower”. Ted Koppel’s Nightline, on March 5, 2003, exposed Bush’s key advisors, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, as three of PNAC’s founding members. A total of 10 PNAC signatories are in Bush’s cabinet. (Jeb Bush, the President’s younger brother, is also a PNAC member.) (http://www.newamericancentury... ). In his 3/5/03 show, Koppel acknowledged that the connection between the Bush Administration and PNAC has already provided fodder for conspiracy theorists, however he also noted that, in the spite of the potential for “hyperbole”, “you’re left with a story that has the additional advantage of being true."
PNAC calls for the U.S. "to fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars" as a "core mission" in their September 2000 document (RAD), based upon an earlier work by Dick Cheney. The document advocates that fighting and winning four or more wars at the same time will enhance the United State ’s “credibility” in the world.
This war-mongering strategy is expanded upon as a call to “revolution” by Michael Ledeen, prominent neo-conservative spokesman and primary advisor on foreign affairs to Bush’s “most powerful aide”, Karl Rove (Washington Post, 3/10/03): “No stages. This is a total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies… And all this talk about, well, first we are going to do Afghanistan , then we will do Iraq . That is entirely the wrong way to go about it… Creative destruction is our middle name and we threaten everybody's stability… stability is not what we want and stability is not what the United States is about. We are one great revolutionary society in the world and we want revolution… If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about us years from now” (American Enterprise Institute: The Battle for Ideas in the U.S. War on Terrorism, 10/29/01, http://www.aei.org/events/fil...,eventID.364/transcript.asp).
PNAC also called for the "removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power", three years before President Bush was in office (1997 letter to Clinton ). PNAC’s RAD advocates the use of a smoke screen excuse, such as “unresolved conflict with Iraq”, as the “immediate justification” for deposing Saddam Hussein, but clearly states the desire for a “permanent role in (the) Gulf” in order to “oversee U.S. interests” as the primary reason for deposing the dictator, with the secondary gain of intimidating other “potentially powerful states” into behaving themselves. At no time is Iraq described as an “imminent” threat to the United States , in fact the Gulf region is described as “stable” for the moment.
RAD calls for sharp budgetary increases in defense spending, in order to accomplish their goal of fighting four, simultaneous, large scale wars, but acknowledges that getting Congress to approve these types of increases in defense spending is unlikely, "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event... like a new Pearl Harbor ". The events of 9/11 fulfilled PNAC’s stated need for a catalyzing event, and fully-aligned with PNAC’s vision, President Bush wrote in his diary that evening: "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today.” ( Washington Post, 1/27/02).
The Bush Administration’s neo-conservative approach to leadership is immersed in a sociopathic style of thinking and behavior. Diagnostic features of sociopathy include deceitfulness and a failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors: There is strong evidence indicating that Bush and Cheney intentionally intentionally exaggerated the threat that Iraq posed to the U.S. , consistent with their neo-conservative plans for deposing Saddam, and in violation of International law. (International law requires an imminent threat to justify a pre-emptive strike.) On several occasions, the President and the Vice President presented a more urgent threat than WMD, suggesting that Saddam Hussein had somehow collaborated with al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks. (State of the Union address, 1/28/03; NBC’s Meet the Press, 9/14/03; MSNBC, June 14, 2004). However, the 9/11 Commission found that there was “no credible evidence” that Iraq collaborated with al Qaeda. And after inviting Cheney to come forward with evidence to support his recent claims of “long-standing ties” between Iraq and al Qaeda, the bi-partisan commission reported that Cheney had “no more information than commission investigators to support his later assertions to the contrary”. (Reuters; ABC News 7/6/04). Strikingly, there was no comment from Dick Cheney or his staff, following the 911 Commission's July 6, 2004 report, and he has never offered a single shred of evidence to back up the claims that Iraq was somehow tied to the attacks on 9/11.
Further evidence of the Bush Administration’s use of deception was found in the June 9, 2003 issue of the U.S. News & World Report: After reviewing the first draft speech written by Cheney’s office for his presentation to the U.N., Colin Powell lost his temper, throwing several pages in the air and declaring: "I'm not going to read this! It's bullshit!" According to the sources in this article, the report contained such “questionable”, unscrutinized material, that Powell eventually threw the entire speech away. The report also cites instances in which Defense Secretary Rumsfeld testified before Congress with charges against Iraq that completely contradicted intelligence findings at the time, prompting Patrick Lang, a former top DIA and CIA analyst on Iraq to observe: "What we have here is advocacy, not intelligence work."
Other sociopathic features of the Bush Administration include aggression and bullying, manifested in their alliance with PNAC and their war-mongering strategy, and evidenced by the unjustified invasion of Iraq; reckless disregard for the safety of others, as evidenced in the deaths of over 1,000 American soldiers and over 11,000 Iraqi civilians (Sacramento Bee, 10/14/04) in their pursuit of their neo-conservative plan; and a lack of remorse, evidenced in the President’s refusal to acknowledge his mistaken claims regarding Iraq’s threat, the error in judgment regarding the logistics of the invasion, and a refusal to apologize to the Americans or the Iraqis for the thousands of deaths.
The Bush Administration's sociopathic plan to use unjustified pre-emptive aggression, in order to intimidate or bully other “potentially powerful states”, is a naïve strategy, at best. Research has repeatedly shown that shaping human behavior, through the use of bullying, intimidation and pre-emptive aggression, elicits initial behavioral compliance, but is followed up by distrust, aggression, and sociopathic behavior in a large percentage of subjects (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 1997; 151:761-767). Bush’s plan fails to recognize the Muslim community’s deep-seated distrust of the West, rooted in our historic tie-building policies with less-than-stellar regimes. The unjustified aggression and bullying of Iraq , resulting in the death of thousands of innocent civilians, has exacerbated the Muslim world’s suspicions and primed Muslim youth for recruitment to the terrorist cause. The cascade of Muslim insurgents into Iraq since the U.S. invasion, signifies a sharp increase in terrorist recruits, and highlights the Bush Administration’s poor planning and failure to appreciate the impact of unjustified violence in this region of the world. With 21st century technology and funding from billionaires like bin Laden, the terrorist movement is not a finite cause that can be stamped out once and for all. In fact, this is an enemy whose growth and drive to strike back with violence will continue to be fueled, as long as the United State 's embraces a bullying policy of unjustified, pre-emptive force.
Americans are worried about the future and want to know that our government can protect us. But, in order to justify a tough stand on terrorism and the use of military actions to safeguard our homeland in the future, the United States must maintain its integrity. Regardless of how reprehensible the actions of al Qaeda, the word of our President and his Administration must be grounded in truth. The President must also have the ability to show genuine remorse when his Administration makes a mistake, acknowledging the errors in judgment that most Americans already recognize. President Bush and his Administration’s sociopathic style is in direct conflict with the needs of our nation at this time, as inflaming Muslim and world distrust, eliciting more terrorist recruits, and inciting more terrorist violence, will invariably lead to more strikes against the United States, rather then safeguarding us from future attacks.
[b]The full article is available on http://home.earthlink.net/~lewatt/ ...[/b]
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| ...---... The Bush Republicans Celebrate Their Incompetence ...---... |
| 10.30.04 (2:55 pm) [edit] |
[b]No surprise, but the Bush people are giddy as can be that they've failed to capture or kill http://www.nydailynews.com/fr... Osama bin Laden "Dead or Alive" ...[/b]
... ""We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."
A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."
He called it "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection." ...
[b]And as the Chicken Littles among us run around in a blind panic, note that Fox News's pollster reported that Bush's numbers have gone [i]down[/i] since the OBL tape aired. (Poll here http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,137163,00.html . Info that the post-OBL numbers for Bush were down came from the broadcast.)
I'm not sure why Republicans think the American voters will reward incompetence. [/b]
[b]Sources:[/b]
[i]Daily Kos[/i], http://www.dailykos.com
Osama bin Forgotten??? ... Until Now!!!, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ... Ike's Son "Totally Unfamiliar" With Bush's Politics ...---... |
| 10.30.04 (12:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]Alot of Republicans feel the same way http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
Dwight Eisenhower was a traditional Republican president. His son, John Eisenhower, http://www.chattanoogan.com/a... is of the same mold. But John has a problem with this Republican president. He and a number of other disaffected Republicans, calling themselves Republicans for Change, are involved in a last-minute advertizing push in 27 local papers across the America this week.
John Eisenhower describes the current Republican party as "totally unfamiliar" to the party he knows. He cites the bulging federal deficit, and says other Republican economic policy "heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor"
[b]Sources:[/b]
[i]Jan[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
The Republicans For Kerry Movement Is Growing Fast!!!, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...---... Apparently Osama bin Laden is Alive and Well??? ...---... |
| 10.30.04 (4:41 am) [edit] |
"PRESIDENT Bush said yesterday that he wanted Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile, "dead or alive" in some of the most bellicose language used by a White House occupant in recent years. ... "I want justice," [Bush] said after a meeting at the Pentagon, where 188 people were killed last Tuesday when an airliner crashed into the building. "And there's an old poster out West that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' "" - Bin Laden is Wanted:: Dead or Alive Says Bush, September 18, 2001, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...
[b]Osama bin Laden appears to be alive [i]and[/i] well??? ... Or, could this be another corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]fabrication created by Karl Rove's lackeys at the same Special Effects Spin Factory that produced the Iraqi WMDs fantasies they used to lie and deceive us and the rest of the world??? ... After all, Dubya didn't seem too concerned about [i]going after [/i]Osama bin Laden, as he promised to do http://www.tblog.com/template... in another one of his many empty "promises" ...
Joshua Micah Marshall spoke with al Qaida expert Peter Bergen and reports http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... :[/b]
... "He mentioned the following things about the OBL (Osama bin Laden) tape. Bergen noted that this is the first time we've seen an unambiguously datable tape from bin Laden since December 2001. Whatever injuries he may have sustained on the escape from Afghanistan (remember the lame arm) is clearly healed. And though he still looks older than his forty-seven years, http://www.nationmaster.com/e... he looks robust and hardly haggard.
As for the Tora Bora issue, Bergen suggests http://www.peterbergen.com/cl... that there were probably more journalists on the ground at Tora Bora than American troops." ...
[b]John Kerry spoke to the new OBL video ...[/b]
... "In response to this tape from Osama bin Laden, let me make it clear, crystal clear. As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. They are barbarians. And I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes. Period." ...
[b]From the airport at West Palm.[/b]
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| ...---... In Case You're Wondering Why the Bush Gang Is Desperate ...---... |
| 10.29.04 (10:56 am) [edit] |
[b]Remember what happened in [i]2000[/i]??? ...
The Angry Liberal, http://theangryliberal.blogsp... a moniker which describes a lot of us these days, has dredged up a late October, [i]2000[/i], CNN tracking poll for everyone’s edification.[/b]
[b]Tracking poll: Bush holds on to advantage http://archives.cnn.com/2000/... ...[/b]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Today's CNN/USA Today/Gallup tracking poll continues to give George W. Bush an advantage over Vice President Al Gore.
While not a prediction of the voters' choice in November, Friday's results show Bush garnering 52 percent of the vote and Gore drawing 39 percent. The survey of 851 likely voters was conducted October 24-26 and has a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.
A CNN/Time poll also released today gives Bush a 49 percent to 43 percent edge over Gore, which is statistically in agreement with today's CNN/USA Today/Gallup tracking poll, given the polls' margin of sampling error.
[b]No wonder those guys in the White House are running scared [i]today[/i]!!! [/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Daily Kos[/i], http://www.dailykos.com
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| ...---... Making a Federal Case About It ...---... |
| 10.29.04 (9:03 am) [edit] |
"Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they're trying to throw up a smokescreen... It's an effort that they've made repeatedly to try to confuse the voters and to raise questions, but there's no substance to the charges."
– Vice President Cheney, 10/5/04, http://www.debates.org/pages/...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"The FBI is investigating whether U.S. officials improperly awarded Vice President Dick Cheney's former company [Halliburton] a lucrative contract work without competition, a probe that was confirmed only days after a top Army contract officer raised the issue of favoritism."
– AP, 10/29/04, http://www.nytimes.com/aponli...
[b]Veep Cheney is a ruthless crook who should be put in Federal Prison for:-- lying to the American people to go to war based on traitorous deceptions; the felony of "outing" the under-cover CIA operative Valerie Plame in a petty act of revenge against her husband Joseph Wilson for exposing Bush's lies about Niger uranium yellow-cake sales to Iraq [i]that never really took place[/i]; War Crimes; embezzlement of US treasury dollars on behalf of his corporate cronies; and treason for letting his Oil Cronies & Halliburton establish foreign policy (waging illegal and immoral warfare for oil) and domestic policy (raping American working people with energy scams and price-gouging) ...[/b]
Yesterday, it was reported that the FBI has launched an investigation http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,0,7146099.story?coll=la-home-headli nes into whether the Pentagon improperly awarded a multi-billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton. Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Corps of Engineers' chief contracting officer, "was threatened with demotion http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,0,7146099.story?coll=la-home-headli nes after raising objections" to extending the Halliburton contract. The contract was extended despite her objection, but "the final approval did not carry Greenhouse's signature, as normally required by contracting regulations. Instead, it was signed by her assistant, Lt. Col. Norbert Doyle."
[b]WHAT WAS CHENEY'S ROLE?: [/b]It has been previously reported that – according to an Army Corps of Engineers official – the decision to award the contract "had been 'coordinated' with the office of Vice President Cheney, http://www.washingtonpost.com... Halliburton's former chief executive." Lewis "Scooter" Libby http://www.americanprogress.o... – Cheney's chief of staff – "was briefed in October 2002 http://www.house.gov/reform/m... about the proposal to issue the November 11 task order [contract] to Halliburton." Pentagon officials also acknowledge http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,1,2397635.story that Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith discussed a March 2003 Halliburton contract in advance with Cheney's office. (Here was their best explanation: Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita "described the use of the word "coordinate" in the e-mail as a "catch-all phrase" that signified "it's time for this contract to be executed.") Vice President Cheney refuses to substantively respond to questions about his involvement in Halliburton contracts.
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... Money Still Wins ... So Why Hold Elections??? ...---... |
| 10.29.04 (7:52 am) [edit] |
[b]Money [i]buys[/i] elections!!! ... So why bother[i] to hold [/i]elections??? ... Let's just [i]measure[/i] the dollars$$$ raised by the candidates and declare the one with the [i]most[/i] the winner!!! ... Or better yet, let's [i]change the corrupt system [/i]that puts crooks in office!!! ...[/b]
In 2004, the Congressional candidates who raised the most money [i]won[/i] their primary races, while opponents who raised smaller amounts [i]failed to advance nine out of 10 times[/i]. That's the finding of a new report released by [b]U.S. PIRG http://www.uspirg.org/ .[/b] The report also found that the vast majority of candidate contributions come from a tiny, wealthy slice of the population—hardly a group representing the American public. The report also includes recommendations for [i]limiting the "wealth primary"—[/i]including contribution limits that are within the means of most Americans, and limits on total campaign funding. [b]SEE THE REPORT: http://www.uspirg.org/reports... ...[/b]
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| ...---... Embeds Bite Bush in the Ass ...---... |
| 10.28.04 (4:42 pm) [edit] |
[i][b]Oops.[/b][/i] Looks like those embeds with the 101st in Iraq got pictures of the very same high explosives that later went missing. All of it captured on tape http://kstp.com/article/stori... by the Minneapolis/St. Paul ABC affiliate.
The explosives were there. Now they're in the hands of terrorists.
Thanks Don. Thanks George. You're getting our people killed.
[b]Source:[/b]
Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com
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| ...---... All The President's Excuses ...---... |
| 10.28.04 (9:16 am) [edit] |
"And a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander-in-Chief."
– President Bush, 10/27/04, http://www.whitehouse.gov/new...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories."
–President Bush, 5/29/03, http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/...
[b]Dubya is simply too stupid to be president ...[/b]
The White House has been unable to explain how 380 tons of powerful explosives disappeared under its watch in Iraq, and has instead tried to deflect blame with a series of excuses. None of them hold up. Read this new document http://www.americanprogressac... from American Progress for the full story.
[b]EXCUSE #1 – THEY WERE GONE WHEN WE GOT THERE:[/b] Administration spokesman Dan Senor said on CNN that "there's a very high probability that those weapons weren't even there before the war." All the evidence, however, suggests the opposite. In an Oct. 25 AP story, a Pentagon official said, "US-led coalition troops had searched Al Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact." According to Today's New York Times, after U.S. troops came through, Iraqis on the scene in Al Qaqaa "described an orgy of theft" as the sensitive military site was picked clean by looters. Iraq's top science official, Mohammed al-Sharaa, confirmed these reports, saying, "It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall. The officials that were inside this facility (Al Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall."
[b]EXCUSE #2 – WE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT:[/b] One White House strategy has been to simply plead ignorance. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "We were informed on October 15th. Condi Rice was informed days after that. This is all in the last, what, 10 days now." What they're not talking about: The New York Times reported that Iraqi officials say they warned Paul Bremer, the American head of the occupation authority, that Al Qaqaa had probably been looted in May 2004, six months ago.
[b]EXCUSE #3 – WE'VE SECURED LOTS OF OTHER MUNITIONS:[/b] White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan tried to minimize the importance of the 380 tons of explosives that went missing, saying, "400,000 tons of munitions have been seized or destroyed by coalition forces." But McClellan is comparing apples to oranges. The 400,000 tons the White House cites refers to munitions – including guns and ammunition. Pound for pound, the 380 tons of explosives are much, much more powerful. For example, "the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the same type of material." By that math, the size of the explosives cache looted would be enough to bring down 760,000 planes.
[b]EXCUSE #4 – THE NBC STORY:[/b] The Bush campaign spun an NBC News story in an attempt to bolster its excuse, charging, "NBC Nightly News later reported that on April 10, 2003, one day after Iraq was liberated, US troops entered Al Qaqaa and did not find the explosives." NBC News, however, resisted that characterization. What the network actually said: "Military officials tell NBC News that on April 10, 2003, when the Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne entered the Al Qaqaa weapons facility, south of Baghdad, that those troops were actually on their way to Baghdad, that they were not actively involved in the search for any weapons, including the high explosives, HMX and RDX...And because the Al Qaqaa facility is so huge, it's not clear that those troops from the 101st were actually anywhere near the bunkers that reportedly contained the HMX and RDX."
[b]REALITY – ADMINISTRATION WAS WARNED:[/b] In a blistering op-ed in the Boston Globe, former Ambassador Peter Galbraith describes the widespread looting of sensitive materials in Iraq as a "preventable disaster." Iraq's sensitive material was stored in only a few known locations, all of which were closely monitored by the international community. U.S. troops, however, were not given any relevant intelligence about these sites from the White House and there was never a plan in place to secure them after the invasion. According to Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, spokesman for one of the first units to reach Al Qaqaa, "orders were not given from higher to search or to secure the facility or to search for [explosives]." Iraqi witnesses to looting at Al Qaqaa also say Al Qaqaa "employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center of American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... Dismantling The Dream ...---... |
| 10.28.04 (8:35 am) [edit] |
Former mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young says the federal government has created a number of legislative programs that encourage hard work and facilitate economic mobility into America’s middle class. Essential to this transition for African Americans, in particular, Young says, is the Community Reinvestment Act, which helps low-income families own homes. Last week, the Bush administration took steps to dismantle the CRA—exposing the rift between reality and Bush’s stated interest in creating an “ownership society.”
[b]Ambassador Andrew Young is chairman of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy http://www.drummajorinstitute...* . He was ambassador to the United Nations from 1977 to 1979.[/b]
In July 2004, President George W. Bush spoke at a National Urban League Conference in Detroit where he discussed black America’s place in the “ownership society”—a major theme of his 2004 re-election campaign.
There, before an audience of prominent black civil rights leaders, the president offered his take on black progress.
“Progress for African Americans and all Americans,” he said “depends on more citizens living the dream of owning their own home.”
“There’s nothing better than somebody saying, welcome to my house; I’m putting out the welcome mat in my piece of property.”
He’s right. Like gainful employment, the ability to save for the future and access to affordable health care, child care and higher education, home ownership is not only a vital component of the American Dream—it’s essential to the stability and growth of the middle class.
Unfortunately, proposals made last week by two Bush administration appointees in the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) threaten to make the “ownership society” a myth, rather than a reality, for working-class and middle-class families across the country.
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) requires banks with assets of more than $250 million to provide banking services, loans and investments to low- and middle-income residents in the communities in which they are situated. Congress enacted CRA in 1977 and it was strengthened during the Clinton administration.
Over the years, the CRA has been responsible for funneling more than $1.5 trillion into American neighborhoods for housing and commercial enterprises that are essential for building a strong local tax base. Industry giants J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America support the current requirements. Small bank owners, however, are insisting that the cost of compliance has made it impossible for them to compete with larger banks. As a result, the Bush administration has supported a proposal to raise the asset threshold of the CRA to $1 billion, up from $250 million, freeing more than 90 percent of the nation’s banks from complying with parts of the law.
In cities like New York, where the CRA has been responsible for much of the recent redevelopment of Harlem, the proposed changes would reduce the number of banks required to comply from 81 to 20. In working-class cities like Detroit—which is more than 80 percent black and has fewer major local banks—the result could be far worse.
While 65 percent of all Detroit households consist of families with children, the homeownership rate is only 55 percent—a 10 percent difference. The housing vacancy rate is also 10 percent.
A major focus of the president’s initiative to increase minority home ownership and close the ownership gap between blacks and whites has relied on extending tax credits to construction firms and contractors to encourage the building of more affordable housing for working-class and middle-class families in the inner city.
In Detroit, however, as with most of urban America, the problem is not simply a lack of housing for low and middle-income families—it’s enabling people to buy those homes. Historically underserved communities rely on banking services, investments and loans to buy a home or start a small business—both of which are critical to black economic progress in urban America. The CRA has made this possible.
Black America —and all of America, for that matter—could benefit from some of the ideas expressed in the president’s vision of an “ownership society.” But how is that possible while the president is dismantling the very government programs designed to help families achieve the American Dream?
The CRA, like the minimum wage, overtime, Pell Grants, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, are examples of progressive legislation created by the government that have encouraged hard work and facilitated economic mobility into America’s middle class.
If it ain’t broke, Mr. President, don’t fix it.
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| ...---... Absolutely No Sense of Irony ...---... |
| 10.27.04 (4:30 pm) [edit] |
[b]Dubya has absolutely [i]no[/i] sense of irony whatsoever ... Of course, a sense of irony takes some degree of intelligence, insight and introspection:-- clearly qualities that Bush lacks in abundance ...[/b]
Gen. Wesley Clark agrees with Bush who said today that [b]"Jumping to Conclusions is Bad":[/b]
... "Today George W. Bush made a very compelling and thoughtful argument for why he should not be reelected. In his own words, he told the American people that "... a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander in Chief".
President Bush couldn't be more right. He jumped to conclusions about any connection between Saddam Hussein and 911. He jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction. He jumped to conclusions about the mission being accomplished. He jumped to conclusions about how we had enough troops on the ground to win the peace. And because he jumped to conclusions, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq may very well have their hands on powerful explosives to attack our troops, we are stuck in Iraq without a plan to win the peace, and Americans are less safe both at home and abroad.
By doing all these things, he broke faith with our men and women in uniform. He has let them down. George W. Bush is unfit to be our Commander in Chief." ...
[b]I don't agree with Bush much, but I definitely agree with him on this as well ... If Dubya had any integrity, then he would step-down and resign on his own admission that he "jumped to conclusions" to go to war with Iraq ... But then we know that he won't resign ... Too bad that he's just too dumb to see the[i] irony [/i]...[/b]
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| ...--... Johnny-boy "Pro-Life?" Ashcroft Dances With Death ...---... |
| 10.27.04 (2:11 pm) [edit] |
[b]Mother Jones reports "federal prosecutors across the country have become demoralized and infuriated" by Attorney General John Ashcroft's unprecedented attempts to push the federal death penalty. http://www.mojones.com/news/u... "Since Ashcroft took office in February 2001, he has imposed the formerly rare federal death penalty in nearly 100 cases across the country. In 37 of them to date, he took the unprecedented step of overriding the wishes of local prosecutors who had not sought the death penalty. He has also asked for the federal death penalty in cases in seven states that don't allow capital punishment." Judges and prosecutors quoted in the article accused Ashcroft of "undermining the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes" in America.[/b]
[b]Sign the Declaration Calling for the Resignation or Removal of John Ashcroft, Attorney General on http://www.americanprogress.o... ...[/b]
[i]As Attorney General, John Ashcroft has mounted an effort to effectively nationalize the death penalty. In one recent case, he badly overreached[/i].
In 1999 in Salinas, Calif., Rico Wayne Garcia, 37, was sentenced to 22 years on manslaughter charges in the gangland killing of Geronimo Garza.
But instead of doing his time in state prison as a gang-related murder normally would warrant, Garcia suddenly found himself indicted in a San Francisco federal court for the same killing, as well as another murder case the state had already dropped. And the real zinger was he now faced the death penalty.
Why? Attorney General John Ashcroft had swooped in and, ignoring the intentions of San Francisco prosecutors, turned Garcia’s already complex case into a capital murder prosecution.
Since Ashcroft took office in February 2001, he has imposed the formerly rare federal death penalty in nearly 100 cases across the country. In 37 of them to date, he took the unprecedented step of overriding the wishes of local prosecutors who had not sought the death penalty.
He has also asked for the federal death penalty in cases in seven states that don’t allow capital punishment.
Federal prosecutors across the country have become demoralized and infuriated by Ashcroft’s actions. Last fall, a federal judge joined the chorus of protestors. Judge John Gleeson, a former federal prosecutor whose successes include the conviction of mob leader John Gotti, called Ashcroft’s policy a “bad idea” that was “undermining the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes.”
Oklahoma attorney Dick Burr works with the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, helping federal public defenders who represent indigent clients. Ashcroft’s record number of death penalty overrides, says Burr, amounts to “interference at the ground level. It puts U.S. attorneys in the awkward position of pursuing death when they don’t want it.”
This fall, in Rico Garcia’s case, one of Ashcroft’s first and highest-stakes bids for the death penalty ultimately fizzled, and that failure is largely due to his own department’s errors in judgment.
“[Garcia’s case] arose at a time when it looked like the attorney general was beginning to authorize the death penalty in gang cases,” says Burr, who served as an adviser in the case. The tactic coincided with the current FBI director Robert Mueller’s 20-year effort to take gang prosecutions out of state courts and into the federal domain.
In the late 1990s, the FBI’s Operation Black Widow afforded then-U.S. Attorney Mueller a chance to redeem himself. Back in the 1980s, he had badly botched the prosecution of two Hells Angels cases in California due to his use of less-than-desirable gang informants as key witnesses. Two juries, repulsed by the murderous informants Mueller placed on the witness stand, acquitted the motorcycle gang’s members and their leader, Sonny Barger, in both trials.
Now, through Operation Black Widow, Mueller sought to break the back of Nuestra Familia, a powerful California-based prison gang that controlled drug sales and street gangs throughout the state. Law-enforcement officials estimate the gang is responible for some 600 murders during the last 30 years.
By 2001, Black Widow became Mueller’s highest-profile gang prosecution under the RICO statutes often used for organized crime cases. A RICO indictment allows the government to press very broad charges, including racketeering and conspiracy in furtherance of a criminal enterprise, making it easier for prosecutors to convict the top leaders of a group. It has long been used against Mob figures in federal courts, but it's increasingly applied to more modern crime organizations such as gangs and drug traffickers.
Mueller never asked for the death penalty in the case. Instead, his attorneys simply hoped the Nuestra Familia leaders would be sentenced to life without parole in the federal prison system, thus isolating them and breaking their grip over California's prisons.
The sweeping indictments of 22 leaders and associates of a brutal and “untouchable” prison gang hit newspapers nationwide just weeks before Mueller left San Francisco to head the FBI. The case, with a price tag of $5 million at the time of indictment, was a feather in Mueller’s cap as he prepared to join Ashcroft in Washington.
Then Ashcroft rained on the parade. The freshly appointed attorney general stepped right over Mueller’s successor in San Francisco and announced he would seek the federal death penalty in the case.
The Justice Department originally considered execution for seven co-defendants. The idea was to send a tough message to Nuestra Familia leaders, making it clear that even those who had life sentences could still face the ultimate consequence if they continued their criminal activities behind bars: death by lethal injection.
At Mueller’s old office in San Francisco, Ashcroft’s decision made the prosecutors’ job that much harder, especially since California juries are loath to impose the death penalty. Ashcroft further tied prosecutors’ hands in September 2003, when he sent a directive to federal attorneys across the country, telling them to avoid plea agreements in criminal cases at all costs.
“The direction I am giving our U.S. attorneys today is direct and emphatic,” Ashcroft said. With marching orders from Washington, the San Francisco U.S. attorneys had little choice but to steam onward to trial.
[b]Waiting for “Overt Acts”[/b]
The 1988 federal Death Penalty Act was expanded in 1994 to authorize the death penalty for murder in the course of racketeering and drug conspiracy cases. Only Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and two Texas men have been executed under the law. Prior to McVeigh, the federal government’s last execution took place in 1963.
With two gang murders linked to his name and a co-conspirator ready to testify against him, Rico Garcia emerged as the Department of Justice's best shot for a capital case.
Thanks to audio tapes made by an informant, the government thought it had a slam-dunk case.
In the fall of 1998, police in the rural town of Salinas listened in real time to undercover recordings of gang members plotting at least five murders against gang rivals. Nuestra Familia leader Rico Garcia was heard to tell his underlings to “start whacking these fools.”
Alarmed, police were eager to stop the crimes before a gang bloodbath raged in their city’s streets. They were cooperating with Robert Mueller’s office and the FBI in their Nuestra Familia gang investigations, and they sought advice on how to proceed. Surprisingly, according to Salinas police officer Mike Lazzarini, police were told not to make any arrests.
Under heavy surveillance, the suspects roamed Salinas with loaded weapons for several days. On Nov. 1, taped conversations indicated they planned to proceed with the killings.
On that day, undercover police vehicles followed the gang members through the streets while a California Highway Patrol helicopter tracked them from the air. The gangsters stopped in front of an apartment building, where a young gang member named Paul Salcido and an associate got out of the car and ducked into an alley. The police waited outside.
Salcido slipped on gloves and a ski mask, entered the apartment complex and killed 41-year-old Geronimo Garza. He also shot and wounded Garza’s girlfriend. Police heard the shots and screaming and swarmed the alley. Garcia and others were arrested and tried in state court.
Then, when the killing and the trials were all over, federal agents indicted Rico Garcia and 10 other gang members on murder and racketeering charges. Robert Mueller held a press conference on the courthouse steps of Salinas, assuring residents the federal indictments would have “a dramatic impact on criminal activities” in their community. In fact, the murder rate shot up over the next five years, and most of the homicides are considered gang-related.
The indictment of Garcia and his cohorts was followed by 10 others, and this fall, the nine defendants who had not already pled guilty were ready to go to trial. Garcia’s case was scheduled to follow the others.
But as Garcia’s trial date neared, the capital case against him began to unravel.
In grand jury testimony, and then in a sealed amendment to his statement, Officer Lazzarini let out the shocking revelation that an assistant U.S. attorney from the San Francisco office had told Salinas police to hold off on making arrests, allowing the murder plot to continue to its deadly conclusion.
“It was decided to allow it to go on until sufficient overt acts were completed that prosecutors felt that convictions could be obtained,” Lazzarini said under oath.
Conspiracy to commit murder was apparently not overt enough. But murder was.
With that kind of information in hand, Garcia’s attorney John Grele began to play a little hardball with the government.
“In pretrial proceedings, information came out that was very helpful,” Grele says.
Grele was ultimately able to get Garcia’s state conviction and sentence vacated on a technicality. Then, with a number of questionable criminal informants lined up to testify in the case, the specter of repeating Mueller’s Hells Angels acquittals loomed large.
In the end, facing an array of problems brought on largely by his own department’s mistakes, Ashcroft approved withdrawing the death penalty and authorized prosecutors to negotiate a plea agreement for a life sentence.
Luke Macaulay, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco, declined to comment on any aspect of the case.
After the last of the 22 Nuestra Familia defendants pled guilty last month, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Gruel said Black Widow was the Justice Department’s costliest gang prosecution ever. And despite Ashcroft’s directive to avoid plea agreements, every defendant pled out. The case never made it to trial. One defense attorney in the case estimates that the government will spend more than $10 million when all attorneys’ fees and other costs are calculated.
One irony is that all the criminal offenses in the case besides the racketeering charge had already been addressed in California’s courts.
“The Attorney General’s office and the FBI spent an awful lot of money prosecuting cases that that had already been charged and dispensed with at the state level,” Grele says.
But the real goal of Operation Black Widow, according to federal Judge Charles Breyer, was to take the gang’s leadership out of California’s prisons and “disperse them to the four corners” of the federal prison system, where, the government hopes, the gang will not spread.
“It remains to be seen ultimately whether this prosecution was warranted in the long run,” Judge Breyer cautioned.
Despite the high cost of bring capital cases to trial -- estimated to be at least four times more than non-capital cases -- the rate of federal death prosecutions is likely to rise.
Rachel King, acting director of the ACLU’s capital punishment project, says she is concerned that Congress has added eight new death penalty crimes to the 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act recently passed by the House. One concern is that the bill is too vague, providing for the death penalty in any terrorism case that results in a death.
“Even though the 9/11 commission never urged expanding the death penalty,” King says, the bill was “loaded up with death-penalty provisions by House Republicans.” The bill is now in conference with a comparable Senate bill that has no death-penalty provisions.
“The trend is to bring the death penalty to all states, even those that don’t have it,” says Dick Burr, the Oklahoma attorney. “Ashcroft has made a systematic effort to nationalize the death penalty.”
Ironically, at a time when many states are reconsidering both the effectiveness and morality of capital punishment, the federal death penalty is now likely to be sought more and more frequently across the land.
[b]Source:[/b]
Mother Jones, http://www.motherjones.com
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| ...---... John Kerry for President ...---... |
| 10.27.04 (11:09 am) [edit] |
[b]The presidential campaign debates are over, and the time for decision has come. [i]The Nation [/i]endorses Senator John Kerry to be the next President of the United States.[/b]
Any stocktaking must begin, of course, by comparing the records of Kerry and George W. Bush. Yet the upshot of such a detailed comparison, though entirely favoring Kerry, is not our principal reason for supporting him. To make clear why, despite strong disagreements with Kerry, we not only recommend a vote for him but do so with fervor, we must step back from the candidates and their positions and set forth an independent view of what we believe are the stakes in this election.
The most important is the consequence it will have in what has emerged as a crisis of American democracy. The crisis began on December 12, 2000, when Bush was chosen to be President by the Supreme Court. The gift of a true electoral mandate now to this previously unelected President would give fresh legitimacy and momentum to all his disastrous policies. And that new momentum could in turn place our constitutional system itself at risk.
This magazine's disagreements with Kerry are deep and touch on fundamental matters. We believed that the invasion of Iraq was "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time" (as he now describes it) before the war was ever launched; he has come to that conclusion only recently, having voted to authorize the war. We believe the United States should withdraw from Iraq; he wants to "win" the war there. We think the military budget should be cut; he plans to increase it, adding 40,000 troops. (For what, exactly? to fight another wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time?) We reject pre-emptive war; he embraces it. We oppose the wall that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is building on Palestinian lands; he supports it. We believe in the elimination of all nuclear weapons; he wants only to stop their spread. He calls for significant expansion of healthcare; we call for a single-payer system that would cover everyone. He opposes gay marriage; we back it. If he wins the election, The Nation will pursue each of these differences vigorously.
But while we have sharp differences with Kerry, we believe he has the qualities required for the presidency. He is more than "anybody but Bush." His instincts are decent. He is a man of high intelligence, deep knowledge and great resolve. At times in his life--notably, when he opposed the Vietnam War--he has shown exemplary courage. He respects the law. He believes in cooperation with other countries and has the inclination and ability to bring America out of its current isolation and back into the family of nations. As a senator, he demonstrated concern for social welfare and has backed this up with enlightened policy proposals. He has supported civil rights and labor rights and opposed racism. He has supported the rights of women, including the right to an abortion. He has been an advocate of nuclear arms control and opposed the almost incomprehensibly provocative nuclear policies of the Bush Administration. He would rescind the most unfair of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. He would be a friend of the environment and return the United States to the negotiations on global warming.
[b]Read the complete endorsement of John Kerry for President, including an analysis of Bush's record in [i]The Nation [/i]on: http://www.thenation.com/doc.... ...[/b]
[b]Refer also to:[/b]
"Why I'm For Kerry" by David Corn on http://www.thenation.com/doc....
"100 Facts and 1 Opinion: The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration" on http://www.thenation.com/doc....
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| ...---... The Republicans For Kerry Movement Is Growing Fast!!! ...---... |
| 10.27.04 (9:05 am) [edit] |
"'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'" - G. K. Chesterton
[b]Whatever the outcome of this presidential election 2004, it is clear that increasingly a growing number of Republicans are putting their country before party and standing against the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] ... "We the People" need to bring a change of direction to our nation and together build a better society for all of our citizens ... Please vote for John Kerry for President of the United States of America ...[/b]
One of the many strange hallmarks of Election 2004 are the numerous Republican groups which have formed to organize support for Democrat John Kerry's campaign. There are also, of course, "Bush Democrats" around, but they're far less organized, and if my colleague Patrick Mullvaney's crawl around the internet is any indication, far fewer in number than their counterparts.
President Bush's extremist agenda, his Administration's skyrocketing budget deficits and his dishonesty in the run-up to war are the main reasons cited by longtime Republican voters for abandoning their party's nominee. The choice is simple to voters like Mitch Dworkin, who explains in an article on the Republicans for Kerry 2004 site that, "Bush and most of his Administration represent an extreme faction of the Republican Party and are out of touch with the American people."
There are numerous groups and organizations to check out to get a sense of the unusual number of Republican and conservative groups opposing President Bush in the upcoming election:
Republicans for Kerry http://www.republicansforkerr...
Another Republican for Kerry http://%20www.anotherrepublicanforkerry .com/
Republicans Against Bush http://republicansagainst bush...
Republican Switchers http://inprogress.typepad.com...
Republicans 4 Kerry http://www.republicans4kerry....
Conservatives for Kerry http://conservativesforke rry....
There are also several less formal, web-based groups comprised of Republicans opposing the Bush re-election effort, including the "Republicans Against Bush" http://repagainstbush.meetup.... Meetup and an AOL journal called "Republicans for the ouster of King George II http://journals.aol.com/timbu... ." And even the Log Cabin Republicans http://www.logcabin.org/logca... , which notes on its website that "every victory for a fair- minded Republican is a victory for the future of [the Republican] Party," have pointedly chosen not to endorse President Bush's re-election bid.
It's unclear what effect these typically GOP voters will have on the race's electoral math but it's clear that Bush is the most unpopular Republican nominee in memory among members of his own party.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Peter Rothberg, [i]ActNow[/i]!, TheNation, http://www.thenation.com
Republicans For Kerry: "Country Must Come Before Party", http://www.tblog.com/template...
Republican Air Force Officer: Why I'm Voting Against My Commander in Chief, http://www.tblog.com/template...
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ...---... Bush's War Against the Military ...---... |
| 10.27.04 (8:39 am) [edit] |
[b]Bush has failed the military on almost every level – marking the difference between being militaristic and pro-military.[/b]
George W. Bush so often invokes his nominal title of "commander in chief" at veterans' rallies, on military bases and during presidential debates that he now appears like some latter-day caudillo. But his claims to be a commander of any kind in any serious way are a figment of his imagination.
Discounting that he sent American troops into Iraq on false pretenses, a real commander would fight for the welfare of his troops. But Bush has demonstrated a consistent unwillingness to do so, and as a result many high-ranking officers have endorsed Kerry, including retired Navy Adm. William Crowe and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. John Shalikashvili.
Bush has failed the military on almost every level. While Halliburton and Boeing went to the bank this year with about $10 billion each, undermanned U.S. forces went into Iraq without armored vests and driving unarmored vehicles. The fatal results were hidden from public view as the dead were secreted home and the Department of Defense (DOD) obscured and juggled the numbers of maimed and wounded.
Once back in the United States, veterans found no federal welcome mat laid out for them. By April this year, one in six veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan had filed benefits claims with the Veterans Administration for service-related disabilities. These figures do not include those troops still serving and are twice the number the DOD Web site says suffered "Non-Mortal Wounds" in those conflicts. Today, one-third of those claims, almost 10,000, have yet to be processed. Further, Bush's 2005 budget will cut 540 staff members of the Veterans Benefit Administration, which is the office that handles the claims. The outreach department that lets vets know of available services also was instructed in a 2002 memo by a deputy undersecretary in the Veterans Health Administration to run in silent mode to flush out people who had not made claims out of ignorance.
Even if the war wounded succeed in getting disability pay, in 2003 Bush threatened to veto a bill that allowed veterans to collect disability pay and pensions simultaneously.
In 2003, his administration also tried to cut combat pay from $225 to $150 a month and the family separation allowance from $250 to $100. And most callously of all, the frat brat who ducked a war that killed 48,000 American troops threatened to veto a proposal to double the $6,000 payment to relatives of soldiers killed in action.
That is typical of the way in which President Bush, who loves to dress up in uniform, treats those who actually wear one. As a June 30, 2003, Army Times editorial concluded: "President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap and getting cheaper by the day, judging by the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately."
In his ghostwritten 1999 biography "A Charge to Keep," an indignant Bush wrote: "Nearly twelve thousand members of the armed forces are on food stamps. I support increased pay and better benefits and training for our citizen solders. A volunteer military has only two paths. It can lower its standards to fill its ranks. Or it can inspire the best and brightest to join and stay." Despite four years to do something about it, more than 250,000 military families did not get Bush's much-vaunted child tax credit because their breadwinner earned less than $26,000 a year. And in his 2005 budget, Bush proposes only that combat pay not count toward eligibility for food stamps – for which no less than 25,000 military families are eligible.
The U.S. Army pay scale is about half that of the British, which is why there is a major crisis in military recruitment. Senior officers talk about a "serious crisis" in recruitment for the regular forces. In addition, the Iraq war has put heavy demands on reservists and guard units. For the first time in 10 years, the guard failed to meet its recruitment target. In one Indiana unit, for instance, the reenlistment rate has dropped from 85 percent to 32 percent.
You would think that the Bush administration would be solicitous of the foot soldiers who carry out its imperial ambitions. But this administration is militaristic, not pro-military. Most of its members sedulously avoided combat and uniformed service of any kind in previous wars and most current enlisted personnel come from small town, blue-collar America, precisely the people whose voices are among the least heard. It is no surprise that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao's proposals for cutting back legal entitlement to overtime pay this year included all those who had learned their skill in the military.
All of this penny-pinching may seem strange in light of Bush's desperate attempts to associate himself with the military. But when he dons a flak jacket, the president is not looking to win over those GIs who have just had their term extended on stop-loss orders, but those TV-viewing voters who put the military on a pedestal as the guarantor of American virtues.
[b]Source:[/b]
Ian Williams writes on the United Nations for AlterNet. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus, the Nation and Salon. He is the author of "Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past," now available from Nation Books., http://www.alternet.org/waron...
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| ...---... Newspaper Endorsements in the Swing States ...---... |
| 10.26.04 (3:05 pm) [edit] |
[b]Editor & Publisher claims research that 5 to 10 percent of voters take newspapers endorsements under consideration when making their decisions. With that in mind, here's their tongue-in-cheek predictions http://www.editorandpublisher... for next Tuesday:[/b]
FLORIDA: Bush is in big trouble here, at least if newspapers have any sway. Every single large paper has gone for Kerry, with the Orlando and Bradenton papers abandoning Bush and The Tampa Tribune (formerly for Dubya) sitting it out. This is how bad it is for the president: As far we know, his two biggest Sunshine State catches so far are the Ocala Star-Banner and The Ledger in Lakeland. So let's give this state to Kerry. In fact, if Bush pulls this one out, E&P promises never to give any weight to editorial endorsements in the future.
PENNSYLVANIA: More bad news for Bush. As expected, the two Philly dailies and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette backed Kerry, but The Morning Call in Allentown switched to him, and the Scranton and Harrisburg papers, previously pro-Bush, declared neutrality. Bush did pick up switches in York and Easton, but we have to give this state to Kerry.
COLORADO: With Dean Singleton taking over as publisher at The Denver Post, both of that city's papers lined up for Bush. Kerry picked up a switch in Boulder, but it's not enough. This state goes in the Bush column.
MICHIGAN: Unlike in previous years, the Detroit papers are not split, with the Free-Press going for Kerry and the News, shockingly, sitting it out. Kerry also picked up switches in Flint and Muskegon. Score this for Kerry.
OHIO: Too tough to call. Of the two big Bush papers from 2000, The Plain Dealer is now (officially) neutral and The Columbus Dispatch offered a Bush endorsement that was highly critical of the president. Elsewhere, Kerry gets Dayton, Toledo, and Akron, while Bush gets Cincinnati and Canton.
IOWA: Kerry gets the Des Moines paper and a switch in Davenport. Bush gets Cedar Rapids. Give it to Kerry.
MINNESOTA: Kerry grabbed the Minneapolis paper but the Saint Paul Pioneer Press has yet to make a call.
OREGON: Did anyone notice that this state went from tossup to leaning left (according to the pundits) right after The Oregonian switched from Bush to Kerry?
WASHINGTON: Ditto here, when The Seattle Times jumped to Kerry. The Dem now has both Seattle papers, plus Tacoma's.
I like the Florida results best. And getting the Plain-Dealer to sit this one out was another example of Internet activism at its finest.
[b]Source:[/b]
Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com
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| ...---... Republican Air Force Officer: Why I'm Voting Against My Commander in Chief ...---... |
| 10.26.04 (12:57 pm) [edit] |
[b]I have been a registered Republican since I first became eligible to vote. I've been an Air Force officer for 20 years, first on active duty and now in the reserves. [/b]I gladly voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and supported his battle to win the Cold War. If called to serve in Iraq, I would willingly do my duty for my country. You might think I'm a slam-dunk for the Republican ticket this year, but you'd be wrong. I backed John McCain in the 2000 primary, but I did not vote for George W. Bush and I'm even more opposed to him after seeing his performance over the past four years. I can't say I'm a big fan of John Kerry, but he's a smart guy and I'm willing to give him a chance because Bush has done such a bad job and shows so few signs of improvement that he doesn't deserve to get reelected. This letter explains why I'm voting against my Commander in Chief.
President Bush would have you believe that he is making hard decisions and doing what needs to be done to win the Global War on Terrorism. While I have no doubt that he is trying, his actions have shown me that his judgment is poor and he and his advisers aren't smart enough to figure out the right way to win this war. Taking out Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan was a no-brainer, but the invasion of Iraq was a huge diversion of resources away from the real sources of terrorism. Showing the world that we can and will "take out" any country we want may make puny countries like Libya quiver, but it isn't a smart way to beat the terrorists or our real enemies - it plays right into their hands.
Bush has made no real attempt to win the support of the large majority of Muslims who oppose terrorism. Instead, he has created millions of new enemies around the world - people who used to admire the USA - and these people are now more likely to be recruited by or support future terrorists. It is now more likely that they will overthrow their moderate, pro-US governments, such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and replace them with radical Islamic regimes. Far more dangerous to America than Iraq are the radicals trying to take over Pakistan (which already has nuclear weapons), the unpredictable leader of North Korea (which also has nukes), and Iran (which is allegedly working hard to get them). We are less secure today because we are creating more new enemies than we are able to kill or capture. There are smarter ways to track down terrorists and reduce the appeal of radical Islamic ideology, but Bush has decided to take the easy but wrong course of flexing America's conventional military might and intimidating the world rather than rallying our friends and allies around a grand strategy that has a chance of success.
American troops are doing the best they can to win in Iraq, but the decision to go to war and the lack of planning to win the peace were strategic political mistakes made by President Bush, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and the senior White House staff. The rhetoric coming out of the White House about what is happening in Iraq not only continues to mislead our citizens, but it has misled our own troops. It has caused them to misjudge their enemies and make fatal mistakes in dealing with the Iraqi population. Senior White House decisions also sent the message to our troops that they could get around the Geneva Convention when interrogating suspected terrorists - with disastrous results for the detainees at Abu Gharib prison.
President Bush says he has fully supported his troops, but he is really taking credit for good Congressional support and ignoring his own poor record. He has repeatedly submitted defense budgets cutting active, reserve, guard and veterans' benefits, including imminent danger pay, family separation allowance, and the funding of VA hospitals, only to have them protected by Congress. Attempting to pay for tax cuts by cutting military benefits during wartime is outrageous and damaging to our military families.
While national security is of my most grave concern, there are other domestic issues that also matter and can't be allowed to suffer through another four years of bad policy.
I was recently shocked to learn that President Bush, despite all his talk about love of freedom, has attempted to deny our most precious freedom to American citizens who oppose him - the right to free speech. On many occasions, he has used the Secret Service to keep legal, peaceful protesters quarantined in designated "free speech zones" where nobody (especially the media) can see or hear them. Pro-Bush crowds are allowed to get near him during speeches, but people with signs critical of him have been forcibly moved away or illegally arrested. I find this outrageous and intolerable. Some provisions in the Patriot Act are also dangerous to our liberty in the hands of an attorney general who is willing to jail citizens for months or years without any possibility of judicial review. Many American citizens have been jailed secretly, and while I am all for giving the FBI greater powers to investigate suspected terrorists, there have to be checks and balances to protect us from over-zealous government officials. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all Americans should be wary of any President who is willing to violate our most basic rights.
While I'm not a fan of extreme environmentalists who want to protect every endangered species around, I do care about the quality of my air and water and controls on toxic waste that could endanger all of our health. I'm willing to pay for healthy living conditions, and I don't think that such costs threaten the competitiveness of US companies against low-cost foreign companies that are allowed to pollute. President Bush has attempted to reverse environmental protections across the board and has given big business interests the ability to profit from the destruction of our natural resources. He forced the EPA to stop prosecuting Clean Air Act violators, attempted to increase the amount of toxic mercury allowed in our water, under-funded the cleanup of hazardous waste, reversed EPA bans on the sale of contaminated land, increased logging in our national parks, allowed giant pig "factory farms" to pollute the land, water and homes without having to clean it up, and ignored the threat of global warming. Yes, it costs money to have healthy living conditions and some countries don't want to pay the price. That's when the President has a duty to lead the world to negotiate good environmental treaties, not to refuse to participate, thus guaranteeing failure. He has a duty to protect American companies against unfair foreign competition, not give them a license to break the laws established to protect our own citizens. President Bush has failed to lead the world and protect our citizens from environmental hazards or unfair foreign competition.
President Bush also appears willing to sacrifice our national parks to the interests of oil companies, strip miners and loggers. Once these national treasures have been exploited, they will be ruined forever. Our parks belong to the people and I'm not willing to sell them out for a few bucks, most of which will go to private companies and the rest of which will go to support more government spending or tax cuts for the wealthy.
Finally, let me address the economy. I've never really believed that the President has much short-term influence over the state of the economy. However, I do know that cutting taxes and increasing spending is normally a great way to stimulate economic growth for a few years, while hurting us in the long-term when we have to pay off the debt. Yet, despite the billions in tax cuts and increased homeland security spending, I haven't seen any growth in jobs or spending. I guess that means all we get is the long-term debt. Finally - is President Bush willing to fix Social Security? No - but then again, I don't think anyone in Washington has the guts to do it.
The bottom line is this. President Bush had four years to show us what he can do. He has completely bungled our foreign policy and has been favoring big business interests and wealthy individuals over fiscal responsibility, the well being of our economy, and the health of our citizens. There is no way he's getting another chance if I have anything to say about it.
Sir, you are relieved of duty!
[b]Sources:[/b]
By David Thalheimer, t r u t h o u t, http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
[b]Refer also to "Republicans For Kerry: "Country Must Come Before Party"" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
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| ...---... The Scalia/Thomas Majority ...---... |
| 10.26.04 (12:09 pm) [edit] |
Chief Justice William Rehnquist underwent surgery yesterday related to "a recent diagnosis of thyroid cancer." Rehnquist's serious condition – even as he is expected to return to the bench on Monday – "gave fresh prominence to the future of the Supreme Court." Bush has said publicly that the Supreme Court justices he admires are arch conservatives Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. If re-elected, it is possible Bush could get three or more appointments, "enough to forge a new majority that would turn the extreme Scalia-Thomas worldview into the law of the land." The result: "Abortion might be a crime in most states. Gay people could be thrown in prison for having sex in their homes. States might be free to become mini-theocracies, endorsing Christianity and using tax money to help spread the gospel. The Constitution might no longer protect inmates from being brutalized by prison guards. Family and medical leave and environmental protections could disappear."
[b]A SCALIA/THOMAS MAJORITY WOULD OVERTURN ROE V. WADE:[/b] In the second presidential debate Bush was asked, given the opportunity, who he would appoint to the Supreme Court. Bush responded that he wouldn't pick a judge who supported "the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights." Why would President Bush reference Dred Scott v. Sandford, which hasn't been good law since the end of the Civil War? Because "to the Christian right, 'Dred Scott' turns out to be a code word for 'Roe v. Wade.'" Dred Scott has been compared to Roe v. Wade by prominent conservatives such as George Will, Peggy Noonan and Michael Novak. By referencing Dred Scott, Bush made it clear that "he would never, ever appoint a Supreme Court justice who condoned Roe." If Roe v. Wade is overturned, "there's a good chance that 30 states, home to more than 70 million women, will outlaw abortions within a year; some states may take only weeks." (For more on Bush's misuse of the Dred Scott decision read this new column from American Progress).
[b]A SCALIA/THOMAS MAJORITY WOULD CRIMINALIZE PRIVATE SEXUAL CONDUCT:[/b] If Scalia and Thomas controlled the Court, "states could once again criminalize private, consensual conduct between adults, and could prevent local governments from enacting even the most basic anti-discrimination protections for gay men and lesbians." Last year, when the Court ruled that the police violated a gay man's right to liberty when they raided his home and arrested him for having sex there, Scalia and Thomas sided with the police.
[b]A SCALIA/THOMAS MAJORITY WOULD END FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE:[/b] The Family and Medical Leave Act "guarantees most workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a loved one." Last year, the Court upheld the law, but Scalia and Thomas voted to strike it down, arguing that Congress exceeded its power in passing the law.
[b]A SCALIA/THOMAS MAJORITY WOULD ALLOW STATE-SPONSORED RELIGION:[/b] Justice Thomas has suggested that "despite many Supreme Court rulings to the contrary...the First Amendment prohibition on establishing a religion may not apply to the states." If that view prevailed, "states could adopt particular religions and use tax money to proselytize for them."
[b]A SCALIA/THOMAS MAJORITY WOULD LEGALIZE SEX DISCRIMINATION:[/b] If Scalia and Thomas were in charge, "public universities, such as the Virginia Military Institute, would be able to discriminate against women in admissions." Also, federal law "could no longer be used to protect students from sexual harassment or other types of discrimination at the hands of other students."
[b]A SCALIA/THOMAS MAJORITY WOULD LEGALIZE BRUTALITY AGAINST PRISONERS:[/b] A recent case considered a Louisiana inmate who "was shackled and then punched and kicked by two prison guards while a supervisor looked on." The beating left the inmate "with a swollen face, loosened teeth and a cracked dental plate." The Court ruled that the inmate's treatment violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Scalia and Thomas dissented, arguing "the Eighth Amendment was not violated by the 'insignificant' harm the inmate suffered."
[b]A SCALIA/THOMAS MAJORITY WOULD GUT ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS:[/b] A Scalia/Thomas majority would make short work of the law that protects our air, water and land. Scalia and Thomas, for example, voted to strip the EPA "of the authority to prevent damaging air pollution by industries when state agencies improperly fail to do so." Already, federal judges appointed by Bush "were less sympathetic to environmentalists' pleadings than those appointed by previous Republican presidents... ruling in favor of environmental challenges 17 percent of the time."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... Republicans For Kerry: "Country Must Come Before Party" ...---... |
| 10.26.04 (9:21 am) [edit] |
[b]Texas Republican Says "Country Must Come Before Party"[/b]
[b]By Mitch Dworkin, RepublicansforKerry04.org
Republicans for Kerry [/b]
The Republican Party as well as America needs a return to mainstream leadership.
Country must come before party. We need a president who can admit to making mistakes and bad decisions, a president who can unite this country and restore credibility back to the White House and to our allies who are now alienated from this Administration, and a president who is fiscally responsible and is in touch with the economic burdens of middle class Americans.
Enormous tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans who make over $200,000 per year in a time of war and when the middle class is suffering from job losses, increased costs in health care and education, and record high deficits is not exercising fiscal responsibility and is also clearly not compassionate or conservative.
President Bush does not embody and practice true compassionate and conservative values as he claims. He and most of his administration represent an extreme faction of the Republican Party and are out of touch with the American people and our world allies who once respected us.
A president who while in debate with agreed upon rules who will not directly answer the question that is put to him "President Bush, please give three instances when you think you made a bad decision, and what you did to correct it" and who in one incident interrupts the moderator of the presidential debate three times, changes the moderator's question, and then says on his own without permission from the moderator "You tell Tony Blair we're going alone..." does not have the temperament to lead the Republican Party or this great nation. That is especially true when our countrymen and women are shouldering 88.5% of the costs and casualties in Iraq due to this president's inability to work with the United Nations.
The truth is non-partisan and the truth according to a federal report released last week is that economically we are worse-off than we were before President Bush took office with this president being the first president in 72 years to lose net jobs. The truth according to the CIA is that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which was the basis of President Bush starting a unilateral and preemptive war without a sufficient coalition, an exit strategy, and a plan to win the peace. The truth is that President Bush ran in 2000 as a candidate who would be a uniter as opposed to a divider and this country has never been more partisan in the last 22 years according to John McCain and even VP Dick Cheney admitted to this division in his debate with John Edwards.
There is a growing movement of Republicans called "Republicans for Kerry" who are moving away from President Bush and his extreme policies. It is a difficult and painful move for many Republicans who have never before considered voting for a Democrat, but they know that it will be even more painful if they have to endure another four years of the Bush Administration's out of the mainstream policies.
The Republican Party and the country needs new leadership! Senator John Kerry is running a mainstream campaign of fiscal responsibility, he has demonstrated that he can work well with people and can unite people of differing opinions, and he can admit to making mistakes.
Country must come before party. Republicans of conscience should vote for John Kerry on November 2 so that this country will once again be stronger at home and respected in the world.
[b]For more information on Republicans for Kerry 04: http://www.republicansforkerr... ...[/b]
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| ...---... Threat to Democracy ...---... |
| 10.26.04 (7:47 am) [edit] |
[b]We’ve heard a lot this election year about the threat to democracy.[/b] But nothing is scarier than the Bush administration’s cavalier attitude toward civil liberties, and its willingness to use the military at home. The readiness to declare dead the Posse Comitatus tradition, which bars the use of military force at home, and the creation of Northern Command, the first U.S. military command designed for domestic deployment of the armed forces, is only part of the story. Now we know the Justice Department wanted to go a lot further.
Here, from Tim Golden’s Sunday [i]New York Times [/i]piece on how the Bush administration rewrote military law, is the relevant section on how John Yoo, the man who wrote the PATRIOT Act, pushed for an open-ended ability to deploy the U.S. armed forces within the homeland—an unprecedented concept:
... "In the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. [Tim] Flanigan [former White House deputy general counsel] sought advice from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel on "the legality of the use of military force to prevent or deter terrorist activity inside the United States,'' according to a previously undisclosed department memorandum that was reviewed by The New York Times .
The 20-page response came from John C. Yoo, a 34-year-old Bush appointee with a glittering résumé and a reputation as perhaps the most intellectually aggressive among a small group of legal scholars who had challenged what they saw as the United States' excessive deference to international law. On Sept. 21, 2001, Mr. Yoo wrote that the question was how the Constitution's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure might apply if the military used "deadly force in a manner that endangered the lives of United States citizens."
Mr. Yoo listed an inventory of possible operations: shooting down a civilian airliner hijacked by terrorists; setting up military checkpoints inside an American city; employing surveillance methods more sophisticated than those available to law enforcement; or using military forces "to raid or attack dwellings where terrorists were thought to be, despite risks that third parties could be killed or injured by exchanges of fire."
Mr. Yoo noted that those actions could raise constitutional issues, but said that in the face of devastating terrorist attacks, "the government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties." If the president decided the threat justified deploying the military inside the country, he wrote, then "we think that the Fourth Amendment should be no more relevant than it would be in cases of invasion or insurrection."
The prospect of such military action at home was mostly hypothetical at that point, but with the government taking the fight against terrorism to Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world, lawyers in the administration took the same "forward-leaning" approach to making plans for the terrorists they thought would be captured." ...
Military checkpoints inside the United States? High-tech, intelligence-style surveillance of Americans? Army-led raids on American dwellings?
[b]Source:[/b]
Robert Dreyfuss, [i]The Dreyfuss Report[/i], TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com
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| ...---... Neo-Fascist Bush's Miserable Failure in Iraq Worsens by the Day ...---... |
| 10.26.04 (7:29 am) [edit] |
[b]Secret intelligence shows rising insurgency[/b]
The Sunday Herald reports http://www.sundayherald.com/4... : "Coalition claims that Iraq may still be able to hold elections in January are seriously undermined by secret intelligence material passed to the Sunday Herald which reveals the full extent of the resistance in the country.
Far from a limited number of pro-Saddam resistance groups fighting coalition forces, well-funded cells and militias representing a spectrum of Islamic groups are now spread across Iraq. …
The intelligence revision of the scale of the insurgency, which puts the number of militant cells at over 50 and growing, indicates that the current level of coalition forces will struggle to cope with an increased level of insurgent activity as the election approaches next year."
[b]Defying the Geneva Convention[/b]
If, as Senator John McCain says http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/s... , "the thing that separates [the U.S.] from our enemy is our respect for human rights," than that separation is a very thin line. A new report shows that the CIA violated the Geneva Convention by transferring detainees out of Iraq. The transferring itself is prohibited under the Convention, as is the fact that neither the Red Cross, the UN, or any other group was notified.
Given the direct disregard for international law and the continuing torture scandal of Abu Ghraib, it's hard to believe that in June a top Pentagon lawyer assured reporters that the treatment of Iraqi prisoners would be "all Geneva, all the time." Oh yes, and the War in Iraq is going fabulously.
[b]Sources:[/b]
[b]AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
Refer also to "Promoting Abu Ghraib" on http://www.alternet.org/waron... ...[/b]
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| ...---... The Education Gap: Stupid Voters for Stupid Bush ...---... |
| 10.25.04 (7:50 pm) [edit] |
"In their latest strategy memo, James Carville and Stan Greenberg say 'the big story in this election is the Education Gap, which is greatly impacting who are the targets in the coming week, and will impact and be the story of the election afterwards. While the Gender Gap has diminished since 2000, the Education Gap has expanded significantly, and is now slightly larger than the division along gender lines.' 'In 2000, there was only a 2-point education gap, with Gore and Bush running dead even among college graduates and Bush winning by just 2 points among the non-college educated voters. The result was a 2-point education gap. But not so in 2004. Today, there is now a 12-point education gap. Kerry is winning college educated voters by 10 points but losing the non-college graduates by 2 points.'" ([b]Note:[/b] PDF file on http://www.democracycorps.com... )
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| ...---... Slut Dicky-boy 'Halliburton' Cheney's Pimp Gets Special Treatment ...---... |
| 10.25.04 (7:05 pm) [edit] |
"And I'll say we've seen them in recent weeks in a number of different ways, their willingness to go and say absolutely anything to try to score points and garner support."
– Vice President Cheney, 10/21/04, http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,136131,00.html
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"So if John Kerry had been in charge, maybe the Soviet Union would still be in business."
– Vice President Cheney, 10/23/04, http://www.freerepublic.com/f...
[b]Above is an example of the traitorous [i]double-speak [/i]and [i]hypocrisy[/i] from Dicky-boy 'Halliburton' Cheney, neo-con Slut to his neo-fascist Pimp who is raping the American people senseless ...[/b]
For months the Bush administration has insisted it has given Halliburton, Vice President Cheney's former company, "no special treatment." Now, the top civilian contracting official for the Army Corps of Engineers, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, says "the Army granted the Halliburton Company large contracts for work in Iraq and the Balkans without following rules designed to ensure competition and fair prices to the government." According to Greenhouse, "Army officials inappropriately allowed representatives of Halliburton to sit in as they discussed the terms of a contract the company was set to receive." In retaliation for raising questions about the Halliburton contracts, Greenhouse "was excluded from major decisions to award money and...her job status was threatened." Greenhouse is calling "for a high-level investigation of what she described as threats to the 'integrity of the federal contracting program.'"
[b]HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED:[/b] Months before the invasion of Iraq, Halliburton was awarded "a secret contract … to draw up plans for fixing oil facilities." Once the invasion began, the administration deemed Halliburton the only company capable of carrying out the plans. Greenhouse "argued strenuously that a noncompetitive contract should not be given for more than one year." Nevertheless, the administration granted "a five-year contract worth up to $7 billion." A March 2003 e-mail, previously reported by Time Magazine, reveals that the multibillion dollar no-bid contract for Halliburton was "coordinated" with Cheney's office.
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... The Opportunistic Condolizzard: More than a Few Campaign Stops ...---... |
| 10.25.04 (5:42 pm) [edit] |
[b]How Rice Has Changed the Role of National Security Adviser,[i] For the Worse [/i]...[/b]
In making the rounds to give speeches in support of President Bush's foreign policy, Condoleezza Rice continues, in disturbing ways, to redefine the role of the national security adviser. Contrary to the advice of her mentor, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who in 2001 admonished that the adviser should be "seen occasionally and heard even less," she has become the most publicly visible holder of this office since Henry Kissinger.
Rice spent much of September and October on the road, with talks made or scheduled in the battleground states of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Washington, and Michigan. None of her predecessors, Kissinger included, was involved this way in presidential campaign politics. Of those who filled her job in the past quarter century, none gave more than two foreign policy speeches during the two months prior to a presidential election. And those talks were given in traditional venues in New York and Washington.
This change has been part of a broader pattern. Over the past four years, Rice has become a principal administration spokesperson on the national stage. The number of her appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows is comparable to that of Secretary of State Colin Powell (84 vs. 102 since January 2001). By contrast, the great majority of her predecessors, who served presidents from Kennedy through Clinton, appeared once or twice a year on the Sunday shows. The two exceptions were Scowcroft (who was interviewed 35 times during the first Bush administration) and Sandy Berger (who appeared 27 times during Clinton's second term) — still a fraction of Rice's which averaged every two weeks.
She has also been atypically active diplomatically. Not since Kissinger's secret missions to China and elsewhere has a national security adviser traveled so much for diplomacy. In August 2001, Rice visited Moscow accompanied by various Cabinet officials — but not Secretary Powell, who had yet to make his first visit to Russia. Last year, President Bush appointed Rice as "his personal representative" for the Middle East peace process, bypassing the secretary of state who traditionally performs this role. And earlier this year Rice traveled to East Asia for state-like visits in China, South Korea, and Japan.
Her predecessors traveled mainly in exceptional circumstances, to communicate urgent presidential concerns. Scowcroft flew to Beijing in 1989 to prevent a rupture in US-Chinese relations after Tianamen Square. Anthony Lake twice went to Europe to convince NATO allies of the need for a common strategy to end the war in Bosnia. And Berger flew to Moscow in 2000 to determine whether a deal on missile defense was possible.
All of Rice's activity would be of secondary importance had it not undercut her ability to do her primary job. The traditional separation from overt partisan politics helps foreign policymakers maintain credibility, which is why secretaries of state and defense do not normally engage in political activity. (Neither Powell nor Rumsfeld attended the Republic National Convention in New York this year.) Their interlocutors need to know that their work reflects national, not partisan interests.
The gravest consequence, however, has been the adverse impact on policy. Time spent preparing for and engaging in public activity is time not spent on the job only the national security adviser can do — managing the process by which effective foreign policy is made. This function is particularly critical when an administration is as internally divided as the current one.
Unfortunately, this process broke down at crucial points over the past four years. Prior to 9/11, Rice failed to push for a coordinated, government-wide response to growing indications of a pending terrorist attack. After 9/11, the NSC process failed to examine the opportunity costs of going to war against Iraq — including the costs of diverting resources, attention and energy away from the real and growing nuclear threats in North Korea and Iran and the pursuit of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and beyond.
And once Bush decided on war, the NSC failed to ensure that the postwar strategy for Iraq would consider all possible contingencies and engage all those within the U.S. government that would have to be involved in ensuring its success. Instead, postwar strategy was delegated to a group of Pentagon ideologues. he cost of their monumental mismanagement is being paid every day in American—and Iraqi—blood.
In defending her recent speaking engagements, Rice's spokesman explained that "at the risk of stating the obvious, part of the job today of national security adviser is to discuss our nation's national security policy." Perhaps — but never at the expense of maintaining a well-functioning national security policymaking process.
[b]Source:[/b]
Ivo Daalder is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and special adviser on national security at the Center for American Progress. Mac Destler is a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy., http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... Can we be safe??? Bush shrugs . . . ...---... |
| 10.25.04 (5:08 pm) [edit] |
[b]Bush says http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... :[/b]
... "President Bush said in a television interview the United States was safer from terrorism but whether it can ever be fully safe was "[b]up in the air[/b]."" ...
He's right, so long as we have an administration that fights the wrong wars, at the wrong time, against the wrong enemy.
Oh, and Bush also says there is no evidence of a pre-election terrorist attack.
[b]Refer also to ""I Was One Guy in a Bubble"" on http://www.alternet.org/elect... ...[/b]
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| ... --- ... A Patriot Act ...---... |
| 10.22.04 (3:50 pm) [edit] |
One of the best way to decide the undecided voters out there is show them a compelling DVD that lays out the stark truth. Everybody knows that "Fahrenheit 9/11" is available in their own home theater, but there's another stunning DVD that puts it plain.
Mark Crispin Miller's A Patriot Act http://www.patriotnation.us/m... is now available http://customflix.com/206219 . Directed by Lilibet Foster, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary three years ago, A Patriot Act shows how successfully the Bush administration has been at undermining it. A mix of Miller's commentary and cuts from some of the most incredible things we've seen coming from the White House in the past four years, it's worth checking out.
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Jan[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
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| ...---... John Kerry: The Rolling Stone Interview ...---... |
| 10.21.04 (9:31 pm) [edit] |
For two days in October, the John Kerry campaign came to a brief stop at a hotel and conference center on the high-plains sprawl of suburban Denver, where the candidate holed up with his staff and prepared for his second debate with George Bush. While the traveling press idled over endless buffets in one of the hotel dining rooms, Kerry and his closest advisers sequestered themselves behind closed doors, getting ready for the next night's crucial events.
The morning's calm was broken when Kerry's press advisers began circulating word that the candidate would soon be making a statement about the war in Iraq, a canny move to seize control of the day's news cycle, which was already full of bad news for President Bush: A government-commissioned report had concluded that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction; Paul Bremer, until recently his chief administrator in Iraq, had been quoted as saying that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had been done with too few troops; and Donald Rumsfeld had conceded that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The press was herded out to a field in front of the hotel, chosen for its view of the mountains in the distance. When Kerry emerged, he was wearing his presidential blue suit, and with little fanfare or preamble he ripped into Bush with icy efficiency, saying how in light of the morning's news it was now clear that George Bush and Dick Cheney "may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq." After some questions from reporters, he disappeared, projecting the attitude that he had more important things to do.
A few minutes later, we were ushered up to Kerry's suite, where the candidate was tucking into a huge lunch. Gone was the crisp blue suit. He'd changed into khakis and running shoes and had dropped the formal manner. By the door stood a battered guitar case. Through an open door, one could see a framed picture of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, on a bedside table. For the hour that we spoke with Kerry, he was conversational and forthright, relaxed but clearly wearing his game face.
[b]You were tough out there today.[/b]
Well, I should be tough on him. This is an amazing moment in American history - where a president of the United States is finding the rationale for invading another country after the fact.
[b]The president has now given twenty-four reasons for going to war. Why do you think we really invaded Iraq?[/b]
Well, I think you've heard all the reasons. I can't psychoanalyze them. They were driven by ideology; they were driven by a fixation on Saddam Hussein. They took their eye off of Osama bin Laden and the real war on terror, and the consequences for our country are gigantic: $200 billion, and counting; the loss of credibility and prestige in the world; the loss of alliances that we need to be helping us. The American people are paying a very, very bitter price for their bad judgment - no matter what the cause is.
[b] Did you walk out of the first debate with the sense that you'd won?[/b]
You can't ever tell. We're the last people to ask - the people on the stage. It's always tricky how people see it on TV. But I felt good, like I'd done the things I came to do, and I felt confident about the message.
[b]Read the full interview on http://www.truthout.org/docs_... ...[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
John Kerry: The Rolling Stone Interview, By Jann S. Wenner, Rolling Stone Magazine, http://www.rollingstone.com/n...
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| ...---... Demand that Congress Renew the Fairness Doctrine ...---... |
| 10.21.04 (6:59 pm) [edit] |
"In June 2004, Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) introduced legislation calling on broadcasters to provide balance and diversity in their news coverage. H.R. 4710, or the MEDIA Act (Meaningful Expression of Democracy in America) would reinstate the Fairness Doctrine to ensure that broadcasters "afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance." We, the undersigned, support Representative Slaughter's efforts to restore balance to the media and call on Congress to pass this measure."
Sign the petition on http://www.fairnessdoctrine.c...
...[i] and [/i]...
Write to Congress on http://www.congress.org
[b]Rightwing Talk Radio Broadcasts 13 Hours for Every 1 Hour of Progressive Talk [/b]
In an effort to determine the extent of partisan political disparity that exists on American talk radio, Democracy Radio, http://www.democracyradio.org... a nonprofit corporation dedicated to ending the political imbalance on the nation's airwaves, conducted a two-part survey. Total weekly broadcast hours of local and national Conservative programs: 41,731. Total weekly broadcast hours of local and national Progressive programs: 3,042.
[b]This represents an outrageous affront to our democratic system of government and explains why the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]are getting away with murder ...[/b]
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| ...---... GOP Sign Stealer Knocks Himself Unconscious ...---... |
| 10.21.04 (6:42 pm) [edit] |
[b]Sometimes you just have to laugh ... This puts it [i]all[/i] in perspective:[/b]
A Lakewood Republican stealing campaign signs late one night got nabbed when he ran across a low- hanging driveway chain, fell face first onto a pilfered sign and the concrete and knocked himself unconscious. Randal Wagner, 50, was loaded into an ambulance, treated at Lutheran Medical Center for abrasions and facial cuts and issued a summons. "I did a very stupid thing," Wagner said Monday, admitting theft of the signs. "I got caught up in the political passions of this highly contested election."
[b]Refer to "For sign pilferer, politicians aren't only ones falling flat on their face" on http://www.rockymountainnews....,1299,DRMN_36_3264139,00.html ...[/b]
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| ...---... When You're In A Box All You Do Is "Turn Corners" ...---... |
| 10.21.04 (2:22 pm) [edit] |
[u][b]An Analysis of the Recent Deterioration in the Fiscal Condition of the U.S. Government[/b][/u]
In early September, the Congressional Budget Office released its estimate of the fiscal 2004 federal budget deficit, indicating that government outlays would exceed revenues by a total of $422 billion—the largest budget deficit in history. The fiscal '04 deficit exceeds the previous record, a $375 billion deficit set just last year, by nearly 13 percent.
Even more striking than the size of these deficits is the speed with which the nation has developed them. As recently as fiscal 2001, the federal budget was still in surplus, and as recently as fiscal 2000, the nation had the largest budget surplus in its history.
[u]Download entire report in PDF[/u]: http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/fiscaldeter ioration.pdf
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| ...---... The Truth of Baghdad ...---... |
| 10.21.04 (12:49 pm) [edit] |
[b]After yesterday's astonishing report http://www.alternet.org/waron... confirming the lack of any post-invasion plan made the rounds on the internet, a letter came back from a woman in Minnesota conflicted about passing it along to a Conservative friend.[/b]
He'd already told her that he needs to believe that "his son's life was on the line for a good reason, to promote liberty and democracy." So how could she pass along this report that denied him that illusion?
While the solution to this personal dilemma is admittedly complex the fact is, it's getting harder and harder to maintain that particular illusion.
The most recent blow to Bush's "hunky-dory" Iraq assessments is a report from the truly non-partisan International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Among it's criticisms of the war http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/mi... are:
1. That the risk of terrorism "appeared to increase after the Iraq war began in March 2003."
2. That al-Qaeda remains "a viable and effective 'network of networks.'"
3. That "It is probable that recruitment generally has accelerated on account of Iraq…"
4. That, according to BBC, "there were too few US and other foreign troops in Iraq for the task."
And then there's Brent Scowcroft's assessment http://www.usatoday.com/news/... that Bush is making a desperate attempt to "rescue a failing venture." Lest anyone think that's not a blow, consider this: Scowcroft was the first Bush's National Security Advisor and the mentor to the current Bush's NSA, Condoleezza Rice. Who knows, maybe "reality-based" politics are making a comeback.
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Evan[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
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| ...---... U.S. Jews Turning Against War - and Bush ...---... |
| 10.20.04 (5:43 pm) [edit] |
"In 2003, [U.S. Jews] felt gratitude that Saddam Hussein, one of Israel's most implacable foes, had been removed, yet there are concerns now that a misconceived or mismanaged adventure has empowered another implacable foe of Israel, the Iranian theocracy. 'The only nation that seems to have benefited by our invasion of Iraq is Iran, which is a far greater threat to Israel than Iraq was,' said U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, (D-Nev.), a Jew and an outspoken pre-war proponent of invasion who feels Bush deceived her... At the end of 2002, just months before the war, an American Jewish Committee poll found that 59% of U.S. Jews approved U.S. action against Iraq, while 36% disapproved. A year later, those numbers had flipped to 54% against and 43 in favor. In the most recent AJCommittee poll, posted last month, 66% of American Jews surveyed disapproved, and 30% approved. General polling of Americans shows opposition to the war in the mid-50s."
Refer to[b] "U.S. Jews turning against war — because of its impact on Israel"[/b] on http://www.jta.org/page_view_...
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| ...---... Some Christian, huh??? ...---... |
| 10.20.04 (4:53 pm) [edit] |
[b]From War and Peace http://www.warandpiece.com/bl... :[/b]
[b]Matt Yglesias [/b]has a good, spooky column at the [i]American Prospect [/i]today http://www.prospect.org/web/p... on Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld's Own Private Iraq, free of any unpleasant facts on the ground, or facts in general. As Ron Suskind made clear in his [i]NYT[/i] stunner http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... , easy certainty such as that demonstrated by Bush is not a sign of genuine faith, but rather evidence of a total perversion of religious values, which, in one more thoughtful, breeds reflectiveness, moral deliberation, and the capacity for humbleness and doubt (qualities more reflected in fact in Bush's opponent).
Bush practices religion the way he exercises on the treadmill and the way he used to drink - automatically, thoughtlessly, as a way to escape something deeper and absolve himself of responsibility for his own conduct and its consequences. He cheapens it. And as James Wolcott reminds us, the people around Bush trying to telegraph Bush's professions of faith for political gain are hardly saints, and display an unusually deep -- and hardly Christian -- contempt for humanity.
As Wolcott reminds us, "Karl Rove's shouting into the telephone about a political operative with whom he was not pleased, 'We will f*** him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever f***** him.'" He wasn't talking about Saddam Hussein either. Some Christian, [i]huh[/i]?
[b]Update:[/b] The [i]American Prospect's [/i]Ayelish McGarvey has more on Bush's faith as evangelical agit-prop http://www.prospect.org/web/p... . The [i]Washington Monthly's [/i]Amy Sullivan also questioned why Bush who makes such a show of his religious faith doesn't go to church in this piece http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?...%3D%3D in[i] The New Republic [/i]earlier this month.
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| ...---... If John le Carre Could Vote ...---... |
| 10.20.04 (2:53 pm) [edit] |
[b]After our friends at the[i] Guardian [/i]revealed that some Americans a.) still hold pent up hostility to England http://www.guardian.co.uk/use...,13918,1329858,00.html and b.) don't realize it was the French that kicked British ass for us in the Revolutionary War, we thought we'd let you hear from a more famous Brit on his take this election season. We hope you'll let him in from the cold.[/b]
[b]By John le Carré http://www.latimes.com/news/o...,1,3327698.story?coll=la-news-commen t-opinions . John le Carré is the author of "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold," "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and many other novels.[/b]
Maybe there's one good reason — just one — for reelecting George W. Bush, and that's to force him to live with the consequences of his appalling actions and answer for his own lies, rather than wish the job on a Democrat who would then get blamed for his predecessor's follies.
Probably no American president in history has been so universally hated abroad as Bush: for his bullying unilateralism, his dismissal of international treaties, his reckless indifference to the aspirations of other nations and cultures, his contempt for institutions of world government, and above all for misusing the cause of anti-terrorism in order to unleash an illegal war — and now anarchy — upon a country that like too many others around the world was suffering under a hideous dictatorship but had no hand in the events of 9/11, no weapons of mass destruction and no record of terrorism except as an ally of the United States in a dirty war against Iran.
Is your president a great war leader because he allowed himself to be manipulated by a handful of deluded ideologues? Is Tony Blair, my prime minister, a great war leader because he committed Britain's troops, foreign policy and domestic security to the same harebrained adventure?
You are voting in November. We will vote next year. Yet the outcome in both countries will in large part depend on the same question: How long can the lies last now that the truth has finally been told? The Iraq war was planned long before 9/11. Osama bin Laden provided the excuse. Iraq paid the price. American kids paid the price. British kids paid the price. Our politicians lied to us.
While Bush was waging his father's war at your expense, he was also ruining your country. He made your rich richer and your poor and unemployed more numerous. He robbed your war veterans of their due and reduced your children's access to education. And he deprived more Americans than ever before of healthcare.
Now he's busy cooking the books, burying deficits and calling in contingency funds to fight a war that his advisors promised him he could light and put out like a candle.
Meanwhile, your Patriot Act has swept aside constitutional and civil liberties that took brave Americans 200 years to secure and were once the envy of a world that now looks on in horror, not just at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib but at what you are doing to yourselves.
But please don't feel isolated from the Europe you twice saved. Give us back the America we loved, and your friends will be waiting for you. Here in Britain, for as long as we have Tony Blair singing the same lies as George W. Bush, your nightmares will be ours.
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| ...---... October Surprise ...---... |
| 10.20.04 (1:44 pm) [edit] |
[b]Here’s a scenario:[/b] With the election just two weeks away, U.S. forces move into Fallujah after the past two weeks of steady bombardment and probing actions by U.S. forces. After a firefight, the Army and the Marines get to the center of the city and declare it pacified, announcing a major victory. And President Bush, with the election now just days away, proclaims that the United States has turned a corner in Iraq and that a major battle in the war on terror has been won.
It would, in my opinion, be enough to swing the election in Bush’s favor. It would not, of course, signify a true victory in Iraq. The insurgency goes far beyond Fallujah, and even that city would simply simmer in resentment—with continuing guerrilla attacks on occupying U.S. forces—until the Americans pulled out. But because Fallujah has become a symbol of everything that has gone wrong for Bush in Iraq, a U.S. occupation of the city would be laden with heavy symbolic value.
Meanwhile, the casualties mount. Reports the [i]BBC[/i] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wo... : “An American air raid on the Iraqi city of Fallujah has killed six members of the same family. U.S. planes fired two rockets into the house of a couple and their four children early on Wednesday.”
The [i]Christian Science Monitor [/i]reports http://csmonitor.com/2004/101... that 80 percent of Fallujah’s residents have fled the city in anticipation of the coming attack. Devastation is widespread, it says. A firefight on the outskirts of the city killed a second entire family: “Media reports cited witnesses, who said that during a nine-hour battle Sunday, U.S. forces fired on a family trying to escape, killing all five. News agencies reported Fallujah doctors saying that four civilians were killed, including a child.” In an air strike against another building in Fallujah, civilian casualties were mostly children, according to Ahmad Salim, a resident who spoke to the [i]Monitor[/i] http://csmonitor.com/2004/101... :
... "Most of them were children, all of them dead," Salim says, of the families he helped dig out of the rubble with bare hands. "When something happens, everybody runs there to help rescue, like an ambulance—maybe a friend will be [the victim] there." ...
It’s backfiring. Says the[i] Monitor [/i]: “The result is new fear that is tearing at family social fabric, which Iraqis say has only hardened attitudes against American efforts.” But what’s a few dead families if it helps get Bush re-elected?
[b]God, I hope the American people aren't [i]that [/i]stupid ...[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
Robert Dreyfuss, [i]The Dreyfuss Report[/i], TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com
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| ...---... Wake Up America! ...---... |
| 10.19.04 (9:12 pm) [edit] |
[b]George W. Bush is now naked, but most Americans don't see it: an invisible film separates them from reality.[/b]
The United States today has a problem with reality. That is the dominant impression I bring back from a three week trip across the country. It's as though a thin membrane, an invisible film, comes between reality and a portion of the citizenry, making communication impossible. The facts have not disappeared because the film is transparent, but they have stopped exercising an influence on people's judgment. There's not an obfuscation of the truth; it's worse than that: there's an immunization to it. The Iraqi affair is exemplary. Today, apart from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, no one seriously contests the scope of the disaster, the growing isolation of the United States, the impossibility of an honorable withdrawal.
No one any longer denies the lack of preparation for an undertaking that nonetheless had been planned long in advance, the blind trust placed in an international crook wanted in several countries, Ahmed Chalabi, and then in former CIA agent Iyad Allawi. No one dares anymore to evoke the democratic contagion that was supposed to win over the whole region in the wake of the American offensive, still less, after Abu Ghraib, the humanitarian Messianism that was supposed to permeate the whole undertaking.
George W. Bush is naked. His three debates with John Kerry succeeded in undressing him. And yet, he is proof against reality. With the record I have just outlined, the polls continue to see him as the man best placed to finish off the Iraqi affair and protect the United States. The protection of the United States is the major theme of the campaign and demonstration of power the sovereign remedy. Is this war a disaster? Undoubtedly, but it has the merit of keeping the theatre of operations far from the United States...
Last week's publication of Chief American Inspector in Iraq Charles A. Duelfer's report threw a harsh light on this feeling of unreality that has invaded America.
The report shows that Saddam Hussein, hoping to escape from sanctions, had dismantled his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction right after 1991. Consequently, the sanctions were effective and the inspectors had been correct. Yes, but, Bush retorts, Saddam had undoubtedly not given up his intention of rebuilding such an arsenal, so we had to act quickly! It's in the name of reasoning like this that the outgoing president bold-facedly maintains the good grounds for his policy without suffering any loss in public opinion.
It's to describe just such a situation that "The New York Times" brilliant chronicler Paul Krugman recently (Oct. 10, 2004) evoked the Orwellian concept of "reality control". Reality is no longer a given that everyone must accept as a precondition to any analysis. It's one parameter among many for political action, a matter for appropriate treatment. In the same way, Krugman continues, Bush and his administration have succeeded in convincing a portion of the public that reducing taxes on the richest (about 1% of the population, according to Kerry) is in fact a populist measure designed to help small businesses and the middle class.
Thus, the introduction of methods that properly belong to totalitarian propaganda as described by Hannah Arendt into the heart of a democratic country is a great novelty here. It allows us to explain how a people viscerally attached to their freedoms remain numb overall to the Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib scandals, or to the police encroachments permitted by the "Patriot Act". Let us be neither Pharisees nor amnesiacs at the heart of another democratic country: France experienced a similar situation during the war with Algeria.
The failures of the American press and media during the Iraq war bear a large responsibility for this persistent bewitchment of a part of American public opinion, indifferent to the lessons of reality.
The "New York Review of Books", which has had an exemplary attitude during the whole period, recently published a collection entitled "Now They Tell Us" of articles by Michael Massing on the attitude of the best American newspapers during the war in Iraq. Thus it was that the "Washington Post" (which has corrected itself since) on the day after Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations Security Council (February 5, 2003) - during which the whole world saw a hodgepodge of baloney - could title its editorial "Irrefutable!" Beyond any doubt, Thomas Jefferson's aphorism remains entirely timely: "If I had to choose between a government without newspapers and newspapers without a government, I would choose the latter without hesitation."
[b]Source:[/b]
Jacques Julliard is Executive Director of the Nouvel Observateur, http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| ...---... Less Safe, Not Sorry ...---... |
| 10.19.04 (7:01 pm) [edit] |
[b]It is imperative that we oust the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]from office, for they are liars, traitors and dangerously incompetent ... These vile opportunists in the traitorous Bush regime have placed us in greater danger than ever before ...[/b]
President Bush frequently invokes homeland security to bolster the commander-in- chief credentials essential to his re-election campaign. "One thing is for certain," Bush told reporters http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... in a rare press conference last August. "We will do our duty to best secure our country."
But report after report, from a multitude of bipartisan sources over the last three years, directly contradict Bush's promise, citing dangerous underfunding, misplaced priorities, over-reliance on private industry and dire neglect at local, state and federal levels.
A new report released Monday by the nonpartisan watchdog group Public Citizen http://www.citizen.org/homela... examines the security of our nation's nuclear and chemical plants, seaports, water supply systems, and transportation of hazardous materials. "The overall security picture reveals that the United States has made very little progress in the sectors that may put Americans most at risk," the study found http://www.citizen.org/docume... . "In many cases, the administration and its Republican allies in Congress have either opposed security reforms or obstinately refused to act even though ready solutions are obvious."
Half of the country's 60,000 railroad tank cars carrying hazardous materials do not meet current industry safety standards; the Bush Administration blocked efforts by the Senate and EPA to upgrade security at chemical and nuclear plants; 95 percent of containers passing through US ports remain uninspected, even though the CIA says terrorists would most likely transport WMDs via the sea. Last summer ABC News smuggled 15 pounds of uranium from Jakarta to Los Angeles in an undetected mock test.
An article in the Sunday[i] New York Times [/i]aptly described http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... a newly-emerging "Homeland Security-Industrial Complex," marked by inefficient funding and faith- based self-regulation by corporate interests. What's more, private industries controlling 85 percent of the homeland security infrastructure have contributed http://www.citizen.org/pressr... nearly $20 million to Bush and the RNC since 2000.
Former Republican Senator Warren Rudman, who co-authored the Hart-Rudman report http://www.emergency.com/2001... anticipating the 9/11 attacks, said homeland security funding should be tripled in a report for the Council on Foreign Relations http://www.cfr.org/publicatio... , noting that a new terrorist attack could be even more devastating than 9/11. "If you talk to mayors, to governors, to police chiefs, they are just not ready, and we had better get ready," he told http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06... Tim Russert.
The alarms are sounding from inside the government as well. The inspector general of the Homeland Security Department warned http://groups.yahoo.com/group... earlier this month that efforts to create a single consolidated terrorist watch list have fallen woefully behind. Emergency radios are still not linked http://www.csmonitor.com/2004... for most first responders. There are fewer http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/P... police officers on the street now than before 9/11 due to budget cuts.
"Targeting terrorism at its source is an appealing notion," wrote security expert Stephen Flynn in this month's [i]Foreign Affairs[/i] http://www.foreignaffairs.org... , responding to Bush's doctrine http://www.iht.com/articles/9... that the best homeland defense is an aggressive overseas offense. "Unfortunately. the enemy is not cooperating." When it comes to homeland security, neither is the Bush administration.
[b]Source:[/b]
Ari Berman, [i]The Daily Outrage[/i], The Nation, http://www.thenation.com
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| ...---... Cracking Under the Pressure??? ...---... |
| 10.19.04 (4:39 pm) [edit] |
[b]Release the hounds![/b]
Media Matters for America, David Brock's new media watchdog outfit, just annouced that they've underwritten the costs of a shareholder action to force Sinclair Broadcasting to provide real equal time to balance their forced airing of the hour-long Swift Boat smear.
A demand letter just went out this morning and that's to be followed tomorrow, if no reasonable response is forthcoming, by a request for an injunction preventing the airing of the film.
Click here http://mediamatters.org/items... for all the details ...
And if that weren't enough, that's not the only lawsuit coming down the pike http://releases.usnewswire.co... this afternoon.
Also, we're hearing that there are quite a few Sinclair employees at the local level who are actually hoping the boycott works.
[b]And, later on ...[/b]
[b]Sinclair cracking under the pressure??? ...[/b]
"Sinclair Broadcast Group (Nasdaq: SBGI - News) announced today that on Friday, October 22, 2004 at 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. central time) certain television stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. will air a special one-hour news program, entitled "A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media." In order to minimize the interruption of normally scheduled programming in those markets where Sinclair owns and/or programs more than one television station, the news special will be broadcast on only one of those stations. A complete list of stations which will be airing the program and the times of such broadcasts is attached.
The news special will focus in part on the use of documentaries and other media to influence voting, which emerged during the 2004 political campaigns, as well as on the content of certain of these documentaries. The program will also examine the role of the media in filtering the information contained in these documentaries, allegations of media bias by media organizations that ignore or filter legitimate news and the attempts by candidates and other organizations to influence media coverage.
Contrary to numerous inaccurate political and press accounts, the Sinclair stations will not be airing the documentary "Stolen Honor" in its entirety. At no time did Sinclair ever publicly announce that it intended to do so. In fact, since the controversy began, Sinclair's website has prominently displayed the following statement: "The program has not been videotaped and the exact format of this unscripted event has not been finalized. Characterizations regarding the content are premature and are based on ill- informed sources."
[b]Hmmm. Inaccurate stories based on statements of Sinclair executives. Truly, where do they get these clowns?[/b]
See the rest here http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/0... ?
As of 4 PM Sinclair stock is off 3.54% today. It was even further down but 'rallied' over the last half hour or so.
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| ...---... Major League Deception ...---... |
| 10.19.04 (2:42 pm) [edit] |
"We have acted through diplomacy and force to shrink the area where the terrorists can operate freely, and that strategy has the terrorists on the run." - George W. Bush, 10/18/04, http://www.washingtonpost.com...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"The occupation of Iraq has helped al-Qaeda recruit more members, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies … the network has reconstituted itself after losing its Afghan base ... the group has 18,000 potential operatives and is present in more than 60 countries." - BBC News, 5/25/04, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/mi...
[b]What will it take before Americans wake-up to the fact that the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] deserves to be impeached and put on trial for treason? ... And most certainly the neo-con, neo-fascist Bushies do [i]not [/i]deserve another term in office to do more damage and commit more crimes ...[/b]
What was billed by his campaign as a "major policy address" by President Bush about foreign policy turned into a brutally dishonest partisan diatribe. On many occasions Bush "ignored elements of Mr. Kerry's record and stated positions in a way that paints an incomplete or distorted portrait of his approach." Bush also brazenly misled the American people about his own record on terrorism and Iraq.
[b]BUSH DECEPTION #1 – TERRORISTS NOW OPERATE IN A LIMITED AREA:[/b] Bush said that the war in Iraq and other administration policies have worked "to shrink the area where the terrorists can operate freely, and that strategy has the terrorists on the run." The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, however, found the occupation of Iraq actually helped al Qaeda recruitment. In its annual report, the IISS said "the network has reconstituted itself after losing its Afghan base." It estimated al Qaeda today has "18,000 potential operatives and is present in more than 60 countries."
[b]BUSH DECEPTION #2 – ASHCROFT'S COUNTERTERRORISM EFFORTS ARE EFFECTIVE:[/b] Bush bragged that "since September the 11th, law enforcement professionals have stopped terrorist activities" in eleven states, including New Jersey. It's unclear how the Justice Department has "stopped terrorist activities" because it hasn't convicted any terrorists. According to Georgetown Law professor David Cole, "On September 2 a federal judge in Detroit threw out the only jury conviction the Justice Department has obtained on a terrorism charge since 9/11... Until that reversal, the Detroit case had marked the only terrorist conviction obtained from the Justice Department's detention of more than 5,000 foreign nationals in antiterrorism sweeps since 9/11. So Ashcroft's record is 0 for 5,000."
[b]BUSH DECEPTION #3 – 100,000 IRAQIS ARE TRAINED:[/b] Bush claimed, "more than 100,000 soldiers, police, and border guards are already trained, equipped, and bravely serving their country." Bush has repeatedly made that claim in campaign appearances during recent weeks. But, according to the Pentagon, "only about 53,000 of the 100,000 Iraqis on duty now have undergone training."
[b]BUSH DECEPTION #4 – HE NEVER WAVERS IN THE WAR ON TERRORISM:[/b] According to Bush, "winning the war on terror requires more than tough-sounding words repeated in the election season. America needs clear moral purpose and leaders who will not waver." But Bush himself has wavered on whether the war on terrorism can be won. On Aug. 30 he told NBC's Matt Lauer, "I don't think you can win it [the war on terrorism]... I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world. Let's put it that way."
[b]BUSH DECEPTION #5 – HE NEVER WAVERS ON IRAQ:[/b] Bush accused Kerry of taking "almost every conceivable position in Iraq" and that such vacillation will "lead to a major defeat." An analysis by the Los Angeles Times illustrates that "Bush's statements on Iraq show that he also has sent differing...signals" on the justification for war in Iraq. For example, before the war, "the major chord was security and terrorism. Bush continually warned that Hussein could provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists." When it became clear Iraq did not possess WMD, "Bush increasingly has argued that building a democracy in Iraq would inspire democratic change across the region in a domino effect." Read the full article, complete with timeline http://www.latimes.com/news/p...,1,2458363.story?coll=la-home-headli nes .
[b]BUSH DECEPTION #6 – KERRY OPPOSES ALL PREEMPTIVE ACTIONS:[/b] Yesterday, Bush said that "Senator Kerry's approach would permit a response only after America is hit." Kerry has specifically endorsed the use of preemptive force. During the first debate, Kerry said, "The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for preemptive strike...No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.
[b]BUSH DECEPTION #7 – KERRY'S RECORD ON INTELLIGENCE FUNDING IS SHAMEFUL:[/b] Bush said that Kerry "has a record of trying to weaken American intelligence." His evidence is that Kerry "proposed a $6 billion cut in the nation's intelligence budget" in 1993. Kerry's proposal was part of a bipartisan effort to balance the budget. In fact, "Kerry's proposed intelligence cuts were smaller than those proposed in 1995 by Bush's choice to head the CIA, Porter J. Goss."
[b]BUSH DECEPTION #8 – KERRY DOES NOT SUPPORT VITAL WEAPONS SYSTEMS:[/b] Bush accused Kerry of voting "against vital weapon systems during his entire career." The nonpartisan factcheck.org notes, the "Bush campaign bases its claim mainly on Kerry's votes against overall Pentagon money bills in 1990, 1995 and 1996, but these were not votes against specific weapons." Nevertheless, Kerry voted for Pentagon bills in 16 of the 19 years he's been in the Senate. Therefore, "even by the Bush campaign's twisted logic, Kerry should – on balance – be called a supporter of the "vital" weapons."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... Bush at the Joystick, And the World On the Line??? ... Jeez!!! ...---... |
| 10.19.04 (1:16 pm) [edit] |
[b]This Boston Globe piece reveals how the reality of the insurgency is in stark contrast with the optimistic assessments of Bush administration officials. Despite rising anger against terrorist attacks, the Iraqis remain united by anger at the U.S. occupation, which can only be cemented by the recent full-scale offensives launched by the military.[/b]
The Globe reports http://www.boston.com/news/wo... : "But the prospect of a full-scale confrontation between US forces, backed by the Iraqi government, and the constellation of militants in Fallujah, has galvanized even those Iraqis who consider the Fallujah resistance to be dominated by foreign jihadis and criminals."
[b]So we've got an imbecilic A'W'OL neo-con arm-chair chicken-hawk Bushy-boy at the joystick, and the world on the line??? ... [i]Jeez!!! [/i]... Read on ...[/b]
Remember "Comical Ali," the ex-Iraqi minister of information lesser known as Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf and best known for his must-see television briefings during the American-led sprint to Baghdad? He was Saddam Hussein's wonderful PR man who could claim total victory for the Iraqi army even as American tanks were beginning to pretend to control Baghdad's streets behind him.
"They're not in control of anything," he famously said that day to a world of laughs and hopes for more stand-up from what was fast becoming the world's greatest improv stage.
President Bush called him "great," tongue in cheek, naturally. He could afford to. His own army of Comical Alis -- the contingent of American reporters embedded, without protection against serially transmitted disinformation, in the ministry of Bushspeak -- was beginning to weave its own triumphal fictions out of Sheherazade's old digs.
A thousand and one lies later, Comical Ali looks like a prophet and Bush his most faithful disciple. The difference is this: Ali was slapstick in the service of a curdled tin-pot -- Castro-on-the-Tigris, if you like. President Bush is tragedy with the world's fate for a joystick. Whatever reality he invents to prove his infallibility becomes his followers' indispensable reality, and his reelection campaign's only chance.
"Today the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom," Bush told the United Nations a few weeks ago in a particularly pungent tribute to Ali. The alternative is an admission of failure, a confession that the blood of dozens of American soldiers wasted as cannon fodder every week is just so much lubricant to the hawks' self-esteem on Nov. 2. And who wants to let Dr. Phil have that much fun?
The president's media mercenaries cheerfully ambush his critics by asking them point blank whether they'd rather have Saddam still in power, then watch them squirm in their rhetorical spider holes. I've yet to hear someone answer just as pointedly that the Pentagon's own briefings, body counts and limbless returns from that "path to democracy" answer the question every day. That Iraq has become more dangerous to the United States with Saddam in prison than Saddam in power. That President Bush has caused more damage to the United States, in lives, dollars, credibility and moral leadership wasted, than Saddam and al-Qaida combined. Not to mention the damage to Iraq, which has exchanged tyranny for anarchy.
Disinformation in Iraq is no longer necessary as it is in the United States. The reporters still working out of Iraq (there aren't many) no longer venture into the cities and the country to do their job. They can't. More than 40 reporters have been killed, the roads aren't safe for Iraqis, let alone foreigners, and the thrill is gone from military embeds. What real story of the devastation of Iraq can only be deduced from the vaults of overflowing morgues, from the tallies of casualties not even the military's euphemists can wrap in the flag, from the occasional story of soldiers refusing to pull suicide duty (because it has come to this), and of course from President Bush's fair and balanced judgments on the campaign trail.
But the Iraqi voice is probably as unchanging as the Tigris' gray mud banks, given oppression's ambient familiarity. The novelist John Dos Passos heard that voice in 1921 during a three-week trip to Baghdad, when a local Arab spoke to him of his admiration for George Washington and Woodrow Wilson even as he described the English as the latest betrayers of Arab trust. Locals had helped the British drive out the Ottomans in exchange for promises of freedom, only to fall victim to the usual colonial deceptions -- fake autonomy, fake elections, fake timetables. Not much has changed.
"The allies," the old Arab told Dos Passos then as his grandson might be saying today, in colloquial language Dos Passos preserved, "had not acted according to the words of Meester Veelson [Mr. Wilson] nor according to the principles of Sheikh Jurij Washiton [George Washington]. This was not good. Arab patriots had been driven out and imprisoned . . . and now the Inglizi [the English], breaking their plighted word, were trying to make slaves of the people of Iraq." Still, "the Americai must tell his countrymen that the people of Iraq would continue to struggle for their freedom and for the principles announced by Sheikh Washiton and Meester Veelson. The last revolt had failed because it had been ill prepared. Next time . . ."
Dos Passos asked about an impending vote, supposedly about Iraqi autonomy. The old man laughed. "Oh, yes, they had given out papers in the bazaars, but they were already printed with the vote for the mandate, so that the ignorant should vote for the government without knowing it."
Maybe Meester Bush is onto something when he compares Iraqi democracy to the American democracy of his calculated dreams.
[b]Sources:[/b]
'Bush at the joystick; world on the line', http://www.news-journalonline...
[i]lakshmi[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
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| ...---... The Woman Who Didn’t Listen ...---... |
| 10.18.04 (6:39 pm) [edit] |
[b]Kenyan Wangari Maathai, 64, has joined Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter and other world superstars as winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. But who is Wangari Maathai? And why, some prominent Norwegians are grumbling, would the Nobel Committee honor a fighter for the environment when it’s terrorism and nuclear proliferation that most immediately threaten us.[/b]
Having met Wangari in Kenya a few years ago and stayed in a village there transformed by her Green Belt Movement, we think we get it. While Wangari is called an “environmentalist,” her brilliance is that she understands power.
In the early 1970s Wangari—the first woman PhD in biological sciences in East Africa—was watching the Sahara desert creep south. Wangari knew that in just one century, Kenya’s forests had shrunk to less than five percent of what they once were. The country’s entire ecology was threatened; and villagers, mainly women, had to walk farther and farther to get water and firewood. Wangari decided to act. On Earth Day 1977, Wangari, then 37, planted her first trees and from that decision launched a village tree-planting movement whose impact has gone far beyond trees. It’s even rattled Kenya’s most powerful political players. When Wangari began, the Kenyan forestry service, established under the British, laughed at her notion that untrained village woman could plant trees to reverse the encroaching desert. Wangari didn’t listen. “We were breaking the code,” Wangari tells us. “But we told the women: ‘Use the methods you know, and if you don’t know, invent.’ They would use broken pots. They would put the soil and seeds there and watch as they germinate. If they germinate well and good, if not, try again. “We demystified forestry. In the beginning the foresters were not amused. They said I was adulterating the profession. I told them, ‘We need millions of trees and you foresters are too few, you’ll never produce them. So you need to make everyone foresters.’ I call them foresters without diplomas.” Because Wangari didn’t listen, Kenya now has 30 million more trees – all planted by village women. Wangari and her movement have allowed women to find their voices to question everything from their husband’s control of firewood to former President Daniel arap Moi’s rule. The Movement has challenged government corruption and blocked building on public park lands. The Movement proved so threatening that Moi’s government attacked Wangari’s work, even beat and jailed her. One evening in the village of Kyaume we stayed up late talking with Green Belt Movement members. Ramana—middle age—is a large, commanding, but warm woman. Regina is 25. Her radiance never dims even though, we learn, she’d just lost a sister to malaria. That night we sit together on couches draped with embroidered white cloth honoring the arrival of guests. A kerosene lantern hangs from the high ceiling, casting dark shadows across our faces. Its loud hissing makes us all lean in close as we talk. In the corner of the living room, a black-and-white T.V., connected by a tangle of wires to a car battery, rests precariously on a nearby shelf, playing Brazilian soap operas. We want to find out what has changed because of Green Belt. “It’s much more green, even nowadays when there are no rains still,” Regina tells us. “My house is so beautiful, surrounded by trees. Others passing see my trees and ask, ‘How did you get so much green?’ Then I tell them about the Movement and help them get trees.” Anna then asks the very practical question, “Before Green Belt, where did you get your firewood?”
“We would walk to the nearest forest,” Ramana tells us. “It’s about fifteen kilometers away.” “Round trip?” “No, each way.” Once reaching the forest, we learn, the women are sometimes chased away by land grabbers—the term here for land speculators illegally logging or building on public land. On these days, they come home empty-handed. I try to imagine walking almost twenty miles round-trip several times a week, even without carrying an unwieldy load of firewood, and frankly… can’t.
“There were hardly any trees here before Green Belt, and they all belonged to our husbands,” another woman sitting with us chimes in.
“To get wood, I had to ask my husband. He could refuse. Now they are my trees. When we ask how many trees the women have planted, Regina becomes almost apologetic. “I just started, only twenty.” Ramana, an obvious leader, reports with a proud grin, “Two hundred.”
Soon a half-dozen women come dancing and singing through the open front door and Ramana, Regina, and Anna jump up to join them. In the middle of the concrete-floored living room, amidst the shadows of the crackling lantern, their voices ring out a welcome song for guests, and the cheering and dancing continue for a good half hour. By the time Ramana and Regina bid our visitors good-bye, it’s late and the two of us are both exhausted. But they have questions for us, too. Sitting down again, Regina asks, as if she’s been waiting all evening to pop the question.
“How many trees have you planted?” The two of us look at each other. It’s our turn to feel apologetic. When Anna says, “uh, none” and I say, “one… yesterday,” their faces fall. They look genuinely confused.
“But we’ve seen on T.V. the big forests in your country. Who planted all those trees?” We try to explain, but we’re stuck.
Coffee, coffee everywhere but not a drop to drink. In our guest house conversation, Wangari tells us, “The colonists made people believe they had an answer for everything.” One “answer” was cash crops. As with all colonies, Kenya was used for production of export commodities. We like how one African writer describes it: “Colonialism programmed African countries to produce what they do not consume and to consume what they do not produce.” Once independent, Kenya’s direction didn’t change. One morning we chat with Mumo Musyoka, 31, a coffee grower and Green Belt leader in Kyaume. We want to know about coffee, and Mumo graciously obliges. From the classroom where we sit we can see through large holes cut into the mud walls for windows, acre after acre of coffee. The crop that—along with tea and other exports including cut flowers—was supposed to put Kenya on the road to prosperity.
“Coffee came here in 1963,” Mumo tells us. “We used to be able to make a lot of profit growing it. But last year my family produced 400 kilos and after subtracting the cost of fertilizers and pesticides, we got nothing. We didn’t get a single cent.” This year the return was almost as bad. When we lament that small producers are also not protected from international coffee prices that fluctuate wildly, going way up and way down, Mumo laughs.
“Here there’s no up and down. It’s just down and down.’’ Mumo and others are so fed up with coffee—with world prices now one-third lower than the average cost of production--that many are ready to cut down the plants that have dominated this village for almost 40 years. “We’ve already cut some trees,” Mumo tells us. “Without coffee, what would you do for cash?” Anna asks. “We’d grow corn, beans, peas. We could sell those,” she answers confidently, “and if they didn’t sell, at least we could eat.”
So we’re not surprised when Mumo exudes enthusiasm for the Green Belt Movement’s expanded work beyond tree planting. In the last few years, Green Belt has taken on “household food security,” encouraging members to reclaim the best of traditional African mixed food farming. The Movement has been teaching farming free of chemical dependency and distributing seeds for long-neglected foods, like sweet potatoes, arrowroot, pigeon peas, cassava, millet, sorghum and more.
Traditional African farming methods, in tune with the environment here, were disparaged by colonialists and later, international aid agencies, as outdated and inefficient. Green Belt is bringing them back to life, too.
The “wrong bus syndrome.”
In our last few days in Kenya, we sit with Wangari at the Green Belt guest house in Nairobi, and through steel security gates we can see in the twilight the parched grounds where that morning monkeys had entertained us. Wangari, radiant in a deep-green head wrap, focuses on us with her contagious energy.
In the village we could see what a powerful trigger tree planting can be. Women—isolated and intimidated by their husbands, spending a big chunk of every week in the exhausting search for firewood—have come together and found new energy, hope, and direction. So we’re taken aback at first when Wangari begins our dinner conversation telling us that, while planting trees is one entry point of the Green Belt Movement, “civic education is really the entry point.” Civic education? Could anything sound less appealing, more boring? we think.
Here in Kenya, we quickly learn, it’s different.
“Even if you enter with trees,” explains Wangari, “until people understand their rights, especially their environmental rights, how to stand up for their rights and have the courage to stand up—until then, even the planting of trees is not safe. People can always be intimidated. They can always be pushed back.” In Kenya, planting trees and protecting trees are not neutral acts. They mean confronting authority. Wangari knows. She herself has been arrested multiple times for protesting the tearing down of public forests. In her successful fight to save a downtown Nairobi park, she was beaten so badly by government police she had to be hospitalized.
For Wangari, civic education is not about learning abstract, distant power structures and procedures, it’s about gaining confidence in one’s self, confidence in being able to stand up for one’s rights and one’s community. “We call civic education ‘self-knowledge,’” Wangari explains. “The turning point for people in our seminars is what we call the ‘wrong bus syndrome’,” she says, pulling out a little handbook with that name on it. More than 15,000 people have gone through the workshop, at least one from each of the communities in which Green Belt’s nurseries are based. Over steaming plates of rice and vegetables, Wangari reminds us that everyone has taken a bus at some point, so “we start there.” The workshop begins with the obvious, says Wangari. “Now if you’re supposed to take a bus, then you must make sure you get on a bus going your direction so you can get to your destination. Most likely if you take the wrong bus, you’ll encounter a lot of problems because you were not prepared. You may get to the place and you don’t know anybody. You won’t know where to sleep. You might get arrested for loitering,” she says with a grin. “So we say, but if you go in the direction you have planned for, you are likely to enjoy it. When you get there, you’ll meet the people you expected. Life is likely to be pretty good!” We laugh along with her. Wangari paused.
“Now we ask the question: Why on God’s earth would anyone get to the bus station and get on the wrong bus? “Sometimes people say, ‘Oh, if you cannot read’—because many people here cannot. What do you do? You ask people who can read. But people can mislead you. A dishonest person can tell you this bus is going in your direction. Much, much later you discover that you went in the wrong direction. “We can spend a whole day talking about how people have been misled, by books, by preachers, by teachers—many times…” Listening to Wangari, we feel we’re in the seminar with her. We like her emphasizing that we can all be misled. It spares one feeling like a total loser if our lives are not what we want them to be. Yet it doesn’t take us off the hook, either, for we’ve allowed ourselves to be misled. It’s a gentle avenue into people’s hearts. “Then we ask, what are all the problems you have—in your own life, in your family, in your community, maybe even in your own nation? Very quickly they give all the problems: hunger, lack of water, no transport, poor education, no books. “‘Where do you think these problems come from?’ we ask. They give all kinds of answers—the local chief, the husband, the pastor, the wife, the children. “Then we ask, ‘What do you think the solution is?’ “They may say, Vote out this government. Have a revolution. Pray. Cultivate more food. But when we ask where the solutions are, they rarely mention themselves. “Without denying the big obstacles we all face, especially these villagers, we do create many of our own problems—either through omission or commission. Many problems we have a capacity to change. I tell them, we can change our lives. We can change our destiny. If you’ve been misled—and many people are in that category—and you discover you were misled, you have a choice. You can decide to continue in the wrong direction and take a chance wherever the bus will lead you. Or you can decide to get out of that bus.’”
Wangari mimics herself talking tough: “‘You yourself don’t know that the forest controls the river flow? That without the forest we will not have river flow? If you don’t, then you see the forest being destroyed, and you do nothing. You see the forest being privatized, and you do nothing. You see a school that does not have a windbreak and you do nothing—and then the winds come and blow down the school and your children are killed, and you say it’s the will of God? Excuse me, that’s stupidity.’ “Now that can take two days discussing, and that’s when the personal transformation takes place. That’s when people realize, yes, they may have been misled, but they have brains and also can think! “That’s when we make a break, and from then on we are dealing with a different kind of person—very motivated, self-conscious, willing to make decisions, willing to go back to their communities and make a difference.
“After we’ve taken people to this point, we talk about how to channel their energy,” Wangari continues. “Now we can tell people, ‘You planted trees and started a tree nursery on your land and your neighbors’ land, so now you take part in reforesting public lands.’”
We imagine the energy released in the seminar room. We feel a rush of excitement, hope that this inner awakening is possible for every one of us, no matter how swamped and trapped we feel.
As for me, I’ve made a choice.
We ask Wangari about the origins of the slogan we’d seen adorning Green Belt tee shirts. As for me, I’ve made a choice. It stirs us each time we see it.
“When you go through the wrong bus syndrome, you discover you’ve been misled,” Wangari explains. “Then you have to ask, ‘Am I going to continue no matter where this bus leads?’ That’s a difficult thing. You have to make a choice! There are some people who say, ‘I guess I’ll continue going until it stops.’ I tell them, it may never stop; you may find yourself in Cairo. Then it would be even worse because you can’t speak the language!’”
At this point the two of us crack up, and Wangari brings home her point: “To be out of that bus, you have to make a choice.”
Wangari helped us see the ways Kenyans have been misled, made not to trust their own knowledge, but what about the rest of us? Corporate globalization is great, we’re told, only a few kinks to work out—never mind that the ozone hole has spread over parts of Chile and Argentina or that we’re losing to extinction 100 species a day. Our food system is terrific, the ads remind us daily—never mind that almost half the world’s grain goes to animals while thousands die each day for lack of food. If we’re all on the wrong bus globally, how do we get off? That is the question Maathai’s life stirs in us. It’s as relevant to us here in America as it is to the poor women we met in Kenya. We hope the Nobel Committee chose Dr. Maathai because they grasp her answer to it. Wangari’s answer, we learned, is power -- the discovery of our own. Her brilliance is in understanding that power is not a one-way force – something that only exists in others’ hands. Rather, we -- each of us -- by our choices either sustain the status quo of needless suffering or remake the world around us. We celebrate Wangari Maathai’s Peace Prize because we believe that beneath all our local-to-global problems is this question of power. Solutions arise as ordinary citizens discover that, yes, we do have a choice. And with our choice to act we create power to shape the communities and the world we want.
[b]Anna Lappé is a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a national program of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to enhance communication about food and agriculture. Anna and Frances Moore Lappé are co-authors of [u]Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet[/u], http://www.smallplanetinstitu... which tells the story of the Green Belt Movement, among other grassroots, democracy movements worldwide.[/b]
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| ...---... Troops Talk Back ...---... |
| 10.18.04 (1:53 pm) [edit] |
Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, former commander of American troops in Iraq, told the White House last winter that a lack of key supplies crucial to combat operations caused problems so severe that they "threatened Army troops' ability to fight." http://www.washingtonpost.com...
[b]Why should [i]any[/i] U.S. Soldier die based upon the traitorous lies, deceptions & falsehoods perpetrated upon [i]us-and-them [/i]by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i]??? ... They should [i]not[/i] ... Instead, let's send Dubya, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and the rest of the neo-con arm-chair chicken-hawks & blowhards on suicide missions in Iraq ...[/b]
America's military service members and their families are convinced the Pentagon "underestimated the number of troops it needed in Iraq and put too much of a burden on inadequately trained and equipped National Guard and reserve forces," according to a poll by the National Annenberg Election Survey http://www.annenbergpublicpol... (NAES). Fifty-nine percent of the military sample agreed with Ambassador Paul Bremer's assertion that the Bush administration had miscalculated how many troops would be needed to establish peace in Iraq. Among other concerns, just 30 percent of troops and their families thought veterans were getting the health care they had been promised. They also "overwhelmingly disagreed with the Pentagon policy of barring photographs of flag-draped coffins being returned to Dover Air Force Base." The survey comes as some troops are refusing to carry out missions because of inadequate armor, and a letter by the former top commander in Iraq alleges major equipment shortages.
[b]SHORT ON SUPPLIES:[/b] The Bush administration has repeatedly said the military should have everything it asks for in Iraq, but today's Washington Post reports Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, formerly the top U.S. commander in Iraq, "complained to the Pentagon last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops' ability to fight." The lack of key spare parts for gear vital to combat operations, such as tanks and helicopters, was causing problems so severe, Sanchez wrote in a letter to Army officials, that "I cannot continue to support sustained combat operations with rates this low." Sanchez also complained that "units were waiting an average of 40 days for critical spare parts, which he noted was almost three times the Army's average."
[b]PARTS STILL NEEDED:[/b] Senior Army officials said most of Sanchez's concerns have been addressed in recent months, but 18 Reserve soldiers who allegedly refused orders to drive a dangerous route "said their safety was threatened by vehicles that lacked armor and were in poor repair." The soldiers, many of whom called home this weekend, "said their trucks were unsafe and lacked a proper armed escort, problems that have plagued them since they went to Iraq nine months ago, their relatives said." The reservists' situation "echoed the conditions...soldiers experienced in Iraq: a shortage of armored vehicles, especially for part-time soldiers' units; convoy missions through dangerous stretches without adequate firepower; and constant breakdowns among old vehicles owned, especially, by National Guard and reservist units."
[b]NO ACCOUNTABILITY FOR PRISON ABUSE:[/b] Among the enlisted troops surveyed by NAES, eighty percent said the soldiers who were responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib "should be punished, and 79 percent said their immediate commanders should be punished." So far, the Pentagon has not punished any high ranking military or civilian officials for the abuses and reports indicate Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is going to be promoted, despite his role in approving controversial interrogation tactics "that have been criticized as abusive to prisoners." The Cato Institute's Charles Pena said Sanchez's promotion would "just be one more thumb in the eye of the Iraqis and the Arab world."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... No Stolen Elections?!? ...---... |
| 10.18.04 (11:24 am) [edit] |
[b]Of course, since the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]GOP-machine has a campaign on to tear-up voter registration forms http://www.alternet.org/elect... , there is no shame to their illegal and immoral "win-at-all-costs" strategy ... Let's get out and vote for John Kerry enmasse and throw these bastards out of office ...[/b]
Thousands of lawyers are on their way to Florida to observe the counting of votes in precincts across the state on November 2. Volunteers have overloaded People for the American Way's Election Protection http://electionprotection 2004... project to help make sure the votes of minorities in urban communities count just like everybody else's.
And Code Pink has announced that it has founded a No Stolen Elections Campaign http://nov3.us/ along with Michael Moore, Dolores Huerta, and Jesse Jackson. The campaign is "setting up a Fair Elections Advisory Council made up of U.S. and international elections experts who will give their assessment on election day" on the voting process. If the voting experts find significant fraud, No Stolen Elections will start by calling for protest, including non-violent civil disobedience.
How else can the people stop their election from being stolen from them?
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Jan[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
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| ...---... Fixin' for a Fight ...---... |
| 10.17.04 (8:44 pm) [edit] |
"Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan."
[b]The GOP has their long knives out for their own neo-con cabal of ruthless thugs & goons ... Don't be fooled however ... Most GOP corporate-owned toadies [i]do not really [/i]oppose these neo-fascist neo-con war-mongers, liars and traitors ... The GOP opportunists are angry that the neo-cons have obviously[i] LOST [/i]the war in Iraq ... But who is responsible?:-- The Buck Stops at the Top with George [i]W.ierdo [/i]Bush ... "Win-At-All-Costs" is the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] ugly doctrine and we must rid ourselves of this plague upon our nation ...[/b]
[b]In the GOP, the long knives are out for the neo-conservatives ... [/b]
There's no question whom Richard Viguerie wants to see in the White House for the next four years. A founding father of the modern conservative movement, he is foursquare behind President Bush despite what he regards as undue influence from one wing of the GOP, the neoconservatives. In this, Viguerie reflects a hallowed Republican Party tradition: Mute policy differences and unite at election time.
But for Viguerie and other conservative leaders, maintaining that discipline this year is harder than usual. The Republicans' united front masks a growing struggle sparked by the president's hawkish and ambitious foreign policy--one that may burst into the open soon after the polls close, whoever wins. "Most conservatives are not comfortable with the neocons," Viguerie says. He decries the neocons as "overbearing" and "immensely influential. . . . They want to be the world's policeman. We don't feel our role is to be Don Quixote, righting all the wrongs in the world."
Viguerie's disquiet is widely shared by veteran conservative activists, who are increasingly blaming neoconservatives for placing Iraq at the center of the war on terrorism. "I'm hearing more discussion about foreign policy and the direction of the country than I have heard probably in the last 35 years," says Paul Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
[b]Heart and soul.[/b] The second thoughts on Iraq are re-exposing old ideological fault lines among GOP factions--Wall Streeters, Main Streeters, budget balancers, libertarians, and neoisolationists--that see their own policy priorities jeopardized. The fight within the GOP, Viguerie predicts, "will dwarf what took place in the '60s and '70s" --between the Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller wings of the party and later between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. "It's going to be early on November 3 that the battle starts for the heart and soul of the Republican Party, and it's not going to be neat and clean," vows Viguerie, who's known for revolutionizing direct-mail fundraising on behalf of conservative candidates.
Bush loyalists like Viguerie, Weyrich, David Keene of the American Conservative Union, and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform are worried about the soaring costs of suppressing the Iraqi insurgency and the war's impact on delaying conservative economic initiatives to cut taxes and the size of government, privatize Social Security, and expand free trade. "Bush has a choice: He can be a part of the redefinition of the party, or he can step aside," says Keene. "The neocons have had some inordinate influence and made some serious mistakes."
Some conservatives feel Bush acted hastily on Iraq and needlessly shed allies who had stood with the United States on Afghanistan, mushrooming the costs borne by Washington. Some question his switch on nation building: As a candidate in 2000 taking a traditional conservative view, he rejected it; as president, he has plunged into it in Afghanistan (which last week held its first presidential elections) and Iraq. Others are dismayed by "mistakes," such as assertions based on faulty or misused intelligence on Iraqi weapons. "If Bush loses, the pragmatists will blame it on Iraq," says John Pitney, an expert on GOP politics at California's Claremont McKenna College.
[b]Read the entire article on http://www.usnews.com/usnews/... ... [/b]
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| ...---... Jon Stewart to Tucker Carlson: "You're a dick" ...---... |
| 10.17.04 (5:53 pm) [edit] |
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly; devils fall because of their gravity." - G. K. Chesterton
[b]Sometimes it is humorous for "We the People" to observe the back-and-forth sparring between the pundits ... I [i]love [/i]Jon Stewart ... Tucker Carlson[i] is [/i]a bit of a pompous twit ...[/b]
When the bookers got Jon Stewart to appear on CNN's Crossfire, they probably were expecting a funny Jon, not a testy one. But Stewart said what a lot of people had been waiting years to hear on the show -- someone calling it like it is. Stewart called Tucker Carlson http://transcripts.cnn.com/TR... "a dick."
Stewart also said:
... that Crossfire is "hurting America."
... "Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America."
... that Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala are "hacks."
... "What you do is partisan hackery."
Or how about this exchange: STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably. CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think. STEWART: You need to go to one.
Or this: CARLSON: OK, up next, Jon Stewart goes one on one with his fans... STEWART: You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.
Stewart may not have made any friends, but at least he pointed to one of the worst problems in our political discourse -- no not that Tucker Carlson is a dick -- but that creeps like him are in control of it.
Go Jon Go!!!
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Jan[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ...---... Brutal Murders and A Slow Response ...---... |
| 10.17.04 (5:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]Bush/Cheney should be impeached and put on trial for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity ... Please read "War Crimes: Classified Abu Ghraib Documents" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
An army investigation that implicates http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... 28 soldiers in the death of two Afghan detainees, fails to make any mention of the army policy, which became the blueprint for Abu Ghraib, that legitimizes torture. The two men murdered were chained to the ceiling and beaten severely. One had been arrested for nothing more having a broken walkie-talkie in his taxi. Neither death was immediately reported or investigated.
"The failure to promptly account for the prisoners' deaths indicates a chilling disregard for the value of human life and may have laid the groundwork for further abuses in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere," said Jumana Musa of Amnesty International USA.
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| ...---... A Man With A Plan ...---... |
| 10.16.04 (11:14 am) [edit] |
[b]John Kerry showed the nation he has practical ways to deal with America’s problems. Meanwhile, Bush dodged all the difficult questions.[/b]
The first debate revived John Kerry's candidacy. The second sharpened his differences with President George W. Bush. And the final presidential debate of 2004 saw Kerry reminding America why he was most qualified person to lead the nation at this moment in history.
The debate showed both candidates at their most personal and persuasive. Kerry was forceful in his competent and detailed answers. He looked into the camera and told Americans exactly how he would do a better job than Bush on a wide range of problems. Whether the topic was tax cuts or health care costs or assault weapons, Kerry said what he'd do, how he'd do it and why America needed a different direction.
The president was equally confident, but he offered fewer specifics, other than saying he had more work to do in his next term. Bush was also glib, making jokes and dodging questions by changing subjects. He kept bringing up Kerry's 20-year record in the U.S. Senate, as if that was the solution people were hoping to hear.
Both candidates seemed to know this debate wasn't about introducing themselves to voters; it was about confirming impressions and winning votes. By that measure, Kerry, by focusing on more bread-and-butter issues than the president, emerged as the candidate who stood with middle-class Americans - especially women. This is significant, because the largest chunk of undecided voters are working women.
It was Kerry, not the president, who spoke of raising the minimum wage, equal pay for equal work, and who slammed tax cuts that came at the expense of after-school programs. To working women and families with children, these issues are very real. It doesn't matter how many times Bush brought up the No Child Left Behind law as progress — and it isn't — if millions of middle-class moms know they have fewer after-school options while they're at work. As Kerry said, "Eighty-nine billion dollars last year to the top 1 percent of Americans, but kids lost their after-school programs. You be the judge."
The president neither admitted nor acknowledged that his policies made some Americans quite wealthy while ignoring the needs of others. When asked what he'd say to unemployed workers, the president said his government would try to help them learn new job skills. Bush gave a similar answer when asked about what to do about high health care costs. He said he'd try to give people assistance in paying those bills — through lower taxes.
What was wrong with those answers, according to Kerry? The Democrat said these were symptoms of problems the president has made worse. Outsourcing jobs was due, in part, he said, to a tax system that encourages large employers to invest overseas and has workers subsidizing the export of their own jobs. That's the president's record, not tossing pennies toward job training. And on health care, Kerry also pointed out that Bush has supported new laws that increased the profits of health insurers and others. That greed will not be balanced by tax cuts.
But Kerry's real dominance most surprisingly came on the issue of guns — the lapse of the assault weapons ban in particular. Kerry staked out an identity as a hunter, and a former prosecutor in one of the largest districts in the country. Kerry also used the discussion to show a failure of leadership on Bush's part and provided an answer for what he would have done that fits the conventional public understanding of what Presidents are supposed to do when they have a cause — go to the people. Bush wished away his failure to get the assault weapons ban reinstated, which he said Congress did not have the votes for — a kind of "Oh well, I wanted it, but it was impossible." Kerry explained how he would have done it, reminding the public of the last president to bring in the assault weapons ban: "If Tom DeLay or someone in the House said to me, 'Sorry, we don't have the votes,' I'd have said, 'Then we're going to have a fight.' And I'd have taken it out to the country and I'd have had every law enforcement officer in the country visit those congressmen. We'd have won what Bill Clinton won."
Bush essentially said that we're going to have a rosier future. His sunrise optimism is not appealing for older voters. Older people understand that solving problems in the world is a struggle, and are wary of easy answers to complicated problems. They respond better to explanations of how things are going to be done. Older people will recognize that Bush’s plans for dealing with retirement security issues are no panacea. "Our health-care system is the envy of the world because we believe in making sure that the decisions are made by doctors and patients, not by officials in the nation's capital." Boasting doesn't give comfort to the afflicted.
We saw some personal revelations about the candidates — when Bush said that freedom is a gift from God, he made it sound like his policies in the Middle East come from his personal dialogues with Jesus. Kerry also showed himself to be a man of faith, but one who would not impose his views on other people, just because he had the power to do so.
What more do Americans need to know before they go into the voting booths?
[b]Source:[/b]
Jan Frel is AlterNet's political editor. Steven Rosenfeld is the senior producer for The Laura Flanders Show on Air America Radio., http://www.alternet.org
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| ...---... Bush's Economic Crap-Shoot Craps-Out ...---... |
| 10.15.04 (7:33 pm) [edit] |
"Claims like the one that Bush will be the first president to end a term with fewer jobs than when he started are nothing more than 'myths,' [Treasury Secretary John] Snow claimed."
- Ohio Courier, 10/4/04, http://www.thecourier.com/iss...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
The economy has shed 1.6 million private sector jobs and 821,000 jobs overall since the president took office in 2000.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/
[b]Bush is the only president since the Great Depression to have a net job loss on his watch ... Bush is corrupt, stupid and incompetent ... It's time for a change ...[/b]
[b]Tax cuts are not working to generate jobs ...[/b]
The Bush Administration called the tax cut package, which took effect in July 2003, its "Jobs and Growth Plan." The president's economics staff, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA, see background documents http://www.jobwatch.org/creat... ), projected that the plan would result in the creation of 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004—306,000 new jobs each month starting in July 2003. The CEA projected that the economy would generate 228,000 jobs a month without a tax cut and 306,000 jobs a month with the tax cut. Thus, it projected that 4,590,000 jobs would be created over the last 15 months. In reality, since the tax cuts took effect there are 2,882,000 fewer jobs than the administration projected would be created by enactment of its tax cuts. The September job growth of 96,000 fell 210,000 jobs short of the administration's projection. As can be seen in the chart below, job creation failed to meet the administration's projections in 13 of the past 15 months.
Visit [b]JobWatch[/b] on http://www.jobwatch.org/ ...
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| ...---... U.S. Platoon Mutiny in Iraq, Refuses 'Suicide Mission' ...---... |
| 10.15.04 (5:27 pm) [edit] |
[b]Do you blame them??? ... I sure as hell do [i]not[/i]!!! ... Why should these guys & gals [i]die[/i] for the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] criminal lies, negligence and incompetence ... Let A'W'OL Bush, 'Halliburton' Cheney, Lap-dog Rice, Rummy Rumsfeld and the rest of their neo-con cabal of cowardly arm-chair chicken-hawks go to Iraq [i]and[/i] fight and die ... The crooked bastards in the insane neo-fascist Bush regime deserve to be impeached and put on trial for War Crimes ...[/b]
[u][b]Platoon Defies Orders in Iraq[/b][/u]
A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from Jackson, Miss., and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a “suicide mission” to deliver fuel, the troops’ relatives said Thursday.
The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq — north of Baghdad — because their vehicles were considered “deadlined” or extremely unsafe, said Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O. McCook.
Sgt. McCook, a deputy at the Hinds County, Miss., Detention Center, and the 16 other members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, S.C., were read their rights and moved from the military barracks into tents, Patricia McCook said her husband told her during a panicked phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday.
The platoon could be charged with the willful disobeying of orders, punishable by dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and up to five years confinement, said military law expert Mark Stevens, an associate professor of justice studies at Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C.
On Friday, the Army confirmed that the unit’s actions were under scrutiny.
“The commanding general of the 13th Corps Support Command has appointed the Deputy Commander to lead an investigation into allegations that members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company refused to participate in their assigned convoy mission October 13,” said Lt. Col Steven A. Boylan, a spokesman for U.S. Army and multinational forces in Iraq.
“The investigating team is currently in Tallil taking statements and interviewing those involved. This is an isolated incident and it is far too early in the investigation to speculate as to what happened, why it happened or any action that might be taken,” Boylan said.
“It is important to note that the mission in question was carried out using other soldiers from the unit,” Boylan said.
Boylan also confirmed that the unit is stationed in Tallil, a logistical support air base south of Nasiriyah.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said he plans to submit a congressional inquiry today on behalf of the Mississippi soldiers to launch an investigation into whether they are being treated improperly.
“I would not want any member of the military to be put in a dangerous situation ill-equipped,” said Thompson, who was contacted by families. “I have had similar complaints from military families about vehicles that weren’t armor-plated, or bullet-proof vests that are outdated. It concerns me because we made over $150 billion in funds available to equip our forces in Iraq.
“President Bush takes the position that the troops are well-armed, but if this situation is true, it calls into question how honest he has been with the country,” Thompson said.
The 343rd is a supply unit whose general mission is to deliver fuel and water. The unit includes three women and 14 men and those with ranking up to sergeant first class.
“I got a call from an officer in another unit early (Thursday) morning who told me that my husband and his platoon had been arrested on a bogus charge because they refused to go on a suicide mission,” said Jackie Butler of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Michael Butler, a 24-year reservist. “When my husband refuses to follow an order, it has to be something major.”
The platoon being held has troops from Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Mississippi and South Carolina, said Teresa Hill of Dothan, Ala., whose daughter Amber McClenny is among those being detained.
McClenny, 21, pleaded for help in a message left on her mother’s answering machine early Thursday morning.
“They are holding us against our will,” McClenny said. “We are now prisoners.”
McClenny told her mother her unit tried to deliver fuel to another base in Iraq Wednesday, but was sent back because the fuel had been contaminated with water. The platoon returned to its base, where it was told to take the fuel to another base, McClenny told her mother.
The platoon is normally escorted by armed Humvees and helicopters, but did not have that support Wednesday, McClenny told her mother.
The convoy trucks the platoon was driving had experienced problems in the past and were not being properly maintained, Hill said her daughter told her.
The situation mirrors other tales of troops being sent on missions without proper equipment.
Aviation regiments have complained of being forced to fly dangerous missions over Iraq with outdated night-vision goggles and old missile-avoidance systems. Stories of troops’ families purchasing body armor because the military didn’t provide them with adequate equipment have been included in recent presidential debates.
Patricia McCook said her husband, a staff sergeant, understands well the severity of disobeying orders. But he did not feel comfortable taking his soldiers on another trip.
“He told me that three of the vehicles they were to use were deadlines ... not safe to go in a hotbed like that,” Patricia McCook said.
Hill said the trucks her daughter’s unit was driving could not top 40 mph.
“They knew there was a 99 percent chance they were going to get ambushed or fired at,” Hill said her daughter told her. “They would have had no way to fight back.”
Kathy Harris of Vicksburg, Miss., is the mother of Aaron Gordon, 20, who is among those being detained. Her primary concern is that she has been told the soldiers have not been provided access to a judge advocate general.
Stevens said if the soldiers are being confined, law requires them to have a hearing before a magistrate within seven days.
Harris said conditions for the platoon have been difficult of late. Her son e-mailed her earlier this week to ask what the penalty would be if he became physical with a commanding officer, she said.
But Nadine Stratford of Rock Hill, S.C., said her godson Colin Durham, 20, has been happy with his time in Iraq. She has not heard from him since the platoon was detained.
“When I talked to him about a month ago, he was fine,” Stratford said. “He said it was like being at home.”
[b]Source:[/b]
By Jeremy Hudson, The Clarion-Ledger, Jackson MS, http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| ...---... Hail Mary ...---... |
| 10.15.04 (12:03 pm) [edit] |
[b]From Conservative Andrew Sullivan http://www.andrewsullivan.com... :[/b]
[i][b]Taranto's Brilliant Spin[/b][/i]
...And the way Kerry "gay-baited" was to say that homosexuality is not a choice, that he supports equal rights for gay couples, and that Mary Cheney helps prove that being gay isn't a choice. That'll rile 'em up in the trenches, won't it? Seriously, I've called out anti-gay statements by Democrats in the past; and have a long record of sniffing out homophobia and the use of it, wherever it's coming from...
...I fail to see how Kerry's remark could be understood in any conceivable way as gay-baiting. It never occurred to me when I heard it. It does not occur to me now. You know what is based in gay-baiting? Implicitly, clearly, shamelessly: the Bush-Cheney campaign. The GOP has a nutty candidate in Illinois who called Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist" http://washingtontimes.com/up... - but Dick Cheney wasn't an "angry dad," then. Lynne Cheney didn't call that "tawdry." So Bush runs the most anti-gay national campaign ever and it's his opponent who gets tarred as a homophobe! Brilliant, even by Rove's standards. And when it comes to gay-baiting, there are few as practised as Rove. The sheer nerve of these hypocrites never ceases to amaze.
[b]Is Lynn Cheney Ashamed of her Gay Daughter?[/b]
Statements made by Lynn Cheney about Kerry's reference to her lesbian daughter smack strongly of someone who is ashamed of her daughter's sexual orientation. [i]AP[/i]: http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/... "Lynn Cheney accused Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry of pulling a "cheap and tawdry political trick," apparently for invoking her daughter's sexuality in his debate with Bush." But Kerry's comment was neither cheap nor tawdry:"Asked Wednesday night whether homosexuality is a choice, Kerry noted that one of Cheney's daughters is a lesbian, and said she would probably affirm that she was born that way. "We're all God's children," Kerry said." Maybe what Lynn Cheney finds cheap and tawdry is her daughter's sexual preference.
[b]Yeah, right ... Let's all [i]focus [/i]on Mary Cheney ... Boy, wouldn't Karl Rove [i]just love that[/i]: To keep our minds off of Bush's bloody fiasco in Iraq-- To divert our attention from Bush's miserable failure of economic rape of American working people on behalf of his hyper-rich golfing buddies, corporate cronies (Halliburton, Carlyle Group, et al.) and the Bush/Cheney Crime Families-- And, so we'll forget Bush's pathetic, piss-poor performance during all 3 debates where he flip-flopped from Mr. Scowl to Mr. Blinky-Blink to Mr. Constipated Smirk-Smile ...[/b]
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| ...---... The Cracks in Bush's Crown ...---... |
| 10.14.04 (9:31 pm) [edit] |
"There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself." - Louis XIV
[b]The man who would be king, unable to maintain the fictions of his talking points, resorts to repeating lines from his father's presidential campaign.[/b]
Even now, the White House is being redecorated for President Bush's second term - or at least one room, the Lincoln Bedroom. The famous long bed will remain; so will the original Emancipation Proclamation in its glass case. But dominating the room, above the bed, will be a large carved crown from which will flow, ceiling to floor, royal purple satin drapes. The crown has been sent to be gilded with gold in anticipation of Bush's triumphant return from his campaign.
Bush began the debates with John Kerry ahead in the polls. After he grimaced his way through his talking points in the first debate, he corrected himself by maintaining strict self-control of his facial muscles in the second debate. Then after he channeled his boiling emotions into hotheaded belligerence, he recast himself for the third debate with fixed grins whatever the gray or grim subject. It was his best performance, the best he could do, and not good enough.
In the first debate, Bush defended his rigid certainty. In the second, he declined the opportunity to admit error and chose to blame others: "Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV." Perhaps he had in mind his former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, who testified that the president blithely ignored terrorism before Sept. 11. But perhaps he was thinking of the director of his faith-based initiative. John DiIulio, from Princeton, the most distinguished man of ideas to join his administration, who said, after resigning, "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis." Or perhaps he meant Paul O'Neill, his treasury secretary and a former corporate executive, who, after he was forced out, wrote that the president with his Cabinet was "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people." Or perhaps Bush was thinking of his top White House economic advisor, Lawrence Lindsey, who was fired after he publicly stated that the Iraq war would cost $200 billion.
The final debate was focused on Bush's weak point, the home front, where he lagged on every issue. On the debate's eve, polls revealed that voters want a change in direction, a new president, but remain tentative about Kerry. On that soft ice, despite the dead heat, the incumbent could prevail by asserting his mastery.
But Bush's own story is only of the "war president." As he tells it, Sept. 11 leads him in a straight line to invade Iraq, and "freedom is on the march." True or not, it is a simple story that many can follow and repeat. But his narrative of the "homeland president" is a mélange of avoidances and denials. Chronology is crucified, cause and effect stood on their heads. Under his aegis, nearly 1 million jobs have been lost, the worst record since the Great Depression; he has squandered the largest federal surplus and created the largest deficit; more than 4.5 million have lost their health insurance, and more than 45 million are uncovered; and so it goes.
In Bush's telling, for example, his regressive tax, source of much of the deficit, passed before Sept. 11, was enacted afterward. In the debate, he mentioned as little as possible about his Medicare prescription drug bill, despised by most of the elderly, who will pay more - a bill approved only because the Medicare actuary who analyzed the proposal's cost was threatened with being fired if he told Congress the true number beforehand. (The twisting of information and intimidation surrounding the Medicare bill are remarkably congruent with the distortions and coercion that occurred in the rush to the Iraq war.)
At every turn, Bush attempted to change the subject to his fictional version of his education bill, Leave No Child Behind. Asked by the moderator about whether he favored an increase in the minimum wage, he elided the question to hail his achievement on education, but never responded to Kerry's factual addition that Bush had failed to secure the $28 billion needed to implement the measure. Nor did Bush observe that many states have filed suits in federal courts against Leave No Child Behind because of the absence of funding. Nor did he acknowledge that the original sponsor of the bill was none other than Sen. Ted Kennedy. Instead, he used Kennedy as a straw man. "You know, there's a mainstream in American politics, and you [Kerry] sit right on the far left bank," the president charged. "As a matter of fact, your record is such that Ted Kennedy, your colleague, is the conservative senator from Massachusetts."
Kerry's performance, consistent with his previous ones, disclosed his steadiness, deep knowledge of policy and toughness, his presidential manner a refutation of the negative image projected by the Bush campaign of him as flip-flopper. He, too, raised the icon of Kennedy - John F. Kennedy - to establish his credentials on Bush's supposed high ground, the cardinal virtues of faith. After Bush's skirting the question of whether he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would uphold Roe vs. Wade, the decision legalizing abortion, Kerry defended women's right to choose as a "constitutional right," defended gay rights as a basic right and passionately defended the minimum wage as a "fundamental right." And then he said: "I grew up a Catholic. I was an altar boy. I know that throughout my life this has made a difference to me. And as President Kennedy said when he ran for president, he said, 'I'm not running to be a Catholic president. I'm running to be a president who happens to be Catholic.' My faith affects everything that I do, in truth. There's a great passage of the Bible that says, 'What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead.'"
What would Jesus do? Kerry was right with Jesus. But what would Lincoln do? Kerry was also right with Father Abraham.
Haunted by his father's defeat, Bush has been a case study in reaction formation. He marched to Baghdad, ensured he had no enemy to his right and cut taxes regardless of the deficit. In the last debate, he sputtered about "a liberal senator from Massachusetts," repeating attack lines from his father's old campaign, coming full circle in the restoration of the gilded crown.
[b]Source:[/b]
Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London., http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| ...---... President Bush's Use Of L-Word Signals Desperation ...---... |
| 10.14.04 (7:49 pm) [edit] |
"As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality." - George Washington
[b]What's Wrong With Being Liberal?[/b]
There he goes again.
President George W. Bush, having run out of attack slogans, has gone back to the old Republican standby of accusing his opponent, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., of being a liberal.
What's wrong with that?
It's ironic that the Bush 43 is accusing Kerry of being a "tax-and-spend liberal." This is the same president whose legacy will include a huge budget deficit that will be with us long after he has left office.
The attempted demonization of the word "liberal" began with Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign in 1980 and was picked up by George H.W. Bush in the 1988 presidential campaign against then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
Various dictionaries describe liberals as open minded, generous, progressive, leaning toward individual freedom, broadminded and ahead of the times.
Those interpretations of the word "liberal" seem to add up to a compassionate person. This president who calls himself a "compassionate conservative" surely cannot object to the label.
Unfortunately, the American people have yet to see the "compassionate" part of Bush equation. When a president wipes out overtime for millions of workers, restricts enforcement of health and safety regulations for workers, limits the union bargaining rights of government workers in Homeland Security and freezes their salaries, blocks the government from negotiating less expensive drugs from drug companies under Medicare, and gives huge tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers, can you really call him "compassionate"?
Maybe, for the rich.
Born into wealth and privilege, living the good life until he settled down at the age of 40, there was no time for Bush to develop a social conscience. So it's understandable how he would not show much compassion for the poor, the jobless and minorities.
He has chipped away at government social programs, putting them in competition with private religious charities for funding. Through vouchers, he is promoting private schools over public schools.
And he is seeking to weaken Social Security by privatizing a portion of the program.
Bush also has attacked Kerry for choosing a trial lawyer, Sen. John Edwards, as his running mate. Edwards has amassed a fortune through his success in winning malpractice verdicts for clients injured through the negligence of others.
Liberal presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 20th century played a transforming role to give disadvantaged citizens a break. They also moved against the plutocrats and the opponents of civil rights to work toward a more equal society.
None of their reforms came without a struggle or political costs.
Their contributions enhanced America's greatness as a caring democratic nation, concerned with the health and welfare of every citizen.
Bush's shrill derision of liberalism seems to be a sign of political desperation these days. What would the nation have done without the New Deal during the Great Depression? FDR also understood what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said: "Government should do for people what they cannot do for themselves."
Roosevelt's rallying cry at his 1933 inauguration was, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
It was a time when Americans were losing faith in the capitalistic system. Roosevelt saved the system with strong regulation and government support of financial institutions, as well as innovative programs to restore prosperity and health and welfare for hard-hit families.
Among Truman's "Fair Deal" contributions was wiping out the color line in the armed forces. The Kennedy administration lent its activist support and intervention to the civil rights movement in the South and signaled a war on poverty.
Johnson's "Great Society" legislation was the embodiment of liberalism. In his first two years in office, Johnson signed the first Medicare bill, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights act, federal funding to education at all levels from Head Start through college, child and maternal health measures, and public housing.
Liberals know all about compassion. What's more, they practice what they preach, which is more than the president can say.
[b]Sources:[/b]
What's Wrong With Being Liberal?, Helen Thomas, http://www.commondreams.org/v...
The L-Word Strikes Again, http://www.tblog.com/template...
TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com :
Despite President George W. Bush's repeated references to Ted Kennedy—we counted four—TomPaine's analysts say the president failed to make the case that Kerry's liberal leanings are a liability. To the contrary, argues [i]The Nation's [/i]vanden Heuvel. Campaign for America's Future co-founder Hickey offers some ideas for how John Kerry can step up the rhetoric in the final days of his campaign to help voters understand why this administration pursues such reckless policies. And[i] The American Prospect's[/i] Tomasky says it's Bush who's been flip-flopping each debate by trying out different—though unsuccessful—attack tactics. Read their articles on http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
Katrina vanden Heuvel : Kerry In The Mainstream, http://www.tompaine.com/artic... Heuvel
Roger Hickey : Bush's Special Interests Are Corporate, http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
Michael Tomasky : Kerry's Highs And Lows, http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
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| ...---... Iraq: Europe on the Move ...---... |
| 10.14.04 (6:22 pm) [edit] |
[b]Kerry [i]has the capability [/i]that Bush [i]severely lacks [/i]to deal diplomatically with other nations-- to work with those with whom he differs-- and, to negotiate with allies who will assist the United States of America ... Bush lacks these skills critical for a leader ... Bush is unfit to lead and should return to Crawford TX where he can pretend ([i]play at[/i]) to be Emperor-- We need somebody with brains, like Kerry, as President ...[/b]
Little noticed in the American press, the Europeans and the Arabs are stepping up on Iraq. It’s good news for Kerry, because it resonates with the oft-repeated plans to get “the allies” more involved in Baghdad. But it’s more important for Iraq, since the one and only chance for Iraq to stabilize is for the Euro-Arab axis to take over the fix the mess that the United States made. You won’t read this analysis anywhere else.
A potentially all-important, all-parties conference on Iraq takes place in November. Here’s what France’s Chirac has to say http://asia.news.yahoo.com/04... :
... "French President Jacques Chirac said Tuesday that his country is "entirely committed" to taking part in an international conference on Iraq scheduled next month.
Chirac called on foreign ministers to work out the details and participants for the conference, which Iraqi leaders have recommended and U.S. officials support.
"France is entirely committed to participating," he told reporters during a brief stop in Hong Kong. "At its origin, this (conference) was proposed by France and Russia together a year or year and a half ago."
Egypt plans to host the conference in late November, and participants are to include Iraq, its neighbors, plus China, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference." ...
Germany, too, is stepping up. The German defense minister, Peter Struck http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0b76... , says his country is rethinking the idea of troops for Iraq, with a nod to Kerry:
... "In an interview with the [i]Financial Times [/i], Mr. Struck departed from his government’s resolve not to send troops to Iraq under any circumstances, saying: “At present I rule out the deployment of German troops in Iraq. In general, however, there is no one who can predict developments in Iraq in such a way that he could make a such a binding statement [about the future].”
Mr. Struck also welcomed Mr. Kerry’s proposal that he would convene an international conference on Iraq including countries that opposed the war if he were to win next month's election." ...
Even though other Germans, including the chancellor, are backing away from Struck’s remarks, they’ve made it clear that Iraq is too important to world security to allow it to fall apart.
The fact that the conference is happening in Egypt is critical, since France has proposed, and Egypt is considering http://news.ft.com/cms/s/88bc... , the idea of inviting not just the phony government of Iraqistan to the meeting, but the Iraqi resistance, too!
... "Senior Egyptian officials have ruled out the participation of Iraqi opposition groups in the international conference on Iraq to be held in Cairo in November, as proposed by France. Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian foreign minister, said Paris had softened initial demands for the inclusion of the Iraqi opposition, referring to French conditions as a "preference".
He suggested, however, that the conference—intended to send a message of support for elections expected in January—could recommend that the interim Iraqi government hold reconciliation talks with Iraqi groups opposed to the U.S. military presence.
"There is no opposition coming to the meeting but if it is the will of the participants and the Iraqis we might have track-two [informal parallel talks] or a reference to a possibility of a further meeting," he said." ...
This is a big deal. France is pushing for the Iraqi opposition to get involved, which would totally undercut the U.S.-backed banana-republic regime of Allawi. Stay tuned. Diplomacy is afoot. I wonder if Bush knows.
[b]Source:[/b]
Robert Dreyfuss, [i]The Dreyfuss Report[/i], TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com
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| ...---... Nuclear Looting ...---... |
| 10.14.04 (2:37 pm) [edit] |
"The 9/11 Commission concluded on page 380 of its report that terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction pose "the greatest danger of another catastrophic attack http://www.9-11commission.gov... in the United States." A new federal investigation by the Homeland Security inspector general's office, however, shows "serious questions still remain regarding the prevention of nuclear materials from entering" the United States. At issue: The ABC News organization secretly conducted tests of American port security over the past two years, successfully smuggling 15 pounds of "harmless, depleted" uranium http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/sto... into the country both years in a row. The test shipments "originated in Jakarta, Indonesia, an area of known al Qaeda activity." The report concludes, "Improvements are needed in the inspection process to ensure that weapons of mass destruction or other implements of terror do not gain access to the U.S. through oceangoing cargo containers."" - The Center for American Progress
[b]Bush has[i] not [/i]protected our nation ... Instead of focusing on the [i]real[/i] threats of terrorism, and upon [i]real[/i] homeland security, Bush rushed into his insane neo-con war in Iraq, a diversion from the[i] real [/i]war on terror ... Now Iraq, the Middle East and the world at large,[i] including the USA [/i]is more dangerous than [i]ever[/i] ...[/b]
International U.N. weapons inspectors found this week that sensitive material and equipment have been looted from nuclear facilities in Iraq http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... . The International Atomic Energy Agency reported to the U.N. Security Council yesterday that "equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq but neither Baghdad nor Washington appears to have noticed." (In some cases, said IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei, "satellite images show entire buildings have been dismantled without any record being made.") According to the Duelfer report http://www.washingtonpost.com... and the IAEA http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/mi... , the material was not part of a weapons program; the equipment and low-grade uranium were for nuclear energy, not bombs. Despite White House claims, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, nor a program to create nuclear weapons. The material, however, is still highly sensitive and could be abused if it falls into the wrong hands.
[b]IAEA WAS ON TOP OF IT:[/b] The IAEA strictly – and successfully – monitored nuclear plant at Tuwaitha before the war. They were forced to leave in March of 2003, however, when the United States said it could not ensure their safety during the invasion. The U.S. government then "prevented U.N. weapons inspectors from returning to Iraq – thereby blocking the IAEA from monitoring the high-tech equipment and materials – after the U.S.-led war was launched in March 2003."
[b]WHO? WHERE? WHEN? HUH?: [/b]Melissa Fleming of the IAEA "said the agency was concerned that sensitive technology might have fallen into the hands of those involved in the black market in nuclear weapons." It seems scrap metal from Iraqi nuclear sites – some of which was radioactive – has been turning up abroad. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher admitted that due to the "extensive and widespread looting after the war" there indeed had been "removal and exports of material from Iraq." When asked by reporters exactly what materials had been removed and exported from Iraq's nuclear facility in Tuwaitha, Boucher was at a loss: "I just don't know. How much material there was, what kinds of equipment it was and where it got to, I think we know some of that, we don't know all of that."
[b]NUCLEAR NEGLECT:[/b] Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was outraged that the looting took place under the U.S.'s watch: "It was sitting there controlled when the inspections were there. But when the occupation comes in, it disappears…All these things were tagged and they were visited by the inspectors and in comes the United States with 200,000 people on board and occupies the country in order, ostensibly, to take care of weapons of mass destruction, and they lose control and the instruments and equipment that could be helpful in nuclear production disappears." Former weapons inspector David Kay agreed: "Losing control of it really is inexcusable."
[b]INADEQUATE TROOP LEVELS BLAMED:[/b] Former weapons inspector David Kay blamed the looting on inadequate American troop levels after the invasion, saying when he was in Tuwaitha in May, "there were not enough U.S. troops to even attempt to bring it under control." This is a familiar sentiment; recently, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer, charged inadequate military presence after the invasion allowed rampant looting in Iraq and said the U.S. "paid a big price" for not sending enough troops to secure the peace.
[b]HEY, MAN, NOT OUR PROBLEM:[/b] The administration has said fear that Saddam might help terrorists obtain weapons of mass destruction was a reason for invading Iraq. Now that the IAEA found that under the watch of the United States, nuclear materials and equipment in fact have disappeared and were exported out of Iraq, what's the administration's response? Not our problem. Boucher said stopping the loss of the nuclear material is the responsibility of Iraqis. "We work with them on export control, we work with them on border control….but they have the lead on this one."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... Dubya, Caught With His Pants Down ...---... |
| 10.14.04 (12:44 pm) [edit] |
"I want justice. There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, "Wanted: Dead or Alive" ... I just remember, all I'm doing is remembering when I was a kid I remember that they used to put out there in the old west, a wanted poster. It said: "Wanted, Dead or Alive." All I want and America wants him brought to justice. That's what we want."
- Bush on bin Laden, September 17th, 2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov/new...
"As I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. But once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became -- we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his al Qaeda killers anymore."
- Bush on bin Laden, March 13th, 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/new...
During last night's debate, as we predicted, Bush lied [i]yet again[/i] by denying that he minimized the threat of bin Laden http://www.slate.com/id/21081... ... It's a habitual addition for the dry-drunk to lie whenever he is in trouble ... Dubya was [i]caught with his pants down [/i]last night ...
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| ...---... Questions Worth Asking in Tonight's Debate ...---... |
| 10.13.04 (8:11 pm) [edit] |
[b]Sixteen questions that moderator Bob Schieffer might ask President Bush in the third debate.[/b]
The St. Louis debate was spectacular. The citizens selected to ask questions proved that most talking heads don't have a thing on a group of thoughtful, gutsy Americans. I haven't seen every televised presidential debate. But of all those I've seen since the first election for which I was eligible (1988), Wednesday's was the most substantial, point-counterpoint battle I can recall.
After learning his lesson during the Mistake in Miami, President George W. Bush rid himself of the scowl. Though he was more shouty than pouty on Friday night at Washington University, the president won't make any stylistic errors at Arizona State on Wednesday, and I suspect Sen. John Kerry will maintain his cool as he did in the first two clashes. Because 68 percent of the 46 million Americans who watched the vice presidential debate said the debate had no effect on their voting plans, the debate in Cleveland between incumbent Dick Cheney and challenger John Edwards was a wash.
And thus, barring one of the candidates making an egregious factual error or bogus claim during the Tussle in Tempe, the net effect of this year's debates is two-fold:
[b]... First[/b], Kerry locked down his partisans with his strong, fact-filled and aggressive performances.
[b]... Second[/b], Bush's miserable showing in Miami cost him most if not all of his roughly six-point advantage he enjoyed heading into the first debate.
If Bush were to trip up in Tempe, however, it would be more likely in response to a question for which he does not have a pre-fabricated answer. In that spirit, as I did for the first debate http://gadflyer.com/articles/... on foreign affairs, here are 16 suggested questions on domestic and economic policies CBS' Bob Schieffer should ask if he wants to elicit a scowl from the Shouter-in-Chief:
1. The budget deficit this year is estimated at more than $420 billion, the highest in American history and equal to more than $2,500 for every full-time working taxpayer in the country. In 2000, when the country was running a surplus, you said we had to cut taxes because those surpluses were "the people's money." By that logic, aren't the current deficits "the people's deficits," and if not, whose deficits are they and how will we pay them down?
2. A third of America's children today live below the poverty line. Do you consider this a problem, and if so, what specifically are you doing to solve it?
3. You say you're against big government, and yet you supported a farm bill in 2002 that expanded farm subsidies by roughly $130 billion over the next decade. How do you rectify your defense of small government with your advocacy for expanding farm subsidies?
4. You supported income tax cuts instead of cutting the payroll tax, the direct tax on labor. If lowering taxes on something creates more of that thing, why not advocate lowering the payroll tax on work to generate more jobs instead of cutting taxes on wealth like for inheritances, luxury items, capital gains and dividends?
5. You say you favor free and open markets, but you oppose allowing Americans to re-import identical, but much cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, something two Republican governors from Canadian-bordering states have openly advocated. Why shouldn't Americans be allowed to by cheaper drugs from Canada or online?
6. You point to new home ownership as an indication that the economy is improving. What specific policies did you enact that spurred greater home ownership rates?
7. We have the highest trade deficit in American history. Are you worried about it, why or why not, and what do you plan to do about it?
8. Earlier this year you announced aspirations to send Americans to the moon and, from there, on to Mars, yet you have hardly mentioned this space initiative since. Do you still want to pursue plans to go to the moon and Mars, and how much should America invest in this plan?
9. You initially said you opposed both of the affirmative action claims in the two University of Michigan cases from 2003. The Supreme Court rendered a split decision, upholding the use of affirmative action in one case and rejecting it in the other – and your administration then said it agreed with the split ruling. Can you clarify your switch on this issue?
10. What's your position on illegal immigration? Should Mexicans who came illegally across our southern border years ago, and who have lived and worked and paid taxes here, be given amnesty or sent back to Mexico?
11. You have proposed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Do you know personally any homosexuals, as either friends or colleagues or staff members? If yes, how would you explain to them your support for this amendment? If not, how would you explain to a gay person your support for this amendment?
12. You oppose abortion. If re-elected, will you advocate for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion? Would you state for the record, yes or no: do you support overturning Roe v. Wade?
13. Critics say the No Child Left Behind Act only tells us what we already know – which schools are failing and which are not. Should the federal government be spending billions to test, rather than remediate the problems in schools such as declining infrastructures, outdated books and materials, and underpaid teachers?
14. Critics, including Sen. Kerry, say your administration has underfunded the No Child Left Behind Act by billions of dollars. Is this program a success, and if so, why not fully fund it or even dedicate more money to it?
15. Your vice president, Dick Cheney, led an energy task force to study energy options. Critics complain that the task force operated in secrecy, and that it was dominated by energy executives. First, should task forces operate in public view? And, second what specific recommendations from the Cheney task force will help solve America's energy crisis?
16. You said four years ago that Christ was your favorite philosopher. Among mortals, is there a political leader, poet, revolutionary or other person whose writings or actions you greatly admire?
There are many, many more questions the president would prefer not to answer. It will also be interesting to see how many times, in an attempt to get back to more comfortable terrain Bush manages to work Sept. 11 into a non-foreign policy debate. (I'd peg the over-under is seven mentions.)
Whatever happens in Tempe, at this point the race essentially now comes down to a battle between the field campaigns – unless the president gets a question tomorrow night that he can't field, gets aggravated, and re-opens the wounds he self-inflicted in Miami.
[b]Sources:[/b]
By Thomas Schaller, [i]Gadflyer[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org/elect...
Bush Can Run, But He Can't Hide, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Questions for Bush, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Questions for Kerry, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...---... The Race Right Now ...---... |
| 10.13.04 (6:48 pm) [edit] |
[b]On the eve of the final presidential debate of the 2004 campaign, everything has changed -- again. And it could all change once more tonight. But here is where the race stands right now:[/b]
[u]READING THE POLLS[/u]: The race for the presidency is as close as it has been at any time during this long campaign. Neither Bush nor Kerry has opened a consequential lead in recent days. No matter what survey you look at -- those with Bush in the lead or those with Kerry out front -- the two men are within the margin of error. That's a notable improvement for Kerry, who was clearly behind in a number of national surveys before the first presidential debate. Kerry's trajectory has been an upward one since that initial face-off with Bush. All the polling suggests that the Democrat benefitted not only from his own performance in the first debate but also from public reaction to the vice presidential debate and the second presidential debate.
Beneath the top line numbers that show Kerry and Bush essentially tied, there are powerful trends at work. They tend generally to favor the Democrat, although he still faces serious challenges heading toward November 2. Kerry's personal and issue-by-issue approval ratings have risen dramatically since the first debate. According to the [i]CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup[/i] Poll released 10/12, Americans surveyed now say Kerry would do a better job than Bush on virtually every major domestic issue: protecting the environment (29 point advantage), improving access to health care (19 point advantage), preserving Medicare (15 point advantage), eliminating deficits (13 point advantage), preserving Social Security (9 point advantage), aiding education (7 point advantage), shoring up the economy (4 point advantage), maintaining a woman's right to choose (4 point advantage) and promoting stem cell research (20 point advantage). Only on the question of taxes did Bush have an advantage, with those surveyed favoring the president by a 51-44 margin.
Where Bush maintains an advantage is on a pair of critical foreign policy issues: handling the mess in Iraq and pursuing the war on terrorism. On Iraq, Bush has a 51-44 advantage. On the war on terror, the Republican outpaces the Democrat by a whopping 56-39. While it is clear that Bush benefits most from the meticulously-nurtured impression that he would be a stronger defender of the US than Kerry, even this advantage is vulnerable. Forty-six percent of Americans now say it was a mistake to send US troops to Iraq. And the percentage of Americans who believe it was worth going to war in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since the invasion of that country in March 2003. Only 44 percent of Americans now believe the war was worth doing. That's down from 59 percent at the start of the year, and from 49 percent just one month ago.
Notably, Bush's overall job approval rating is at the lowest level so far this year. Where 60 percent of Americans approved of the way he was handling his job in January, and 52 percent gave the president their O.K. as recently as September 5, only 47 percent now approve.
Going into Wednesday night's final presidential debate, Kerry has an format advantage. The focus is supposed to be on domestic issues, his greatest area of strength. But watch for Bush to try and stall the Democrat's momentum by turning the discussion toward national security issues. For Kerry, the challenge is to use his last unfiltered appearance before the American people to focus on his areas of strength while addressing his vulnerabilities on those terrorism- security-safety issues. The Democrat needs to make linkages that are difficult, but certainly not impossible. It is a good bet that Kerry will focus on flaws in Bush's approach to homeland security with an emphasis on how a proper level of investment in programs and infrastructure will make the United States safer and might reasonably be expected to expand access to health care and create some new jobs. It is an even better bet that Bush will avoid that kind of nuance. The phrase "tax-and-spend liberal" -- or some variation on that line -- will be Bush's preferred response to Kerry's thrusts -- setting the theme for the post- debate period of the campaign.
[u]BATTLEGROUND STATES[/u]: Before the first debate, Kerry was in serious trouble in a number of the competitive "battleground" states where the election is likely to be decided. For the most part, the improvement in the Democratic candidate's fortunes has been reflected at the state level. In New Hampshire, which went for Bush in 2000, Kerry now leads by a 49-42 margin, according to a new [i]Manchester Union-Leader/Franklin Pierce College[/i] Poll. In New Jersey, which went solidly for Gore in 2000 but seemed close for a time this year, two new polls have Kerry with a decent if not comfortable lead -- 47-40 for the Democrat in the [i]Newark Star-Ledger/Rutgers University [/i]survey; 49-41 for the Democrat in a recent Fairleigh Dickinson University survey. In Wisconsin, a state Gore narrowly won in 2000, Kerry had trailed by as much as 10 points in some September polls; he is now back within the margin of error -- a new [i]CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup [/i]poll has it: Bush 49, Kerry 46. In Missouri, where Kerry had fallen well behind, he is now just two points away from Bush, according to a new [i]KSDK-TV/Survey USA[/i] poll. On the other hand, North Carolina, which had seemed to be in play, now appears to be solidly in Bush's column. Florida also seems to be moving slowly into Bush's column. That drift is offset by Ohio, a Bush state in 2000 where polls show Kerry well ahead of where Gore was four years ago. Registration patterns in Ohio favor the Democrats but GOP numbers are also up, meaning that this state will be ground zero for Get-Out-the-Vote efforts by both parties.
Most interesting new development: Colorado, which went big for Bush in 2000, appears to have become a battleground state. The [i]CNN/USA TODAY/ Gallup Poll [/i]has Kerry and Bush tied at 49 each. Other recent polls put Bush ahead, but with Kerry competitive. Watch for both campaigns to shift resources and campaign schedules Colorado's way.
[u]NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENTS[/u]: The [i]Portland Oregonian [/i]newspaper, which in 2000 gave a strong endorsement to George W. Bush, on Sunday endorsed John Kerry. "When George W. Bush took office in a deeply divided nation, he promised to reach out to unite the country. If anything, he has helped make the rifts deeper. That may be his real failure as president," the editors of the [i]Oregonian[/i] explained. "John Kerry can do better." The [i]Oregonian[/i] followed the lead of another large west-coast paper, the Seattle Times, which backed Bush in 2000 but this year came out strong for Kerry, declaring, "The election of Kerry would sweep away neoconservative war intellectuals who drive policy at the White House and Pentagon." So far, according to Editor & Publisher, Kerry has been endorsed by newspapers with a combined circulation of 2,534,377 to newspapers with a combined circulation of 637,187 for Bush. No major newspaper that backed Gore in 2000 has endorsed Bush this year.
[u]SENATE RACES[/u]: The race for control of the Senate, while largely neglected by national media, remains competitive.
Democrats could to pick up as many as four US Senate seats that are currently held by Republicans: Polls have Democratic candidates ahead in Illinois, Alaska, Oklahoma and Alaska. Illinois appears to be a certain pick-up state, with Democrat Barack Obama leading Republican Alan Keyes by 30 to 40 points in the polls. The rest of the states are much closer but clearly competitive. Perhaps the most amazing upturn in Democratic fortunes has been in Oklahoma, where the party's nominee, US Rep. Brad Carson, has received a big hand from his Republican foe, former US Rep. Tom Coburn. The Republican seems to go from crisis to crisis. Coburn has been caught up in scandals regarding sterilizations he performed as a physician and his frequently bizarre statements. Most recently he announced that "lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom." Newspaper interviews with school superintendents found not a one who could confirm Colburn's report.
Democrats light up when they start talking about Oklahoma. But they get nervous when the talk turns to Senate contests in the south. Democrats are likely to lose at least two of the five southern seats that are being vacated by members of their party. In Georgia, where Democrat-in-name-only Zell Miller is exiting, party nominee Denise Majette trails far behind Republican Johnny Isakson in all polls. In South Carolina, where Democrat Fritz Hollings is stepping down, the party's nominee to replace him, Inez Tenenbaum, has run a tepid campaign that has left her well behind Republican Jim DeMint. But in three other seats where Democratic seats are open -- Louisiana, Florida and North Carolina -- Democratic nominees are running even or ahead.
If Democrats win the four currently Republican-held seats where they are running well, and if they hold at least three of the five southern seats, the next Senate could end up split between a 51-member Democratic caucus (50 party members and one independent, Vermont's Jim Jeffords, who caucuses with them, and a 49-member Republican caucus.)
Of course, that is the best scenario for Democrats. For a variety of reasons-- including a late rise in the fortunes of Florida Republican Senate candidate Mel Martinez and the continued vulnerability of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who is running no better than even in most South Dakota polls – the better bet is for a 50-50 split. Of course, if Kerry wins the presidency, John Edwards will be breaking the ties.
Even that scenario could fall apart of Bush turns out to have coattails in western and southern states where he will win by wide margins. But few observers expected the Senate to be in play at this point, and it is. And there may even be a sleeper race where another Democrat could come into contention.
In Kentucky, Dr. Dan Mongiardo, a state senator who is the Democratic nominee, has according to several polls narrowed the gap in the race with Republican US Sen. Jim Bunning. The contest wasn't supposed to be close. But Bunning has engaged in such bizarre behavior that he has sparked discussion about whether he might be suffering from dementia. Bunning has compared Mongiardo, a respected physician, to the sons of Saddam Hussein. During a visit to Paducah, Bunning requested additional police protection because he said he feared he might be attacked by al-Qaeda while visiting a Quilters' Museum. Then, this week, Bunning refused to appear in person for a long-scheduled debate, instead demanding that he be allowed to take part via satellite from Washington. Bunning aides were so concerned about the impression their boss might make in the debate that they demanded that Mongiardo's campaign agree not to use images of the Republican senator from it. At the same time, Bunning has been airing commercials that falsely suggest that a luxurious home and private jet featured in the ad belong to Mongiardo. The[i] Louisville Courier-Journal [/i]editorial page refers to the Bunning ad as "despicable," while the [i]Lexington Herald-Leader [/i]described the Bunning ad as so "offensive and unfair" that a voter watching them "might well conclude that politics is an amoral wasteland into which only a masochist would venture."
The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has ramped up support for Mongiardo. Smart move; they need to open at least one new front between now and November 2.
[b]Sources:[/b]
John Nichols, [i]The Online Beat[/i], The Nation, http://www.thenation.com
Public Opinion Watch - October 13, 2004, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...---... Questions for Bush ...---... |
| 10.13.04 (3:01 pm) [edit] |
[b]Political Faith
By DAVID K. SHIPLER[/b], [i]a former Times correspondent and the author, most recently, of "The Working Poor: Invisible in America"[/i]
You speak of "compassionate conservatism," yet you rarely talk about the poverty that afflicts millions of Americans, including many who work hard at low-wage jobs. Your administration has inadequately financed or reduced the budgets of housing, child care, job training and other programs vital to helping the working poor. What do you see as government's proper role, and how would you change policies in a second term to demonstrate true compassion?
The federal government has begun to finance "faith-based initiatives." Previously, religious groups had to create separate, secular entities to receive federal money for services for the poor. Now, grants go to religious organizations that can discriminate against people of other faiths in hiring. Some will inevitably use tax dollars to promote their religious beliefs. Are you trying to break down the First Amendment's wall separating church and state?
Using the Patriot Act and other means, you have tried to evade the courts and minimize the rights of those accused of terrorism. Your administration has conducted searches without warrants, obtained gag orders on those forced to turn over records, monitored conversations between lawyers and their clients, employed unverified intelligence reports in criminal proceedings, and claimed the power to imprison Americans indefinitely without indictment or trial. Now that a couple of major cases have collapsed, what proof exists that these measures are actually being used against the right people? How many terrorist plots have they foiled?
[b]Deficit Attention
By ALICE M. RIVLIN[/b], [i]a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from 1994 to 1996[/i]
According to your former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, Vice President Dick Cheney believes that "deficits don't matter." Do you agree with the vice president? If so, why promise to cut the deficit in half in your next term? If not, what dangers do you think large sustained deficits pose for our economy? Do you worry about burdening your daughters and their children with rapidly growing federal debt and interest payments?
You say that you want to allow young workers to put part of their Social Security taxes into personal accounts. They could invest these accounts in stocks or bonds and leave them to their heirs. At the same time, you promise not to reduce scheduled benefits for current and soon-to-be retirees. But taxes paid by working people are used to pay benefits to current retirees. If the taxes paid by younger workers are diverted to their personal accounts, where will the money come from to pay those benefits? Would you try to borrow the additional money (estimated to be at least $1 trillion)? Would you take money from other programs? Would you raise taxes?
In a recent open letter, 169 economists and business school professors, including 56 professors from Harvard Business School, your alma mater, sharply criticized your economic policies. They said your proposals for Social Security and making the tax cuts permanent "only promise to exacerbate the crisis" and that "your tax policy has exacerbated the problem of inequality in the United States." Do you dismiss these critics as uninformed? If not, what would you say to persuade them they are wrong?
[b]Mandate Madness
By ALAN EHRENHALT[/b], [i]the executive editor of Governing magazine[/i]
As a candidate in 2000, you argued in favor of compassionate conservatism and a restoration of decency and moderation to the national government. Those of us who voted for you took this seriously. But your personal demeanor as president has been belligerent and dismissive of virtually anyone who opposes your policies. You state flatly that anyone who is not with you is against you, and at least imply that disagreement is equivalent to disloyalty. You refuse to admit making mistakes, even when it is obvious that you made them. You all but invite attacks on the country with "bring it on" taunting that makes you sound more like a gang leader than a responsible head of state. What happened to your promise of compassion? Have you concluded that moderation and decency are not useful qualities in a president?
When you were governor of Texas, you complained about the long list of mandates that Washington was imposing on the states without supplying the money to pay for them. You criticized the Republican Congress for ignoring legitimate state complaints. "Mandates are mandates, regardless of the philosophical bent of the person doing the mandating," you said in May 1998. "It starts at the White House." But your administration has imposed billions of dollars in mandates without even a pretense of offering sufficient money for states to meet them. Did your concern for fairness to Texas and the 49 other state governments simply evaporate when you moved into the White House?
[b]Source:[/b]
N.Y. Times, http://nytimes.com/2004/10/12...
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| ...---... Questions for Kerry ...---... |
| 10.13.04 (3:00 pm) [edit] |
[b]A Real Job
By CHARLES MURRAY[/b], [i]a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author, most recently, of "Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950''[/i]
Five percent of Americans pay 54 percent of all personal income taxes. They do not use more government services than other Americans; they use fewer. Why is this fair?
Would you be willing to sponsor tort reform that requires plaintiffs to have used common sense before being eligible for damages?
You promise to create millions of jobs, but many people who run businesses say that nothing in your life has taught you how much effort, risk and sometimes heartbreak goes into creating one real job. Could you describe your experiences when you last had to meet a payroll, or when your boss had to meet a payroll?
[b]Clearing the Air
By CHRISTIE WHITMAN[/b], [i]administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2001 to 2003[/i]
You have been critical of President Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, yet in 1997 you joined 94 of your Senate colleagues in effectively rejecting its terms. What has changed to make you accept now what you then rejected?
The president's Clear Skies proposal calls for a 70 percent reduction in some of the worst air pollutants, including mercury, over the next decade. While the current Clean Air Act has made a difference, it is cumbersome, it almost always involves lengthy litigation that delays any benefits, and it doesn't set any specific level for the reduction of mercury. Why haven't you led the fight to avoid lawsuits and instead demand the results the president has advocated?
[b]Back to Schools
By STEPHEN L. CARTER[/b], [i]a professor of law at Yale and the author, most recently, of "The Emperor of Ocean Park," a novel[/i]
During the long period it would take to carry out your plan to improve the public schools, would you, in the interest of racial justice, support a system of vouchers to enable the parents of poor inner-city children to pay for private schooling to cover the transitional years? Throughout the five or more years that your plan envisions, many inner-city children will continue to receive substandard educations, and to suffer in other material and spiritual ways.
If the answer to the first question is no, would you call on well-to-do Democrats to show their support for public education, and for the poor, by voluntarily sending their children to the schools that the inner-city parents are required to use? After all, a sudden influx of middle-class families might force a cure for many of those schools' deficiencies.
If the answer to the second question is no, are there any sacrifices that you would call upon middle-class Americans to make for the sake of improving the condition of the worst-off among us?
[b]Source:[/b]
N.Y. Times, http://nytimes.com/2004/10/12...
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| ...---... 'Ownership Society' is a Sham ...---... |
| 10.13.04 (1:23 pm) [edit] |
[b]President Bush's domestic agenda was once based on "compassionate conservatism" (i.e. giving lavish tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy while cutting health, education, and job opportunities for the middle class). [/b]Now his domestic principles are grounded in the "ownership society" (i.e. privatizing critical public needs and shifting retirement and health care risks onto individuals while ensuring that the financial services and health care industries get billions in new fees and services). Either way, America will experience more economic inequality and rising economic burdens for middle-class families.
[b]1. President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent – those making $1 million or more – will total $148 billion this year alone.[/b] As the Detroit News reports, "That is twice as much as the government will spend on job training, $6.2 billion; college Pell grants, $12 billion; public housing, $6.3 billion; low-income rental subsidies, $19 billion; child care, $4.8 billion; insurance for low-income children, $5.2 billion; low-income energy assistance, $1.8 billion; meals for shut-ins, $180 million; and welfare, $16.9 billion."
[b]2. The president's plan to privatize Social Security will leave Americans less secure in old age while Wall Street investment firms rake in billions.[/b] Let's be candid about the "ownership" of retirement: the elderly are the only ones who will take on new risks. If the market takes a downturn, there's no guarantee of a secure retirement. But regardless of whether the market is up or down, big investment firms will collect an estimated $9 billion in new fees under the president's plan.
[b]3. President Bush's message to Americans is clear: "When hard times hit, you're on your own."[/b] The entire privatization agenda of President Bush and his conservative allies rests on shifting collective obligations and duties away from government and corporations and onto individuals. The shrinking middle class will shoulder more of the burdens and risks while the wealthy and big business will pocket more of the benefits. This is not the way to a more equitable and prosperous America that provides opportunities for all citizens.
[b]Sources:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogrss.or...
Risky Business, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Bush's Immoral Tax Cuts for the Rich: Skewed Priorities, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Economic Troubles: From Elevated to High, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...---... The L-Word Strikes Again ...---... |
| 10.13.04 (12:31 pm) [edit] |
"I’m old enough to remember when Democrats could smile as they described their opponents as extreme right-wingers. It’s time to return to those days—tonight.
Bush, on the advice of Newt Gingrich, has changed tactics, the Post reports. No longer is he describing Kerry as a flip-flopper. Instead, Bush last week called Kerry a “liberal,” and even once mispronounced his very name, calling him “Kennedy.” And of course tonight we will hear “tax and spend.”" - Robert Dreyfuss, http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
[b]Contrary to President Bush's assertions, Sen. Kerry is no "bleeding heart liberal". However, Bush [i]is[/i] a reckless "no-tax and spend us into bankruptcy" corporate rapist!!!
I am a liberal and proud of it!!! ... Read "On Being a Liberal" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ... [/b]
Thank you, George W. Bush, for trying to assure me that John Kerry is a liberal. Wish it were so.
I like liberals. They gave us the five-day workweek; ended child labor; invented unemployment insurance, Social Security and Medicare; and led us, despite fierce opposition from "America First" pseudo-patriots on the political right, to victory over fascism in World War II. Liberals also ended racial segregation and gave women the vote.
But when Bush used the L-word in the second presidential debate, Kerry did not defend that proud progressive tradition. Nor did I expect him to. Kerry is one of those New Democrats who rejects the "liberal" label that I find so honorable. After all, Kerry, as he bragged in the debate, voted for the atrocious 1996 welfare reform bill, which has contributed to the 4 million additional people, mostly children, pushed below the poverty line during Bush's tenure.
However, after Bush's attempt to tar him as a bleeding heart, I thought I had it wrong – so I checked the website of the National Journal, the source cited by Bush as branding Kerry the No. 1 liberal of our time.
As is his habit on so many things, Bush had the facts wrong. The career voting record of the "Massachusetts liberal" ranks him as only the 11th most liberal, behind current colleagues from Iowa, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Vermont and Maryland – and his running mate is a miserable 27th.
It turns out the duo moved up in the journal's 2003 rankings only because they were both out campaigning and, just as Republican presidential nominees have in the past, missed many congressional votes. As the journal later explained in disclaiming the GOP's misinterpretation of its ranking system, the 2003 rating of Kerry as the top liberal was based only on the 19 votes he cast on economic issues.
But even that narrow selection was misinterpreted, as noted by Al From and Bruce Reed, the leaders of the Democratic Leadership Council – and thus the guardians of the party's dominant centrist ideology. They define Kerry not as a liberal but as a Clinton-style moderate, even when looking at only his 2003 votes.
Eight of Kerry's "liberal" votes last year dealt with cutting back Bush's tax giveaway to the 1% richest Americans. Another four reflected moderate pro-environment positions, while two others should have been supported by all Americans: an extension of benefits for folks thrown out of work, many by the outsourcing abroad of decent jobs, and a challenge to the Bush assault on overtime pay.
The DLC guys further point out that Kerry's "centrism" has been affirmed in the last decade by his votes for measures that many liberals rightly opposed, such as the 1997 balanced-budget agreement, free-trade extensions without commensurate protections for the environment and workers' rights, and the knee-jerk 1994 law-and- order "100,000 cops" anti-crime bill.
So, once again, as with Bill Clinton, I find myself supporting a Democrat with a domestic agenda to the right of Richard Nixon. Yes, the man Arnold Schwarzenegger eulogized at the GOP convention was in favor of a guaranteed annual income for all Americans – something that can be made to sound even more socialist than liberal. Nixon's point man on such issues was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who as a Democratic senator from New York later blasted Clinton's anti-welfare bill as an immoral assault on the poor.
I interviewed Nixon in 1984, long after he had been chased from office, and found him to be quite proud of his domestic agenda. How sad for the nation that his domestic policy is now considered progressive compared with Bush's. Many excellent programs such as Social Security and Medicare that once had strong bipartisan support are now under attack by a perversely destructive president.
OK, Kerry may not be a daring liberal, but he is an enlightened moderate who would at least safeguard the gains made since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. By contrast, the Bush administration seems determined to return us to the 19th century, when corporate robber barons owned the White House and employed crude "gunboat diplomacy" to serve their greed.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Robert Scheer is the co-author of [u]The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq[/u]., http://www.alternet.org/colum...
On Being A Liberal, http://www.tblog.com/template...
George Washington: "I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice & liberality", http://www.tblog.com/template...
Think Again: The Word 'Liberal', http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...---... Economic Troubles: From Elevated to High ...---... |
| 10.12.04 (7:50 pm) [edit] |
"In August, I joined nine other American Nobel prize winners in economics in signing an open letter to the public. We wrote: "President Bush and his administration have embarked on a reckless and extreme course that endangers the long-term economic health of our nation ... The differences between President Bush and John Kerry with respect to leadership on the economy are wider than in any other presidential election in our experience. President Bush believes that tax cuts benefiting the most wealthy Americans are the answer to almost every economic problem."
Here, as elsewhere, Bush is dead wrong, and too dogmatic to admit it." - Joseph Stiglitz is professor of economics at Columbia University and a Nobel prize winner, http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1320596,00.html
[b]Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, is the founder of Democracy for America, a grassroots organization that supports socially progressive and fiscally responsible political candidates. Mr. Dean writes:[/b]
The two critical issues for every president are national security and economic security. While much media attention has been focused on Iraq and al Qaida, most Americans have been quietly focusing on their economic plight. What they are seeing is not pretty.
President Bush asserts that the economy has "turned the corner" and that his tax cuts are working to stimulate the economy and create jobs. A critical look at the gross domestic product tells the honest story about the economy. GDP is the sum of consumer spending, government spending, investments and net exports.
During the Clinton administration, consumer spending drove the economy, increasing at an average of 1.77 percent per quarter. More consumer spending on food, electronics, automobiles, durable goods and houses means more jobs and a more robust economy. More spending meant more jobs.
Despite the president's claim that his tax cuts increased consumer spending, we now know that a big chunk of the money went to people who make over $1 million per year. That does not help consumer spending, because it has no effect on consumers who already had enough money to buy what they wanted anyway. During the Bush administration, consumer spending has sputtered, and in order to cut cost, companies have moved jobs to countries where wages are between 50 cents and $2.50 per hour. That's why we are seeing job losses, especially in America's manufacturing states like Michigan and Ohio.
President Bush's tax cuts of three years ago hurt the economy in the long run. Politicians in this country have often promised tax cuts without telling Americans what that means for local property taxes, local school quality, and health care costs. Even our soldiers felt the negative consequences of this tax cut. They were under-equipped when they went to Iraq, and the administration sent 50,000 fewer troops than the Pentagon recommended.
The underlying assumption that a tax cut means more money for individuals to spend on consumer products is valid. However, The United States as a country, and Americans as individuals have high debt and a negative savings rates. The monies from the tax cut are used mostly to pay off debt rather than for new spending. Our next President must encourage savings.
Earlier this year, the Labor Department reported that 32,000 net new jobs were created in July. Little did people notice that during that month, 32,000 new government jobs were created. If it weren't for new government jobs being created, the job numbers would have been worse.
Government spending has dramatically increased during President Bush's term, at a rate twice as fast as spending in the Clinton administration. A rapid increase in government spending and tax cuts that mostly go to people that make $1 million a year have created huge long-term deficits.
Chronic deficits are bad for families, bad for businesses, bad for states and bad for America. Not one Republican president has balanced the budget in the last 34 years; only Bill Clinton did so. If it takes a liberal to balance the budget then we need one in the White House.
[b]Refer also to:[/b]
Bush's Immoral Tax Cuts for the Rich: Skewed Priorities, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Risky Business, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...---... Bush's Immoral Tax Cuts for the Rich: Skewed Priorities ...---... |
| 10.12.04 (6:19 pm) [edit] |
[b]The[i] Detroit News [/i]reports the Bush tax cuts for the richest 1 percent of Americans this year alone will cost $148 billion http://www.detnews.com/2004/s... . [/b]"That is twice as much as the government will spend on job training, $6.2 billion; college Pell grants, $12 billion; public housing, $6.3 billion; low-income rental subsidies, $19 billion; child care, $4.8 billion; insurance for low-income children, $5.2 billion; low-income energy assistance, $1.8 billion; meals for shut-ins, $180 million; and welfare, $16.9 billion." On top of that, as the [i]Washington Post [/i]reports, Bush has "the smallest domestic agenda a first-term president has had in at least 44 years." He has only proposed 18 new domestic programs since taking office. In comparison: "Kennedy and Johnson had 53 major domestic proposals in the 1961-64 term; Nixon had 40 in his first term; Carter, 41; Reagan, 30; George H. W. Bush, 25; Clinton, 33." That means Bush's agenda is less than half as extensive as Nixon's from 1969 to 1972 and not quite two-thirds as big as Reagan's in 1981-84."
[b]Refer also to "Risky Business" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
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| ...---... George W. Bush's Problem: A Man of His Words ...---... |
| 10.12.04 (4:51 pm) [edit] |
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[b]George W. Bush's problem ... the man and his words ...[/b]
The Presidential debates revealed aspects of George W. Bush’s character that bear careful scrutiny – if not acute psychiatric care. The media made much of his body language and facial expressions, especially his reactions to John Kerry when his opponent appeared to be scoring a direct hit when he accused Bush of “misleading the American people.”
In his 2000 encounters with Al Gore, Bush occasionally flashed that “deer-caught-in-the-hea dlights” look, that befuddled, almost pathetic expression of surprise. But he recovered to resume the combative, jousting presence that his parents must have instilled in him as “proper” for a young man with limited intelligence and capabilities. Bush repeated phrases from his limited vocabulary. He used some of them again, with modifiers, in the 2004 debates, like “Leaders lead.” This kind of proclamation often followed an embarrassingly long pause in which Bush appeared to ponder whether he should offer an Alfred E. Newman grin – “What, me worry?” – or resort to the pugnacious posture with which he seems equally comfortable.
Bush’s behavior led Professor of Social Work Katherine Van Wormer to label him “a dry drunk,” (October 11, 2002 Counterpunch) referring to “a slang term used by members and supporters of Alcoholics Anonymous and substance abuse counselors to describe the recovering alcoholic who is no longer drinking, one who is dry, but whose thinking is clouded. Such an individual is said to be dry but not truly sober. Such an individual tends to go to extremes.”
Before Bush led the nation to war against Iraq, he used terms like "crusade" and "infinite justice," which he later withdrew as inappropriate. But he seemed truly comfortable with "evil doers," "axis of evil," and "regime change." This “bravado speak” emanates from a man who drank and used drugs for years, a man that addiction psychologists describe as nursing a deep, dark wound inside him. Yes, Bush got “born again” in his early forties, but how does “finding Jesus” account for his seeming unwillingness to admit that he has made mistakes – claiming, for example, he had to invade Iraq because it possessed weapons of mass destruction and tight links to the terrorist Al-Qaeda? The 9/11 Commission, along with his own weapons inspector, David Kay and finally the CIA have effectively refuted those allegations.
In his almost four years in office, Bush’s unsteadiness as President corresponds to his use of extreme language. He warned the nations of the world: "Either you are with us or against us.” The heads of state of almost all countries had offered aid and sympathy to the American people after 9/11. But with this statement Bush effectively brushed aside the solidarity and set his own standards for the world’s behavior.
But these “standards” lack consistency. “He who harbors a terrorist is as guilty as the terrorist,” he snapped, as if unconscious of the fact that he himself harbored a covey of anti-Castro terrorists in Florida. Not only had he his father and his brother bent over backwards to accommodate such notorious bombers as Orlando Bosch (co-author of the successful plot to bomb a Cuban airliner over Barbados in 1976, killing 73 people), but some of these thugs actually helped him intimidate Florida vote counters in 2000.
So, it did not exactly shock me when, in late August, outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned four anti-Castroites who had long terrorist records. Their release and arrival in Miami, to a heroes’ welcome by the hard line anti-Castro sector, coincided with Bush’s campaign stop there. Bush never criticized Guillermo Novo, (who fired a bazooka at the UN in 1964 and plotted to kill Orlando Letelier in 1976) or Gaspar Jimenez (convicted in 1977 of assassinating a Cuban official) and Pedro Remon (who assassinated another Cuban exile, Eulalio Negrin in 1979). The FBI calls them “terrorists.” They strongly support Bush and he knows that if the Florida vote is close he can call on the services of such “zealous patriots” as he did in the 2000 election.
Bush’s use of encompassing idioms to justify his policies led Van Wormer to conclude that such articulation is common in “newly recovering alcoholics/addicts. Such a worldview traps people in a pattern of destructive behavior. Obsessive thought patterns are also pronounced in persons prone to addiction. There are organic reasons for this due to brain chemistry irregularities; messages in one part of the brain become stuck there. This leads to maddening repetition of thoughts.”
Count the times Bush said “free Iraq” and “free Afghanistan” – neither of which is free by any meaningful definition – and how often he rebuked Kerry’s criticism of the Iraq invasion by resorting to: “that’s not a good message to send to our troops.” Have the troops not learned that the Iraqi people did not welcome them with open arms, but rather used arms against them?
Bush did, however, send a clear message to the world. He undid the Nuremburg doctrine outlawing aggressive war and the UN Charter outlawing pre-emptive intervention, legal precedents that the US government took the initiative to establish. He has not acknowledged his dramatic violations of international law. Indeed, from what he says, he apparently does not think about such matters.
Van Wormer also lists impatience as another characteristic of "dry drunks." Bush could not wait, for example, for UN weapons inspectors in Iraq to complete their mission in early 2003 before sending in US troops – who, as we know, also failed to find the non-existent weapons. In reaction shots shown by TV networks during the first debate with Kerry, Bush’s facial expressions also indicates an appearance of barely contained tolerance.
Televised debates don’t, however, probe Bush’s character. Without a teleprompter, Bush has difficulty achieving coherence or articulating sequential messages. For a man who admittedly does not read, he nevertheless evinces an aura of “certainty.” His aggressive, conservative aura of assurance seem more like one of Karl Rove’s marketing ploys than an expression of real conviction. How can an ignorant man have deep convictions about complex subjects other than by referencing some higher connection that assures him of the truth.
Bush’s character also raises doubts about his ability to govern. He blatantly used his family connections to get into Ivy League schools and the Air National Guard, rather than get drafted for Vietnam. He refuses to clarify missing links in his biography or talk about details of his 1976 DUI; or other incidents in his “partying days.”
But his former professor Yoshi Tsurumi, a Visiting Professor at Harvard Business School in 1973-4 remembered that “students who challenged and embarrassed Bush in class would then become the subject of a whispering campaign by him.” (Mary Jacoby Salon Sept. 16, 2004)
Senator John McCain might recall the whispering campaign circulating ugly rumors about his personal life in South Carolina as he challenged Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries.
Tsurumi recalled that Bush "made this ridiculous statement… 'The government doesn't have to help poor people -- because they are lazy.'” Bush could not defend the statement, Tsurumi said, and then denied saying it. Bush called “Roosevelt's policies 'socialism.' He denounced labor unions, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Medicare, Social Security, you name it. He denounced the civil rights movement as socialism…And when challenged to explain his prejudice, he could not defend his argument, either ideologically, polemically or academically."
In class, Professor Tsurumi remembers, Bush “wouldn’t challenge them. But after class, he sometimes came up to me in the hallway and started bad-mouthing those students who challenged him. He would complain that someone was drinking too much. It was innuendo and lies. So that’s how I knew, behind his smile and his smirk, that he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful guy.” Other professors shared his recollection, Tsurumi said, but feared to speak out. Tsurumi himself became a US citizen before talking to the Salon reporter, because he feared what Bush might do to him. But he felt the Iraq bloodshed and out-of-control federal deficit made it imperative to reveal his observations about the Commander in Chief’s character.
Bush’s malapropisms continue to amuse some. "I'm not the expert on how the Iraqi people think, because I live in America, where it's nice and safe and secure," he said at a press conference with Ayad Allawi, the man he named as Prime Minister of Iraq, in Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2004. Bush also claimed at that time that "It's the Afghan national army that went into Najaf and did the work there."
It’s not that Bush twists words or deliberately distorts for political ends. He’s not that clever. Seymour Hersh explains in his new book, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib that “words have no meaning for this President beyond the immediate moment, and so he believes that his mere utterance of the phrases make them real. It is a terrifying possibility.”
As Bush bad-mouths Kerry and repeats lies about Iraq, he also mangles the language. In that sense he has become a man of his words.
[b]Source:[/b]
Saul Landau’s new book, THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA: HOW CONSUMERS HAVE REPLACED CITIZENS AND HOW WE CAN RVERSE THE TREND. He teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University and is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, http://www.zmag.org/content/s...
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| ...---... Iraq for Dummies© ...---... |
| 10.11.04 (6:53 pm) [edit] |
[b]Iraq for Dummies©[/b]
[b]Moral clarity and steady leadership in times of change[/b]
A rather amusing & insightful web-site discovery: http://www.eriposte.com/war_p...
And, of course don't forget ...
[b]SEQUEL: Iraq for Exceptional Dummies©[/b]
On: http://flipflops.compassionga...
[b]Not [i]all [/i]of the people are fooled by Bush and his cabal of neo-con thugs and neo-fascist goons!!! ...[/b]
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| ...---... Bush Can't Admit Mistakes, But We Can ...---... |
| 10.11.04 (5:03 pm) [edit] |
"The war in Iraq did not damage international terror groups, but instead distracted the United States from confronting other hotbeds of Islamic militancy and actually ``created momentum'' for many terrorists, a top Israeli security think tank said in a report released Monday.", Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, http://www.commondreams.org/h...
[b]It was very interesting indeed to watch Bush respond to a question during the last debate by a citizen who asked him to name three mistakes he has made during his presidency (and what he had done to correct them) ... Immediately Dubya reacted angrily, loudly and defensively, launching into an incoherent diatribe about Iraq -- Psychologically it is clear that Bush knows he made a huge mistake (that the rest of us working people are dying for [i]and[/i] paying through the nose for) ... While listening to him ramble on in his usual mindless, imbecilic manner, I thought to myself: "Methinks he doth protest too much" ...[/b]
A president who can't cop to a mistake? Not a single one? What's up with that?
Way back in April, at one of George Bush's rare press conferences, he was asked by a reporter to fess up to a mistake he'd made since September 11. He grunted and groaned. "I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it," Bush chuckled. After assuring the reporter that "something will pop into my head," he finally gave up, admitting, "I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."
Well, that was six months ago. So you'd think he would have been prepared when Linda Grabel asked her question at the second presidential debate. "President Bush," said Linda politely. "During the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision and what you did to correct it."
It's really not that hard a question. Ask the average American to ask that the average American woman what mistakes she's made and she'll rattle off about ten of them. Women admit their mistakes. In fact, we even take the blame for other people's mistakes. What's the big deal? Admit the mistake, say you're sorry, explain what you learned from it and promise not to do it again.
But Bush just can't do it. In response to Linda's question, he stumbled and fumbled and mumbled about some appointments he'd made. COME ON, Mr. Bush. Get real. Iraq is falling to pieces, Afghanistan (despite recent elections) is controlled by warlords, the situation in Israel and Palestine is out of control, North Korea and Iran are developing nuclear weapons, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, the U.S. budget deficit is off the charts, 800,000 jobs have been lost on your watch. And you can¹t think of ONE mistake?
Of course, admitting his mistakes could backfire. If Bush admitted, for example, that he was wrong about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that it was a bad decision to invade Iraq and that he was sorry that so many American's lives have been lost in vain, it probably wouldn¹t be good for his campaign. But then again, another four years of Bush in the White House would not be good for the electorate or the world.
So while Bush refuses to admit mistakes, maybe it's time for the people who voted for Bush in 2000, the people who didn¹t vote at all in 2000, and yes, people like myself who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, to admit our mistakes. I'll say mine -- I had no idea that George Bush would be such a disastrous president. Had I known then what I know now, and had I lived in a swing state, I would have voted for Gore instead of Ralph Nader. And this time around, if I lived in a swing state (which I don't) I wouldn¹t make the same mistake.
What about you?
Remember the saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"? Well, the guy who can't admit his mistakes couldn't cop to shame either. When he quoted the 'ol "Texas saying", instead of concluding "Shame on me", he said, "You can't get fooled again."
Now maybe, just maybe, he got that one right. We'll see on November 2.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of the human rights group Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org ) and the women's peace group CodePink (www.codepinkalert.org )., http://www.commondreams.org/v...
Israeli Think Tank: Iraq War Distracted US, 'Created Momentum' for Terrorists, http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| ...---... Environmental Reality Check ...---... |
| 10.11.04 (2:36 pm) [edit] |
[b]Green groups watching the second presidential debate say Bush's assertions amounted to a 'gross misrepresentation of the President's real record.'[/b]
The response of President George W. Bush to a debate question about his environmental record was met with disbelief by his challenger, the Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts at the second of three presidential debates Friday night in St. Louis.
In keeping with the town-hall meeting format for the debate, the environmental question was put by audience member James Hubb, who asked, "Mr. President, how would you rate yourself as an environmentalist? What specifically has your administration done to improve the condition of our nation's air and water supply?"
The president said his administration has proposals on the table to reduce pollution from off-road diesel engines, increase the wetlands, fix inner city brownfields, and "a Clear Skies Initiative to reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury by 70 percent."
"Over time is technology is going to change the way we live for the good for the environment," said the president. "That's why I proposed a hydrogen automobile – hydrogen-generated automobile. We're spending $1 billion to come up with the technologies to do that."
"That's why I'm a big proponent of clean coal technology, to make sure we can use coal but in a clean way," he said. "I guess you'd say I'm a good steward of the land."
"The quality of the air's cleaner since I've been the president. Fewer water complaints since I've been the President. More land being restored since I've been the president," Bush said.
"Boy, to listen to that," exclaimed Kerry. "The president, I don't think, is living in a world of reality with respect to the environment.
"When it comes to the issue of the environment, this is one of the worst administrations in modern history," Kerry charged. "The Clear Skies bill that he just talked about, it's one of those Orwellian names you pull out of the sky, slap it onto something, like 'No Child Left Behind' but you leave millions of children behind. Here they're leaving the skies and the environment behind."
"If they just left the Clean Air Act all alone the way it is today, no change, the air would be cleaner that it is if you pass the Clear Skies act. We're going backwards," Kerry said. "They're going backwards on the definition for wetlands. They're going backwards on the water quality."
Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for President, called the Bush administration the worst ever for the environment. "They pulled out of the global warming [agreement], declared it dead, didn't even accept the science," Kerry challenged. "I'm going to be a president who believes in science."
The leaders of Environment2004, a Democratic environmental advocacy organization, which could be expected to back Kerry's position, does so because, they say, the president's assertions contained "numerous inaccuracies" and amounted to a "gross misrepresentation of the president's real record."
The group released a detailed comparison of Bush's representation of his record during the debate compared with what has actually taken place. Environment2004 counted more than 350 actions of past administrations to protect the environment that have been rolled back by the Bush administration, and they accuse the president of "abandoning the Republican party's conservationist roots dating back to Teddy Roosevelt."
President Bush said, "Off-road diesel engines – we have reached an agreement to reduce pollution from off-road diesel engines by 90 percent."
Environment2004 points out that the decision the president was referring to was originally proposed under the Clinton administration.
Then the president said, "I've got a plan to increase the wetlands by three million [acres]."
Environment2004 reminds voters that in October 2001, President Bush's administration reversed the policy his father, President George H.W. Bush called "no net loss" of wetlands. This means that for every acre of wetlands destroyed by development, at least one more acre would be created.
Yet in 2003, the Bush administration announced its intent to eliminate Clean Water Act protections for isolated waters that are not connected to a navigable waterway, "threatening the ecological health of 20 million acres of wetlands, and rivers and steams nationwide that would lose protection of their headwaters," Environment2004 says.
Following a meeting with hunters and anglers groups, Bush announced that he would reinstate the no net loss of wetlands policy, yet he has not withdrawn the new rule to eliminate wetlands protections. His administration has weakened the environmental standards for general permits to fill wetlands and streams, Environment2004 says.
On the Clear Skies Initiative, Environment2004 says the proposal "would allow five times as much mercury into the environment from dirty coal-burning power plants as the current Clean Air Act would allow for at least 10 years longer, through the year 2018 – 26 tons a year versus five tons – and three times as much mercury after that – 15 tons a year versus five tons."
Even Republicans agree with Environment2004's assessment of George w. Bush's environmental record as President. In an op-ed piece in the New Hampshire newspaper, the Concord Monitor, published on Sept. 23, 2004, two prominent Republicans criticized the President's "sorry environmental record."
Russell Train was the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Rick Russman is on the board of the National Environmental Trust and chairs the Granite State Conservation Voters Alliance. He was a New Hampshire state senator for 10 years and served as chairman of the Senate Environmental Committee. Both are long-time members of REP America, the grassroots Republican organization for environmental protection.
"Except in a few instances," they write, "the environmental policies of the Bush administration are a disgrace."
"The administration's policies to promote energy, mining and timber interests with little regard for the interests of common citizens represent a throwback to an era of exploitation," write Train and Russman. "The administration's assault on the environment has increased pollution and health threats in New Hampshire, according to a report by Environment2004."
"The administration weakened the Clean Air Act to allow aging power plants to continue spewing sulfur, mercury and other contaminants into the skies," write Train and Russman. "These end up in New Hampshire's air and waters. This pollution from Midwestern power plants and other sources forms smog that threatens the 65,000 New Hampshire residents who suffer from asthma. It falls as acid rain that damages New Hampshire's forests and waters."
"Mercury pollution has forced New Hampshire to establish a fish consumption advisory that covers all its lakes and rivers. Infants, children, pregnant women and women of child-bearing age are particularly vulnerable to mercury. Mercury affects a child's ability to learn, most notably impairing memory, attention and fine motor function," Train and Russman write.
On Friday night during the debate, President Bush responded to the environmental question by saying, "We proposed and passed a Healthy Forest Bill, which was essential to working with, particularly in Western states, to make sure that our forests were protected."
"What happens in those forests because of lousy federal policy, is they grow to be, they, they are, they're not harvested," he stammered. "They're not taken care of. And as a result, they're like tinderboxes. And over the last summers, I've flown over there. And so this is a reasonable policy to protect old stands of trees and at the same time make sure our forests aren't vulnerable to the forest fires that have destroyed acres after acres in the West."
But in reality, Environment2004 says, "The Bush administration has launched a three-pronged attack on our National Forests for the benefit of timber companies that engage in unsustainable logging practices which cannot support long term jobs."
1. It has dismantled the Roadless Rule, which was to protect 58.5 million acres of America's last remaining wild, but unprotected National Forests from logging and road building.
2. It has eliminated protection for old growth-dependent species and salmon in the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest, making it easier for logging to take place there.
3. Its "misleadingly named Healthy Forest Initiative" threatens the national forests by reducing the level of environmental analysis and public participation required for logging projects on 20 million acres. In fact this initiative does little to protect communities from wildfires, since it allows logging to continue targeting the largest, most valuable trees.
Experts say logging can increase the intensity and frequency of forest fires because logging debris is highly flammable, logging roads allow people into forests where arson or accident is a frequent cause of fires, and logging dries out forests.
During Friday night's debate, the president defended his much criticized decision not to send the Kyoto climate protocol to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Signed under the Clinton administration, the agreement limits the emission of greenhouse gases linked to global warming by industrialized countries.
The United States is the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluter, but the president defended his position, saying, "Well, had we joined the Kyoto treaty, which I guess he's referring to, it would have cost America a lot of jobs."
"It's one of these deals where, in order to be popular in the halls of Europe, you sign a treaty. But I thought it would cost a lot – I think there's a better way to do it."
Kerry replied by saying, "The fact is that the Kyoto treaty was flawed. I was in Kyoto, and I was part of that. I know what happened. But this president didn't try to fix it. He just declared it dead, ladies and gentlemen, and we walked away from the work of 160 nations over 10 years."
That is why it is that people in some parts of the world do not like the United States, Kerry said. "The president's done nothing to try to fix it. I will."
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) has given the Bush administration a failing grade on environmental performance.
"Deceptively named initiatives such as 'Healthy Forests' and 'Clear Skies,' mask the Bush administration's agenda of allowing industry to increase their profits at the expense of environmental protection and public health, the LCV said. "In particular, the Bush administration has attacked, weakened or undermined laws providing clean air, clean water, and toxic waste cleanups."
The third and final presidential debate is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 13 at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz. It will cover domestic policy, so it is possible that the environment will again be a topic of debate.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Sunny Lewis is editor-in-chief of Environment News Service, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ an independently owned wire service covering the environment.
Crime Against Nature, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...---... Harvard to Bush: You're Failing!!! ...---... |
| 10.11.04 (12:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]The American people are starting to see (as a result of the debates, where Bush, the ventriloquist's dummy http://www.tblog.com/template... has to be hooked up to a listening device to get his [i]weasel words[/i] http://www.tblog.com/template... ), that Bush is an empty suit with an empty head ...[/b]
Bush wasn't what you'd call a standout at Harvard Business School. His lack of curiosity and boastful attitude earned him middling grades and little respect. Harvard's latest assessment of Bush's business acumen came in the form of an open letter -- but it sure looks like an "F."
The succinct, often scathing letter http://www.openlettertothepre... written by 50 tenured and emeritus Harvard professors criticizes Bush for his "dangerous" economic policies that have "played a significant role in driving this fiscal collapse."
One of the main culprits? The tax cuts:
"The data make clear that your policy of slashing taxes – primarily for those at the upper reaches of the income distribution – has not worked. The fiscal reversal that has taken place under your leadership is so extreme that it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago."
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Evan[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
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| ...---... Is Bush a Ventriloquist's Dummy??? ...---... |
| 10.08.04 (8:21 pm) [edit] |
[b]Is Bush literally a dummy???[/b]
No, I'm not referring to the recent LA Times editorial "Is He a Dope?" http://www.latimes.com/news/o...,1,810690.story , but to the rumor flying around the internet that Bush received messages during the debate from a wire taped to his back. Sparked as usual by bloggers, a FoxNews video still http://www.salon.com/news/fea... showing Bush from the rear exposes what many are referring to as a "mysterious bulge" in his sport jacket.
Of his odd behavior Salon writes http://www.salon.com/news/fea... :
[i]On several occasions, the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face... Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh -- Let me finish... Bush pointed toward Lehrer as he declared "Let me finish." The green warning light was lit, signaling he had 30 seconds to, well, finish[/i].
New Yorker Kristin Fayne-Mulroy responded to the allegation by lamenting: "Oh good lord, they're feeding him his lines and he's still such an awkward, ineffectual speaker? Impossible."
*Bonus. For those of you not permanently soured on polls (or if you've got someone who worships at that altar), Zogby's latest battleground poll http://online.wsj.com/public/... shows promising trends for Kerry fans.
[b]Sources:[/b]
[i]Evan[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
[b]What is that 'T' in Bush's back? An expert told Salon http://www.isbushwired.com/ it's "the inductor portion of a two-way push-to-talk system". In other words, Karl and Karen were feeding the imbecile, idiot asshole Bush his debate lines. Bush is the laughing stock of the world![/b]
[b]Growing Evidence Bush Had an Earpiece During the First Debate[/b]
Salon's Dave Lindorff is investigating the mysterious "T" that bulged out of Bush's back during the first debate. "So what was it? Jacob McKenna, a spyware expert and the owner of the Spy Store, a high-tech surveillance shop in Spokane, Wash., looked at the Bush image on his computer monitor. "There's certainly something on his back, and it appears to be electronic," he said. McKenna said that, given its shape, the bulge could be the inductor portion of a two-way push-to-talk system. McKenna noted that such a system makes use of a tiny microchip-based earplug radio that is pushed way down into the ear canal, where it is virtually invisible. He also said a weak signal could be scrambled and be undetected by another broadcaster."
[b]Read article [/b] http://salon.com/news/feature...
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| ...---... More Tough Questions ...---... |
| 10.08.04 (2:36 pm) [edit] |
[b]Bush has been preparing for tonight's townhall-style debate for the entire campaign.[/b] At 19 "Ask President Bush" events, he has fielded probing questions from an audience which – his handlers insist – has not been prescreened. Some examples: "I was wondering if you would permit me the honor of giving our Commander-in-Chief a real Navy salute?" "I was just wondering what your favorite book is, because I'd like to read it?" "I was wondering if I could take a picture with you?" Tonight's questions, however, are more likely to focus on jobs, Iraq, healthcare, taxes and education. Here is your pre-debate primer on what Bush will say and what you should know.
[b]FACT – BUSH'S JOBS RECORD IS AN EMBARRASSMENT:[/b] Bush will say "the economy is strong and getting stronger." But the economy added a paltry 96,000 jobs in September, once again failing even to keep up with population growth. Since the president took office in January 2001, the economy has shed about 585,000 jobs. President Bush is a lock to become the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs over a four-year term.
[b]FACT – THE DUELFER REPORT UNDERMINES A KEY RATIONALE FOR WAR:[/b] Bush will say that the recently released report by chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer bolstered his rationale for war. Yesterday, Bush said the Duelfer report proved Saddam Hussein "retained the knowledge, the materials, the means and the intent to produce weapons of mass destruction...and he could have passed that knowledge on to our terrorist enemies." That claim is highly misleading. The Duelfer report establishes that Saddam "did not produce or possess any weapons of mass destruction for more than a decade before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year." Moreover, Duelfer found "no evidence that Hussein had passed illicit weapons material to al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, or had any intent to do so."
[b]FACT – BUSH'S TAX CUTS WERE A MASSIVE GIVEAWAY TO THE RICH:[/b] Bush will say that his tax cuts "left more money in the hands of American workers so they could save, spend, invest, and help drive this economy forward." In fact, Bush's tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited the very wealthy. For example, Americans with incomes averaging $1.2 million per year have received a tax cut of $78,460. By contrast, households in the middle 20 percent, with incomes averaging $57,000 per year, have received an average cut of $1,090. One-third of all the benefits went to the top 1 percent of all earners. Meanwhile, "9.2 million working families in the United States – one out of every four – earn wages that are so low they are barely able to survive financially."
[b]FACT – BUSH CREATED A $5.2 TRILLION TAX GAP:[/b] Bush will say, "it is the job of a President to confront problems, not pass them on to future Presidents and future generations." Yet, in four years, Bush "has turned a $5.6 trillion surplus into $5.2 trillion deficit." His tax cuts are a big part of the problem. For example, even as corporate profits have soared 40 percent over the last four years, tax revenue from corporations has decreased. For more on the deterioration of America's fiscal situation, read this report http://www.americanprogress.o...%7bE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A52 1-5D6FF2E06E03%7d/fiscald eterioration.pdf by America Progress's Scott Lilly, mentioned in today's New York Times.
[b]FACT – TORT REFORM WILL NOT SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE HEALTH CARE COSTS:[/b] Bush will say that the way to make health care more affordable is "by doing something about these frivolous lawsuits that are running good doctors out of business and running your costs up." But the non-partisan CBO has found that even legislation dramatically limiting the ability of patients to recover damages when their doctor commits malpractice would lower heath costs by one-half of one percent.
[b]FACT – BUSH LEFT THE FUNDING FOR HIS EDUCATION PROGRAM BEHIND:[/b] Bush will stress the success of the No Child Left Behind program. Keep this in mind: 1) Bush underfunded the program by $9.4 billion, 2) Due to funding shortages 11 states will get less federal education money this year than they did last year, and 3) Because the Bush administration has "failed to give adequate guidance to help states comply with the goals of NCLB," twenty-four states have still not completed plans to fully comply with the law.
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... 'Schindler's List' Revisited ...---... |
| 10.08.04 (1:15 pm) [edit] |
[b]Upon reading the following news article, I was reminded of a horrific scene from Steven Spielberg's monumental film 'Schindler's List' http://www.historyinfilm.com/... , in which Amon Goeth played by Ralph Fiennes, gets a sadistic pleasure and laughs heartily while shooting and killing vulnerable prisoners at Auschwitz ... The administration of a nation provides leadership that sets the tone, the atmosphere, the rules & regulations, and the conditions that make such horrors and atrocities happen ... The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] is despicable and moreover morally and legally responsible for horrors and atrocities committed in Iraq, and as such, should be impeached from office and put on trial for Treason, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity ... How many more innocent Iraqis must die in order to enrich the insane neo-con Bushies' Global Corporate Empire??? ...[/b]
[u][b]Pilots cheer killing civilians[/b][/u]
From [i]The Independent[/i] http://news.independent.co.uk... : "The Pentagon said yesterday it was investigating cockpit video footage that shows American pilots attacking and killing a group of apparently unarmed Iraqi civilians.
The 30-second clip shows the pilot targeting the group of people in a street in the city of Fallujah and asking his mission controllers whether he should 'take them out.' He is told to do so and, shortly afterwards, the footage shows a huge explosion where the people were. A second voice can be heard on the clip saying: 'Oh, dude.'
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]lakshmi[/i], AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
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| ...---... Crimes Against Nature ...---... |
| 10.07.04 (8:06 pm) [edit] |
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." - Mohandas K. Gandhi quoted in EF Schumacher, [i]Small is Beautiful[/i]
[b]George W. Bush will go down as the worst environmental president in U.S. history, says Robert F. Kennedy.[/b]
"You simply can’t talk honestly about the environment today without criticizing this president. George W. Bush will go down as the worst environmental president http://www.motherjones.com/ne... in our nation’s history."
So writes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his new book "Crimes Against Nature," http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... which details how President Bush has rewritten the nation’s environmental laws in favor of industry and filled his administration with former lobbyists and corporate executives who now oversee the regulation of their former industries.
A senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council http://www.nrdc.org/ and president of the grassroots Waterkeeper Alliance http://www.waterkeeper.org/ , Kennedy argues that the Bush administration consistently favored corporate interests over the environment and public health, assaulting the very idea of a common good. He recently spoke with MotherJones.com George W. Bush's many crimes against nature.
[b]MotherJones (MJ.com):[/b] How has the U.S. government historically changed its approach to public "commons" such as the air and water?
[b]Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK):[/b] One of the successes of the right-wing propaganda campaign has been to convince the American people that the environmental laws were new innovations passed after Earth Day. But in fact, it’s always been illegal to pollute. The pollution was restricted by two ancient doctrines. One’s called the Public Trust Doctrine, which says that those assets that are by their nature shared assets -- the commonwealth, the air and water, the wildlife, public lands -- are owned by the public. Everybody has a right to use them, and nobody has a right to treat them in a way that will diminish their use and enjoyment by others. The other law is Nuisance Law, which protects private property from intrusion by polluters. Nuisance law has been turned on its head by the right wing, who claim to be on the side of property rights, but really only favor property rights when they’re talking about the right of a polluter to use his property to destroy his neighbor’s property or the public property. The law in the United States, in every jurisdiction until about 1876, was that if a factory put smoke into the air, even one day a year, and it got onto a neighbor’s property, the neighbor had the right to enjoin to close down the factory, and the courts had no choice but to do that.
Those strong, ancient laws were dismantled through corruption and the political power of industry, as well as a general recognition that industrialization would be beneficial to the American public. But the pendulum swung too far, and by the early 1960s the polluters had basically displaced the public out of public trust assets. Then you had the reaction; you had Rachel Carson’s book "Silent Spring," http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... which was the clarion call, and then you had Earth Day, 1970, when 20 million Americans came out onto the street to demand the return of their ancient environmental rights. The result of that was the passage of 28 major environmental laws over the next decade that made an effort to restore those rights to the public.
[b]MJ.com:[/b] From there, what tactics did industry use to regain its position?
[b]RFK: [/b]The "Gang of Five" foundations that are huge repositories of industrial polluter money [the John.M Olin Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation, the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, and the Bradley Foundation] have been used to create think tanks, to recruit phony scientists that we call “biostitutes” and to fund politicians in order to undermine and subvert those environmental laws that were passed after Earth Day: the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act. Industry was kind of caught off-guard by Earth Day and the legislative barrage that followed. But since then, they’ve mobilized to regain control of the public trust assets. And really, the best measure of how a democracy is functioning is how it allocates the goods of the land, the public trust assets. Does it maintain the air and water under control of the people for the benefit of the public, or does it allow those assets to be privatized by politically powerful entities?
[b]MJ.com:[/b] How surprising has George Bush’s environmental policy been in light of his track record as governor?
[b]RFK:[/b] We weren’t surprised by the federal environmental record, because we saw that he’d been the worst environmental governor in America. Under his leadership, Texas became the most polluted state in the country, with the highest levels of air pollution, the highest levels of water pollution, and the highest level of toxic waste and toxic releases. And it was 49th among 50 states in per-capita environmental spending. He was only worsted by Gov. Mike Leavitt of Utah, who he has named his EPA administrator and who is now in charge of stewarding all of America’s environmental assets.
[b]MJ.com:[/b] And yet, as a candidate in 2000, he talked about regulating emissions and combating global warming.
[b]RFK:[/b] The problem for the president is that the environment and our environmental laws are very popular with both Republicans and Democrats among the rank-and-file. So, from the beginning, he’s had to conceal his radical anti-environmental agenda from the American public. He did it on the campaign trail by simply saying that he was going to support initiatives to control global warming. But once he got into office, he immediately reversed that and abandoned that promise, and began dismantling our environmental infrastructure.
In keeping with that, his attack has been a stealth attack. They use Orwellian rhetoric to conceal this extreme agenda from the public. When they want to destroy the forests, they call it the Healthy Forest Act; when they want to destroy the air, they call it the Clear Skies bill. Most insidiously, as part of this stealth attack, they’ve put polluters in charge of the agencies that are supposed to protect Americans from pollution. The head of the Forest Service is Mark Rey, probably the most rapacious timber industry lobbyist in American history. The head of public lands is Steven Griles, a mining industry lobbyist who believes public lands are unconstitutional. The head of the air division of the EPA was Marianne Horinko, whose former job had been advising corporate polluters on how to evade Superfund. The second in command of EPA was a Monsanto lobbyist. If you look at virtually all of the sub-secretariats and agency heads in the Departments of Agriculture, Energy and Interior and EPA, the same pattern holds. Polluters have been put in charge of the agencies that are supposed to protect Americans from pollution. As I show in my book, these individuals have not entered government service for the public interest, but rather to subvert the very laws they’re now charged with enforcing.
[b]MJ.com:[/b] One lesser-known example of that pattern is John Graham at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. What role does he play?
[b]RFK:[/b] He’s been an anti-environmental activist for many, many years. He founded an anti-environmental think tank at Harvard, which is funded by polluting industries that pay Graham to produce reports [essentially] defending their corporate profits. He’s developed these phony algorithms that always end in the same result, which is that industry wins and the public loses.
He runs the most powerful agency in the government today, which is the OIRA, part of the Office of Management and Budget. It’s a secretive agency inside the White House that is not subject to many of the laws that require open government. The other agencies that are charged with protecting the American environment from time to time develop new regulations in keeping with that mission. Usually it takes about eight years for a regulation to go through the regulatory process, which involves a lot of public debate, public notice and comment, hearings and review by attorneys and scientists. At the end of this painstaking and extremely democratic process, those regulations now disappear into a black hole at OIRA, which is supposed to review the regulations prior to passage. And at OIRA, the industry meets privately with John Graham and rewrites the regulations in private. When the regulations come out of his office, generally they are no longer designed to protect the public, but rather to protect industry prerogatives and profits.
[b]MJ.com:[/b] What's the worst example of how that collaboration between industry and government has played out?
[b]RFK:[/b] One of the worst examples is the rewriting of New Source Review. I have three sons with asthma; one out of every four black kids in New York City now has asthma. Asthma attacks are triggered primarily by ozone and particulates, and the major sources of those materials in our atmosphere are 1,100 coal-burning power plants that are burning coal illegally. The Clinton administration had initiated investigations and prosecutions against 70 of the worst of those. But this is an industry that donated $48 million to President Bush and the Republican Party in the 2000 cycle and has given $58 million since. One of the first things that Bush did when he came into office was to order the Justice Department to drop those lawsuits. The Justice Department lawyer said that this had never happened before in American history, where a president accepts money from industries targeted for investigation and prosecution, and then orders the Justice Department to drop those investigations once he gets into office. There were 70 utilities involved here and, according to EPA, just the criminal exceedences from those 70 plants killed 5,500 Americans every year. Then the administration went and rewrote the Clean Air Act, gutting the New Source rule, which means those plants will be able to discharge ozone and particulates forever.
[b]MJ.com:[/b] How has the situation changed now that Michael O. Leavitt has replaced Christine Todd Whitman at the EPA?
[b]RFK:[/b] It went from bad to worse. Leavitt has giant social skills and charm, but his record is one of the most anti-environmental of any governor except for George W. Bush. The first thing that he did when he came into office was to dismantle President Clinton’s mercury rule. The same utilities that are discharging ozone and particulates, those same coal-burning power plants are also discharging huge amounts of mercury into our air, and the mercury ends up in the fish. Just a few weeks ago, the EPA announced its decision that, as a result of that, all fish in 19 states are now unsafe to eat because of mercury contamination. At least some of the fish in 48 states are now unsafe to eat. In fact, the only two states where they’re “safe” are Alaska and Wyoming, where the Republican-controlled legislatures refused to allocate the funds for their agencies to test the fish.
Today, one out of every six American women has so much mercury in her womb that her children are at risk for a grim inventory of diseases, including autism, blindness, mental retardation and heart, liver and kidney disease. My own levels of mercury are so high -- I had them tested recently -- that a woman with the same levels would have a child with cognitive impairment. The Clinton administration had classified mercury as a hazardous pollutant under the Clean Air Act, which triggered a requirement that those utilities remove 90 percent of the mercury within three and a half years. It would have cost less than 1 percent of plant revenue, and the great thing about it is that it works; we now know that when the utilities stop discharging mercury, that the fish downstream clean up almost immediately.
But this is an industry that gave all that money, over $100 million, to the president. A few months ago, the Bush administration announced that it was scrapping the Clinton-era regulations and substituting instead regulations that were written by utility lawyers, from the law firm of Latham and Watkins. Under the new rules, the utilities will effectively never have to clean up their mercury. And the chief lobbyist for Latham and Watkins was Jeffrey Holmstead, who is now the head of the air division of EPA. This is an example of how corporations have infiltrated our government and are dismantling it in order to privatize the commons.
[b]MJ.com:[/b] In "Crimes Against Nature" you explain how the administration has cut funding to laws already on the books, such as Superfund cleanup.
[b]RFK:[/b] Superfund has gone bankrupt. The Superfund itself, which was raised through a small tax on the chemical and oil industry, was used to clean up orphaned sites -- sites where the responsible party could not be found. But more importantly, it was used to leverage recalcitrant polluters to clean up their own sites, because Superfund includes a triple-damages provision. That gives the EPA power, when a polluter drags its feet, to say to the polluter, “Okay, we’re going to clean up the site ourselves, and then we’re going to charge you triple.” And 90 percent of the Superfund sites that have been cleaned up in America have been cleaned up as a result of that threat. Without that threat, Superfund just becomes a welfare program for corporate lawyers, who can argue forever and ever about who’s responsible and what kind of cleanup should result. So today, with Superfund bankrupt, you’re not going to see many Superfund sites really cleaned up. And if they are cleaned up, it’ll be with taxpayer money, which is absurdly unjust.
[b]MJ.com:[/b] If John Kerry wins the election, to what extent can he undo the environmental damage this administration has done?
[b]RFK:[/b] Some of the damage can be patched up. Some of it is going to be irreparable, but for the rest it will need congressional help and cooperation. So a lot would depend on who controls Congress. At this point, Congress is controlled by anti-environmental Republicans like Tom DeLay. Tom DeLay is a former Houston bug killer who entered politics because he was angry that his extermination business had been impacted by the ban on DDT and other pesticides, and he’s out to destroy America’s environmental laws.
[b]MJ.com:[/b] What consequences do you see for the environment if Bush is re-elected?
[b]RFK:[/b] I can’t imagine! What he’s done already would have been unimaginable five years ago. He is the number-one threat to the global environment. And the disastrous impacts of this administration don’t just go to the environment, but also to our democracy. My book is really not just about the environment, but more about the excess of corporate power and the corrosive impacts of excessive corporate power on our democracy.
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| ...---... Is Bush A Dope Or Unethical??? ...---... |
| 10.07.04 (6:38 pm) [edit] |
"Although neither group likes to say so, some Americans who support President Bush and many who don't support him have concluded over four years that he may not be very bright. This suspicion was not allayed by Bush's answers in the first presidential debate a week ago. ... It's bad if a president is incapable of the abstract thought necessary for these mental exercises. If he is capable and isn't even trying, that's worse. It becomes a question of character. When a president sends thousands of young Americans to kill and die halfway around the world, thinking about it as hard and as honestly as possible is the least he can do." - Is Bush A Dope?, http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
[b]Earth to Bush, Earth to Bush.[/b]
There were no WMDs in Iraq. There were no active WMD programs. So says the report submitted by WMD hunter Charles Duelfer. (For my selection of the report's greatest hits, go to davidcorn.com http://www.davidcorn.com/ and scroll down.) The report demolishes Bush's prewar argument that Iraq was an "immediate," "direct," and "gathering" threat. Sure, Saddam Hussein, a brutal, ruthless, tyrant who yearned to possess biological, chemical and nuclear weapons presented a problem. But if he did not have WMD stockpiles or active WMD programs, what made the threat he posed "immediate" or "direct." Since his WMD programs were, according to Duelfer's report, moribund, what made this threat "gathering." There was nothing "gathering" about it. But "gathering" is the buzzword that Bush used before the war, and he has relied upon this speechwriter's find ever since, as it has become apparent no WMDs will be found in Iraq. The Duelfer report shows that whatever threat Iraq posed was rather static. It was not becoming more serious. That means there was no "immediate" and "direct" reason on March 19, 2003, to head into an elective war, with few major allies, not enough body armor and reinforced Humvees, and little planning for the aftermath.
Bush, though, will not--and cannot--concede this. Grim-faced, he read a short statement today about Duelfer's 1,000-page-long report. Bush noted that the report concluded that Hussein was "systematically gaming the system," using the oil-for-food program in an "effort to undermine sanctions." Pointing to the report, Bush declared that Hussein had the "intent of restarting his weapons programs once the world looked away." Well, no shit, Mr. President. But at the time Bush ordered US forces to invade and occupy Iraq, the world was not looking away. In fact, the world was quite engaged. The inspections process was under way. UN inspectors had gained access to suspicious sites. They had discovered a few missiles that were prohibited. Hussein had begrudgingly agreed to destroy these weapons. The nuclear inspectors had declared they had found no evidence of a revived nuclear weapons program. (Bush and Dick Cheney had repeatedly claimed Iraq had revved up its nuclear weapons program.) And at the United Nations, countries looking to prevent a war were discussing even more intrusive inspections and other means to hold Hussein accountable and to force him to heed UN resolutions. So it's disingenuous to state that the war was justified because Hussein could have kick-started WMD programs once the world got off his back. If Bush was indeed worried the world would one day tire of keeping Hussein in check--and then Hussein might revive his WMD programs--he could have developed a strategy to maintain the international pressure on Hussein. Instead, he chose war.
In defending his war, Bush today tossed out the usual rhetoric: "America and the world are safer today" with Hussein locked in a cell. That is a wishful statement. The world may be safer. It may not be. If terrorists are now using a safehouse in Fallujah to plot an attack outside of Iraq using a loose nuke that originated in the former Soviet Union, then parts of the world may not be safer. This is pure speculation. But until the mess in Iraq is resolved, there is no way to know whether the world is safer because of the invasion of Iraq. When the Afghan rebels--backed by the CIA--forced the Soviets out of Afghanistan, Cold Warriors could have pronounced the world safer. But that "victory" led to chaos in Afghanistan, which led to the rise of the Taliban, which led to the creation of a safe haven for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, which led to....You get the picture.
[b]Is Bush a dope or unethical??? ... Take your pick!!! ... Either way, Bush is a disaster ...[/b]
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| ...---... Economists Speak Out Against Bush's Fiscal Recklessness ...---... |
| 10.07.04 (5:13 pm) [edit] |
"... In August, I joined nine other American Nobel prize winners in economics in signing an open letter to the public. We wrote: "President Bush and his administration have embarked on a reckless and extreme course that endangers the long-term economic health of our nation ... The differences between President Bush and John Kerry with respect to leadership on the economy are wider than in any other presidential election in our experience. President Bush believes that tax cuts benefiting the most wealthy Americans are the answer to almost every economic problem."
Here, as elsewhere, Bush is dead wrong, and too dogmatic to admit it." - Joseph Stiglitz is professor of economics at Columbia University and a Nobel prize winner, http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1320596,00.html
Call it [b]Economists Speak Out Day[/b], if you will. Today, a total of[b] 729 men and women with a lot of knowledge about fiscal matters [/b]blasted President Bush and his policies in two separate letters. The first, an open letter signed by [b]169 tenured professors of business and economics,[/b] decried how every major economic indicator has taken a nosedive since the Bush administration took the reins. The professors hammer home the point that the tax cuts did not work, and argue that the income inequality inherant in a free-market scheme has been taken to an extreme. SEE LETTER #1 http://openlettertothepre side... . The second letter, signed by [b]560 economists, including several former Nobel Laureates[/b], calls for an increase in the minimum wage—which hasn't gone up in seven years. They propose a moderate increase to ease workers' hardships without incurring serious averse effects like increasing unemployment. SEE LETTER #2 http://www.epinet.org/stmt/ec... .
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| ...---... "It's Hard Work" ...---... |
| 10.07.04 (2:20 pm) [edit] |
[b]It's [i]hard work [/i]to fuck-up every thing one touches ... But, Dubya has indeed screwed-up everything he touches ...[/b]
It's hard work to win a war, and probably takes hard work to lose it as well. Maybe that's why Bush decided to repeat the phrase "it's hard work" a bushel of times during the Friday debates to deflect criticism for the way the Iraq was was being conducted. Bush even said that it was "hard work" to look at the casualty reports. An enterprising Internet film maker took the time to put it all together to show how on message Bush was in that debate, which Buzzflash http://www.buzzflash.com/cont... has graciously hosted.
Also, if you want to see how on message the GOP can really be, check out this video that slices and dices the RNC debates to produce a jaw-dropping best hits collection of the Republican soundbytes. All the great classics are there: 9/11, danger, and terrorists.
[b]It's[i] hard work [/i]to find NO WMD ...[/b]
The [i]Washington Post [/i]reports http://www.washingtonpost.com... : "The government's most definitive account of Iraq's arms programs, to be released today, will show that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at the time the United States invaded and did not possess, or have concrete plans to develop, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, U.S. officials said yesterday."
[b]Hmmm ... It's [i]hard work [/i]to be an imcompetent asshole, but Dubya really is ...[/b]
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| ...---... Bush's Miserable, Bloody Fiasco: A 'Transition' to Failure ...---... |
| 10.06.04 (7:00 pm) [edit] |
[b]There is no better proof of the consequences of the Bush "plan" for Iraq than the grim reality on the ground three months after the so-called "transition" of power.[/b]
In the first presidential debate, President Bush insisted over and again that the way to win the war in Iraq is to be "steadfast and resolved."
"We've got a plan in place," he said. "The plan says there will be elections in January, and there will be. The plan says we'll train Iraqi soldiers so they can do the hard work, and we are." What Bush failed to mention was that his plan – which is, in effect, staying the course – will only increase the Iraq War’s already horrific human and economic costs borne by both Americans and Iraqis.
There is no better proof of the consequences of the Bush "plan" than the grim reality on the ground three months after the so-called "transition" of power. Since June 30, U.S. military casualties have risen dramatically. The death rate for non-Iraqi contractors has doubled. The Iraqi resistance has quadrupled its forces.
The centerpiece of the administration’s plan is to improve the Iraqis’ fighting ability, allowing American troops to take a back seat in combat operations and eventually pull out of Iraq. But the Iraqi police and National Guard have largely failed to provide security for the Iraqi people and the situation appears to be only worsening.
The death of 34 Iraqi children in a car bombing on the same day as the debate underscored the grim fact that it is the Iraqis who are paying the highest price for this war. These children, seeking candy from U.S. soldiers, were casualties of a war that puts anyone who is physically near or associated with a U.S. soldier at risk. At least 13,000 Iraqi civilians have died so far. (If the data for the Iraqi dead is incomplete, it is because the U.S. government has consistently refused to tally the civilian death toll.) Members of Iraq’s security forces are being killed at a higher rate than before the “transition." At least 127 were killed in June and July 2004, raising the total body count since January 2004 to more than 700.
While the toll of the war on Iraqis has not been well documented, the cost of the occupation-by-another-nam e in U.S. lives painfully clear. Over 1,000 U.S. soldiers and their families have paid the ultimate price for the Iraq War. And just as the number of deaths has risen for Iraqis since the “transition,” so has it for the U.S. The total number of U.S. soldiers killed and wounded during these three months stands at 747 per month, exceeding the pre-transition rate of 449 casualties per month prior to June 30.
The high casualty rate reveals the insurgency as stronger than ever. The monthly average of insurgent attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces. more than doubled from 1,005 in the eight months prior to the “transition,” to 2,150 in the months since the "handover." And many, including U.S. Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, believe that it is likely that insurgent attacks will escalate as Iraq’s elections approach.
The Pentagon has acknowledged that the number of insurgents is on the rise. In November of 2003, the Pentagon estimated that there were 5,000 Iraqi resistance fighters. In September 2004, the number had risen to 20,000. The British Deputy Commander of the forces in Iraq estimates the resistance may be double that number. The rise is even starker when we factor in the additional 24,000 Iraqi resistance fighters who have been detained or killed.
With the insurgency showing no signs of abating, soldiers are forced to endure lengthy deployments that now average over 320 days. At least 45,000 troops have been given “stop loss” orders which, like a form of the draft, keep soldiers in service beyond the agreed-upon term of enlistment. Reservists and National Guardsmen are also feeling the effects of the war in their pockets as 30 to 40 percent of them are now earning a lower salary when they leave to seek civilian employment. Just in Washington state’s Thurston County alone, where Fort Lewis military base is located, more than 250 military families rely upon food stamps.
Under Bush's "plan," there is no hope that these troops will receive any respite. During the debate, the president repeatedly referred to Poland as a valuable member of the coalition. Ironically, soon after, the Polish government announced a reduction in their troops, shrinking the coalition even further At the war’s start, coalition countries represented 19 percent of the world’s population. Today, the remaining countries with troops on the ground represent only 13.6 percent of the world’s population. Many of these nations have tiny contingencies, such as Moldovia’s force of 12.
Just as the “transition” didn’t result in a reduction in the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, it also didn’t result in a substantive change in power. Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, formerly on the CIA payroll, was forced to accept the nearly 100 orders given by the head of the occupation, Paul Bremer, dictating the development of the Iraqi economy. Hundreds of U.S. advisors remain stationed in the Iraqi ministries and the U.S. controls the purse strings over the $18.4 billion reconstruction package.
Despite the constant talk of reconstruction by the Bush administration, normal life remains a distant dream in Iraq. Schools were supposed to open on Sept. 11, but opening day has now been moved for the fourth time due to the lack of security. Iraq’s health care system lacks critical supplies, with the director-general of the Iraqi Health Ministry recently noting, “The drug shortage is our number one problem.” Electricity is still in short supply, and drinking water scarce. The opening ceremony for a water treatment plant in Baghdad was the location for the brutal attack that killed 34 children.
The social costs being borne by the average American, though less obvious, are just as high. The price tag for the war currently stands at $151 billion, with Congress likely to approve another request for additional funding after the election. The word on Capitol Hill is that it will total at least another $50 billion. To put Iraq war spending figures in perspective, the monthly cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars now rivals the average monthly cost of the Vietnam War. Operations costs in Iraq are estimated at $5 billion per month while the average cost of U.S. operations in Vietnam over the eight-year war was $5.2 billion per month, adjusting for inflation. On top of the staggering sums of taxpayer money that we are doling out today looms the federal budget deficit at a record $422 billion – a bill that will be paid for by future generations.
While certainly the Iraq War does indeed represent “hard work” – as the President pointed out more than 22 times during the debate – it more importantly symbolizes the colossal failures of the Bush administration. As the daunting statistics of the “transition” reveal, “remaining steadfast” will only compound a terrible error in judgment.
[b]Source:[/b]
Erik Leaver is the policy director for the Foreign Policy In Focus project at the Institute for Policy Studies("http://www.ips-dc.org"). He’s one of the authors of a recently released IPS and FPIF report titled "A Failed 'Transition': The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War." - http://www.alternet.org/waron...
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| ...---... A Few of Tricky-Dicky-Boy's Many, Many Mendacities ...---... |
| 10.06.04 (1:55 pm) [edit] |
"The senator's got his fact wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11."
- Vice President Cheney, 10/5/04, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"I think it's not surprising that people make that connection [between Saddam and 9/11]."
- Vice President Cheney, 9/14/03, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/30802...
Vice President Cheney claimed yesterday he had not met Sen. Edwards until he "walked on the stage," but there is photo http://www.dailykos.com/story... and documentary evidence http://64.233.161.104/search?...:S4X7WDzDUcoJ:static.highbeam.com/w/washingtontranscrip tservice/february012001/v icepresidentdickcheneyvic epresidentdickcheneydeli/ +%22+friends+from+across+ America,+and+distinguishe d+visitors+to+our+country +from+all+over+ proving the two have met on at least two occasions.
[b]Sources:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
"Cheney Was Road Kill", http://www.tblog.com/template...
Reality Check: Edwards Bested Cheney, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...---... Reality Check: Edwards Bested Cheney ...---... |
| 10.06.04 (12:46 pm) [edit] |
[b]John Edwards managed to counter Dick Cheney’s self-righteous tone in the vice-presidential debate by successfully questioning his opponent’s veracity and patriotism. [/b]
There were plenty of distortions and contrasting views of reality presented by Sen. John Edwards and Vice-President Dick Cheney in the debate on Tuesday night, but if you were looking for a blockbuster lie, there was one of those too. Edwards took pains to point out to the audience that Cheney had made repeated statements connecting Iraq with al Qaeda, at times going off the topic of the question to do so. It took Cheney a while to respond to that charge, but he did, finally – with a lie.
"I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11," Cheney said.
Here's what the vice-president told NPR's Morning Edition in January: "I think there's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government."
Beyond that flat-out lie, there was condescension. Cheney repeatedly adopted the tone of a strict father or disapproving teacher: "You're never going to build a coalition with that kind of attitude;" "You have one of the worst attendance records in the Senate;" and "You probably weren't there to vote for that." Moderator Gwen Ifill supported that frame with questions suggesting that Edwards had the least government experience for a vice-presidential candidate in decades. Her question pushed this envelope with "French and German officials have both said they have no intention, even if John Kerry is elected, of sending any troops into Iraq for any peacekeeping effort. Does that make your effort or your plan to internationalize this effort seem kind of naive?"
Edwards countered with the right emphasis – essentially suggesting that experience was no substitute for good judgment, echoing John Kerry's line from last week's presidential debate that one can "be certain and be wrong." Edwards quoted Paul Bremer, the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, who said that not enough soldiers had been brought in to do the job and that we invaded without a plan. Edwards pointed out that Republican Senators John McCain, Dick Lugar, and Chuck Hagel had described Iraq as a mess.
Cheney did little to defend these accusations, perhaps because they are indefensible. Instead, he stayed "on message": "We did exactly the right thing.... What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the same course of action."
Edwards hammered away at the lack of international support for the U.S. war on Iraq, the lack of a real coalition and the consequence of unilateralism: "You know, we've taken 90 percent of the coalition causalities. American taxpayers have borne 90 percent of the costs of the effort in Iraq."
Cheney's response was to twist Edwards' statements and suggest that Edwards was somehow "demeaning" the Iraqis. "Gwen, the 90 percent figure is just dead wrong," Cheney began, then proceeding to use some fuzzy math of his own. "When you include the Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies, they've taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq, which leaves the U.S. with 50 percent, not 90 percent...." Then, slipping into the self-righteous tone, he tried to lecture Edwards, saying the Iraqis are "increasingly the ones out there putting their necks on the line to take back their country from the terrorists and the old regime elements that are still left. They're doing a superb job. And for you to demean their sacrifices...."
Edwards didn't let up, pointing out later that President Bush and Cheney had been peddling another fiction to the American public – that elections in Iraq were on schedule: "Right now, the United Nations, which is responsible for the elections in January, has about 35 people there. Now, that's compared with a much smaller country like East Timor, where they had over 200 people on the ground. You need more than 35 people to hold an election in Cleveland, much less in Iraq. "
On the topic of Afghanistan, Cheney talked of "amazing" progress being made. "We're four days away from a democratic election, the first one in history in Afghanistan," he boasted. "We've got 10 million voters who have registered to vote, nearly half of them women. We've made enormous progress in Afghanistan, in exactly the right direction." Setting aside the highly questionable number of 10 million registered voters, Edwards challenged the narrative of a smooth transition to democracy in Afghanistan. "Here's what's actually happened in Afghanistan, regardless of this rosy scenario that they paint on Afghanistan, just like they do with Iraq," Edwards said, "What's actually happened is they're now providing 75 percent of the world's opium," he said, adding that soaring opium production was financing terrorist activity and that warlords are in control of large parts of the country.
Without citing any specifics, Cheney accused John Kerry of having been "on the wrong side of defense issues" in the Senate for more than 20 years. "In 1984, when he ran for the Senate, he opposed, or called for the elimination of a great many major weapons systems that were crucial to winning the Cold War and are important today to our overall forces." Edwards fired right back, pointing out Cheney's record. "This vice president, when he was secretary of defense, cut over 80 weapons systems, including the very ones he's criticizing John Kerry for voting against. These are weapons systems, a big chunk of which the vice president himself suggested we get rid of after the Cold War."
And then Edwards went for the jugular, questioning Cheney's allegiance to the nation and implying that Cheney was more businessman than statesman. He brought up Cheney's business dealings as CEO of Halliburton in the late '90s when the company had contractual relations with Libya and Iran and how later the company reportedly ripped off the American taxpayers. "The facts are the vice-president's company that he was CEO of, that did business with sworn enemies of the United States, paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false financial information, [and is] under investigation for bribing foreign officials," Edwards said. "The same company that got a $7.5 billion no-bid contract, the rule is that part of their money is supposed to be withheld when they're under investigation, as they are now, for having overcharged the American taxpayer, but they're getting every dime of their money."
On other topics, Ifill asked Cheney about the government's role in helping to end the AIDS epidemic in the US, in particular among African-American women who, she pointed out, are "13 times more likely to die of the disease than their counterparts." First, Cheney responded by mentioning the paltry sum of $15 million the Bush Administration has spent on international efforts to stop AIDS, including in Africa and the Third World. Then he acknowledged his own ignorance regarding the domestic AIDS crisis: "I have not heard those numbers with respect to African-American women."
When the topic turned to gay marriage, Edwards ran with Bush's approach by validating Cheney's family and his lesbian daughter (this had the added effect of pointing out, in a perhaps back-handed way, that Edwards own family was all heterosexual, that it is the anti-gay Republicans who have gays in their midst).
Aside from policy issues. both Edwards and Cheney had sharply contrasting styles and demeanor. Cheney was generally cold, playing the strict father role, trying repeatedly to come across as mature and resolute by adopting a condescending tone towards Edwards. By contrast, Edwards maintained a lighter, charming presence that (despite the copious blinking) came across as genuine.
Political consultant Steve Cobble says that given Edwards' newcomer status, he had a lot to lose, but he more than held his own against a far more experienced – and meaner – opponent. "And we should remember that four years ago, Dick Cheney defeated Joe Lieberman in that Vice-Presidential debate, a surprise showing that might have been just enough to win the election," Cobble added.
In the final analysis, Cheney's message was a rather weak one – that experience mattered. It was a weak message because Edwards had a message that punched a hole through the advantage-of-experience line: That Bush and Cheney were too stubborn to learn from their mistakes and that they were not shooting straight with the American people (or the rest of the world, for that matter), especially about the state of affairs in Iraq. And, of course, it didn't help when Cheney lied about the Iraq and 9/11 connection.
[b]Source:[/b]
T. Eve Greenaway and Jan Frel, AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
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| ...---... Crude Oil: Cost vs. Quantity ...---... |
| 10.05.04 (6:26 pm) [edit] |
[b]World's Seven Largest Economies (G7) Admit They Have No Idea How Much Oil Is Left - Issue Emergency Call for Transparency at DC Summit
A Challenge to the Flat-Earth, Abiotic Oil Advocates and Cornucopian Economists - It's Now or Never[/b]
Worried soaring oil prices could hurt the best global prospects in years, finance chiefs from wealthy nations met on Friday to try to work out what lay behind the surge and how to buffer the economic expansion.
Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers met at the tightly guarded U.S. Treasury building over lunch and were to work through the afternoon before a dinner with Chinese counterparts that has currency reform on the menu.
The officials will set out their world-view at about 5:45 p.m. EDT (2145 GMT) in a communiqué sources said would include a call to bolster oil-market monitoring to make it easier to discern if scarce supply, hefty demand or market speculation lay behind crude's drive to record levels.
The answer to this question is critical.
It could affect policy responses big oil consumers must adopt -- higher interest rates to stem inflation or a renewed focus on finding new energy sources -- and may offer key information on how long the price rise will last.
On Friday, U.S. crude oil futures topped $50 a barrel.
[b]RISKS RISING [/b]
"High and volatile oil prices pose a risk to the outlook, dampening consumer spending and company profitability," Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, warned on Friday. He said it was vital for the G7 "to improve the transparency and the efficiency of the oil market."
G7 sources said a document released on Friday by Brown laying out his calls for improved energy market data would form the basis of language on oil in the ministers' communiqué.
After the half-day formal meeting, G7 ministers will sit down with China for a working dinner billed as an historic chance to bring the Asian giant into the fold and discuss its plans to ease a peg of its yuan… to the dollar…
The G7 gathering comes ahead of weekend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank…
Ministers are seeking energy market transparency to discover if world oil supplies may be scantier than they thought in May when they urged producers to open the spigots…
Another G7 official suggested the rise in oil costs was rooted in such fundamental factors as over-estimated supplies and was not solely due to speculation.
There is "a recognition that oil resources are scarcer than was thought a few years ago," the official said. "We agree there is a need for more transparency on the potential supply of various areas."
If scarcity is the chief culprit, the oil price shock may not prove as temporary as hoped, the official said. [emphasis added]
"WRAPUP 1-G7 finance chiefs mull oil before China meeting" - http://www.fromthewilderness....
[b]Refer also to "U.S. gasoline pump price highest since mid-June" on http://www.usatoday.com/money... [/b]
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| ...---... What Cheney Will Say... What You Should Know ...---... |
| 10.05.04 (4:47 pm) [edit] |
"Dick Cheney has a favorite pack of falsehoods that he'll probably use in the vice-presidential debates. Here's what to expect." - http://www.alternet.org/waron...
[b]Editor's Note:[/b] Dick Cheney is a habitual misleader, and there's no reason why he should stop during the vice presidential debates. Here is a list of some of Cheney's favorite misleads and the facts that show what he says just ain't so.
[b]On Iraq[/b]
[b]"[Saddam] provided a safe-haven for terrorists over the years ... he had a relationship with al Qaeda."[/b]
FACT: A new CIA assessment – which Cheney himself requested months ago – states, "there is no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi." One U.S. official stated, "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything." [Knight Ridder, 10/5/04]
FACT: The Sept. 11 Commission found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. [Washington Post, 6/17/04]
FACT: CIA interrogators found "Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Saddam." [New York Times, 1/14/04]
FACT: The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track al Qaeda found "no evidence linking al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein." [New York Times, 6/27/03]
FACT: A British Intelligence report found "no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al Qaeda network." [BBC, 2/5/03]
FACT: "Nearly a year after U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq, no evidence has turned up to verify allegations of Saddam's links with al Qaeda." [Knight Ridder, 3/3/04]
[b]"We're also working very hard to stand up Iraqi security forces, training and equipping the Iraqis so that they'll be able to take on the fight and be responsible for providing for their own security just as quickly as possible."[/b]
FACT: Last Monday, the Pentagon said that "only about 53,000 of the 100,000 Iraqis on duty have now undergone training." According to Pentagon documents obtained by Reuters, of the 90,000 in the police force, "only 8,169 have received full training." [AP, 6/10/04]
FACT: Last week, the U.S. military "arrested a senior commander of the nascent Iraqi National Guard." The commander was arrested on suspicion of "having associations with known insurgents." The move raised concerns "about the loyalty and reliability of the new security forces just months before general elections are scheduled across the embattled country." [New York Times, 9/29/04]
[b]"America faces a choice on November 2nd between a strong and steadfast President and his opponent, who seems to adopt a new position every day."[/b]
FACT: Cheney opposed invading Baghdad before he supported it. In 1991, Cheney cautioned against U.S. troops advancing into the city, "telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting 'bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.'" [American Progress Action Fund, 9/2/04]
FACT: "An examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation ... Kerry repeatedly described Hussein as a dangerous menace who must be disarmed or eliminated, demanded that the U.S. build broad international support for any action in Iraq and insisted that the nation had better plan for the post-war peace ... taken as a whole, Kerry has offered the same message ever since talk of attacking Iraq became a national conversation more than two years ago." [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/23/04]
[b]"On national security, [Sen. Kerry] has shown at least one measure of consistency. Over the years, he has repeatedly voted against weapons systems for the military. He voted against the Apache helicopter, against the Tomahawk cruise missile, against even the Bradley Fighting Vehicle."[/b]
FACT: Almost all of the defense cuts Kerry voted for were endorsed or originally proposed by...Dick Cheney. In 1991, the Washington Post reported Cheney's Defense Department wanted "to terminate such gulf war veterans as the...Bradley Fighting Vehicle." And in 1989, Cheney told Congress, "I forced the Army to make choices . . . I recommended that we cancel the AH-64 [Apache Helicopter] program two years out." [Washington Post, 12/10/91; Congressional Testimony, 7/13/89; American Prospect, 9/9/04]
FACT: Cheney once bragged he had set "an all-time record as defense secretary for canceling or stopping production [of weapons systems]." He "put an end to more than 100 systems, including the F-14, F-15 and F-16 fighters, the A-6, A-12, AV-8B and P-3 Navy and Marine planes, and the Army's Apache helicopter and M-1A1 tank." [Washington Post, 12/8/91]
[b]"Iraq for years was listed by the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of terror."[/b]
FACT: That didn't stop Cheney from doing business with Saddam's regime. "The United States had concluded that Iraq, Libya, and Iran supported terrorism and had imposed strict sanctions on them. Yet during Cheney's tenure at Halliburton the company did business in all three countries." [New Yorker, 2/9/04]
FACT: "Halliburton Co., the oil company that was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, signed contracts with Iraq worth $73 million through two subsidiaries while he was at its helm." [UPI, 6/23/01]
FACT: Halliburton is being investigated by a grand jury for doing business – while Cheney was CEO – with Iran, also listed as a "state sponsor of terror" by the State Department. "The grand jury has subpoenaed various documents covering Halliburton's Iranian operations, a sign some evidence has surfaced indicating the company knowingly violated" U.S. anti-terror sanctions. [Washington Times, 7/22/04]
[b]"We've got a great alliance – we've got 30 countries fighting alongside of us in Iraq."[/b]
FACT: The shaky international alliance in Iraq is disintegrating. Norway quietly pulled out its 155 military engineers last June, "leaving behind only about 15 personnel to assist a new NATO-coordinated effort to help train and equip Iraqi security forces. New Zealand intends to pull out its 60 engineers by September, while Thailand plans to withdraw its more than 450 troops that same month, barring a last-minute political reversal that Thai officials consider unlikely, say envoys from both countries. The Netherlands is likely to pull out next spring after the first of three Iraqi elections, while Polish military officials told the Pentagon that Poland's large contingent will probably leave in mid-2005, other diplomats say." [Washington Post, 7/15/04]
FACT: After initial support, many members of the "coalition of the willing" decided to pull out of Iraq. Spain pulled its troops out this summer. Costa Rica pulled out last month after its government ruled it was illegal to support the war; Nicaragua withdrew troops last February. "Last spring, Honduras cut short the deployment of its 370 troops, and the Dominican Republic followed suit with its contingent of 302 forces – just days after reiterating a commitment to complete their one-year term." [Miami Herald, 9/24/04]
FACT: International confidence in the United States has plummeted. According to new reports, "Much of Europe and the world feel insecure, but a growing number of nations no longer look to the U.S. for leadership and sanctuary. The Bush administration's unilateralist policies in Iraq and its perceived aloofness have left it less trusted at a time of widening global vulnerability." [LA Times, 10/3/04]
FACT: While the invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $144 billion, the rest of the world has provided only $1.3 billion for Iraq's reconstruction (more than half of that coming from just two countries – Britain and Japan). The administration has done little follow-through on pledges made at Madrid's donors conference one year ago and as a result, America's allies have failed to meet their commitments. Compare that to the first Gulf War, where $53 billion of the $61 billion cost was provided by countries other than the United States, including Saudi Arabia and other Arab states ($36 billion), and Germany and Japan ($16 billion).
[b]"One of the most important commitments the President made during the 2000 campaign was that our troops would be given the resources they need and the respect they deserve – and he has kept his word to the U.S. military."[/b]
FACT: Last October, eight months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, nearly one-quarter of American troops serving in Iraq did not have ceramic-plated body armor, which can stop bullets fired from assault rifles and shrapnel. As late as this past March, soldiers headed for Iraq were still buying their own body armor. It wasn't until June 2004 – sixteen months after the invasion – that the Army's chief logistician announced that all U.S. troops were finally equipped with the lifesaving vests. [CBS News, 10/14/03; Associated Press, 3/26/04; Slate, 2/18/04; Boston Globe, 3/8/04]
FACT: The Washington Post reported in July that the U.S. military was running short on one crucial wartime need: bullets. The Pentagon underestimated both production need and the level of resistance soldiers would face in Iraq. Until U.S. production could be brought up to speed, however, the Army had to take "unusual stopgap measures" such as buying ammunition from foreign governments like Britain and Israel. [Washington Post, 7/22/04]
FACT: The White House fought to keep reservists from receiving TRICARE – the Pentagon health insurance plan. According to estimates, 20 percent of guardsmen lack outside health insurance. The Bush administration formally opposed giving National Guard and Reserve members access to TRICARE, saying it was too expensive. [Stars & Stripes, 7/17/04; Gannett, 10/23/03]
FACT: The Bush administration has tried to keep the true cost of war away from the eyes of the American public. The White House banned photos of flag-draped coffins coming home (even though the Bush campaign uses flag-draped corpses at Ground Zero in its political commercials). President Bush has also refused to attend funerals of the fallen in Iraq. [Washington Post, 10/21/03; Illinois Times, 11/6/03]
[b]"Five days after we captured Saddam Hussein, [Libyan dictator Moammar Ghadafi] went public and announced he was going to give up all his nuclear materials."[/b]
FACT: The decision by Libyan dictator Moammar Ghadafi to permit U.N. weapons inspectors into his country validated the argument that the United States can achieve its strategic international goals using tools other than military force – namely, diplomatic, political and economic pressure. According to the LA Times, "Libya was virtually isolated from the world" because of U.N. economic sanctions since it orchestrated the Pan Am 103 bombing. Desperate to re-enter the international community, the North African country has been trying for at least 10 years to have those sanctions lifted. And while the developments are certainly positive, they beg a number of questions. [ABC News, 12/22/03; LA Times, 12/20/03]
[b]On Health Care[/b]
[b]"It is now possible for senior citizens to get a Medicare discount prescription drug card, which allows them to save 15 percent to 30 percent off their prescriptions."[/b]
FACT: A study commissioned by the AARP shows price increases have negated much of the savings promised to Medicare beneficiaries because drug manufacturers are offsetting discounts with prices that are higher than they otherwise would have been. [ AP, 7/1/04]
[b]"We will work for medical liability reform because America's doctors should be able to spend their time healing patients, not fighting off frivolous lawsuits."[/b]
FACT: While Cheney was at the helm, Halliburton filed 151 claims in 15 states around the nation, petitioning America's legal system an average of 30 times a year; most actions were filed against other corporations. [Halliburton Watch]
FACT: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this year found that "even large savings in premiums can have only a small direct impact on health care spending - private or governmental – because malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of that spending." In fact, an analysis by the CBO shows capping Medicare malpractice would benefit physicians and doctors, but would reduce private health insurance premiums 0.4 percent. [CBO Report, 1/8/04; Washington Post, 7/20/04]
FACT: The Government Accountability Office found that malpractice costs did not affect access to health care. In fact, in Pennsylvania and West Virginia – two of the 19 states supposedly in a "full-blown liability crisis," the number of doctors per capita has actually gone up over the past six years, according to the GAO. [CBO Report, 1/8/04; Washington Post, 9/16/03]
FACT: Last year, Weiss Ratings, Inc., an independent financial services analysis company, issued a comprehensive study showing that in 19 states with malpractice caps, physicians suffered a 48.2 percent jump in their premiums. Meanwhile, in 32 states without caps, premiums rose by only 35.9 percent. The Des Moines Register points out, "There's simply no correlation between lawsuits and insurance rates. Rather, insurance rates are tied to the climate of the stock and bond market, where insurance companies invest much of their money." [Weiss Ratings, 6/3/03; Des Moines Register, 7/11/03]
[b]On the Economy[/b]
[b]"The average savings from the President's across-the-board tax cuts topped $1,500."[/b]
FACT: According to CBO numbers, households in the middle 20 percent of income levels, with incomes averaging $57,000 per year, are receiving an average cut of $1,090 from the Bush tax cuts. Americans with incomes averaging $1.2 million per year are receiving average tax cuts of $78,460. [Reuters, 8/14/04]
FACT: One-third of President Bush's tax cuts have gone to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, shifting more of the tax burden from America's rich to middle-class families. [CBPP, 1/30/04]
[b]"We've created jobs for the last 12 consecutive months-a total of about 1.7 million new jobs over the last year."[/b]
FACT: The economy has shed 900,000 jobs since March 2001, assuring Bush he will end his four-year term with the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover.
FACT: All told, Bush currently presides over the weakest "recovery" in 72 years, in terms of job growth. Additionally, wages are stagnating, personal bankruptcies are up 33 percent since 2000, and consumer confidence is plummeting. [ NN, 8/26/04; USA Today, 8/27/04; AP, 8/31/04]
FACT: The gains from America's "productivity-led recovery" have been unevenly distributed. While corporate profits, CEO pay and business investment have risen, pay has lagged behind and the wages of production workers have stagnated. [Economist, 8/6/04]
[b]"Congress took an important step last week by extending tax relief for working families."[/b]
FACT:Two-thirds of the benefits in the bill went to the top one-fifth of all earners. [ Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 9/24/04]
FACT: The bill included $12 billion in corporate tax breaks – including provisions benefiting Caribbean distillers. [LA Times, 9/24/04; USA Today, 9/24/04]
FACT: Middle-class families receive an average benefit of just $169. This could be more than off-set by program cuts or future tax increases that will inevitably be required to pay down the added debt created by the bill. [, 9/27/04]
[b]On the Judicial System[/b]
[b]"The Democrats in the Senate have been doing everything they can – including using the filibuster – to keep the President's sensible, mainstream nominees off the bench."[/b]
FACT:201 of Bush's judicial nominations have already been confirmed, more than in Ronald Reagan's first term, George H.W. Bush's only term or Clinton's last term. The Senate has confirmed 35 circuit court nominees, more than in Reagan's or Clinton's first term. More than 96 percent of federal judicial seats are filled. [Senate Comparison; Judiciary Committee; CNN, 10/04/00]
FACT: Just 10 of Bush's nominees have been blocked. [Reuters, 7/22/04]
FACT: The nominees that have been blocked were radical right-wingers. For example, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown – whose nomination was blocked – has said, "Today's senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much 'free' stuff as the political system will permit them to extract." [People for the American Way]
[b]Sources:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
Cheney Debunkered, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Cheney Owes Us Explanation on Crucial Issues, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...---... Cheney Debunkered ...---... |
| 10.05.04 (1:50 pm) [edit] |
"Mr. Zarqawi…is an al Qaeda associate who took refuge in Baghdad, found sanctuary and safe harbor there before we ever launched into Iraq." - Vice President Cheney, 6/21/04, http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"A new CIA assessment say[s] there's no conclusive evidence that [Saddam's] regime harbored Osama bin Laden associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." - Knight Ridder, 10/4/04, http://www.kansascity.com/mld...
[b]Cheney is a liar, a thief, a traitor, an embezzler, a war criminal,[i] etc. etc. etc.[/i] ... Dicky-boy should be frog-marched off to jail for committing treason against the United States of America ...[/b]
All eyes are on Cleveland, Ohio, tonight, when Vice President Dick Cheney will square off against Sen. John Edwards in the 2004 campaign's Vice Presidential debate. The Boston Globe this morning offers questions for the Vice President, saying, "Because of the widespread perception that the war in Iraq is at least as much Cheney's war as President Bush's, both debaters tonight must come to grips with Cheney's performance as the official who steered Bush toward the invasion of Iraq and infuriated intelligence professionals by ignoring assessments that did not suit his policy aims and spotlighting others that did." Paul Krugman of the New York Times agrees, saying Edwards should ask tough questions of the man who "played a central role in leading us to war on false pretenses." After the invasion, Cheney also took the lead in perpetuating the myth that al Qaeda was somehow tied to Saddam, a claim which he continues to make even thought it has been disproved by all known intelligence. For more on what Cheney will likely say and what you should know, read this American Progress debate backgrounder http://www.americanprogressac... . Here's what to watch for:
[b]KEY CHENEY CLAIM BLOWN APART:[/b] Vice President Cheney still asserts, "[Saddam] had a relationship with al Qaeda," in an ongoing attempt to plant "the idea that Hussein was allied with the group responsible for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." As his primary evidence, the vice president repeatedly has said terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi was an associate of bin Laden and received safe haven from Hussein, stating that Zarqawi "is an al Qaeda associate who took refuge in Baghdad, found sanctuary and safe harbor there before we ever launched into Iraq." Today, a new CIA assessment — which Cheney himself requested months ago – blew apart this claim. The report stated, "there is no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi." One U.S. official said, "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything."
[b]INTELLIGENCE DEBUNKS CHENEY:[/b] It's the latest in a long line of intelligence that shows Cheney's claim is false. Previously, the Sept. 11 Commission found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. CIA interrogators found "Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Saddam." The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track al Qaeda found "no evidence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein."
[b]RUMSFELD'S MOMENT OF TRUTH:[/b] Further damaging Cheney's unsupported claims of a link between Saddam and Osama, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told an audience yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relations that he knew of no "strong, hard evidence" linking Iraq and al Qaeda. Immediately after his candid comments to the group, however, Rumsfeld furiously backtracked and tried to get back on message, saying he'd been "misunderstood."
[b]'WE NEVER HAD ENOUGH TROOPS ON THE GROUND':[/b] Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the former U.S. official in charge of Iraq after the invasion, said yesterday that the U.S. effort in Iraq was handicapped from the beginning by a lack of adequate forces, flatly stating, "We never had enough troops on the ground." An insufficient number of U.S. troops to keep the peace early on "established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he said in a speech yesterday. The White House didn't adequately plan for the peace in Iraq, badly misjudging the situation and relying instead on falsely rosy predictions. A prime example: On 3/16/03, the week the invasion took place, Vice President Cheney said, "We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" and "I think it will go relatively quickly... (in) weeks rather than months."
[b]THE ULTIMATE FLIP-FLOP:[/b] The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports Cheney opposed invading Baghdad before he supported it. In 1991, then-Secretary of Defense Cheney cautioned against U.S. troops advancing into the city, "telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting 'bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.'" He added, "And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many." About 146 Americans died in the first Gulf War. This time, more than 1,000 U.S. troops have been killed in the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.
[b]IN BED WITH THE AXIS OF EVIL:[/b] In recent stump speeches, Cheney has tried to defend the invasion of Iraq by saying, "Iraq for years was listed by the U.S. State Department as a state sponsor of terror." What he doesn't say: Although the U.S. "concluded that Iraq, Libya and Iran supported terrorism and had imposed strict sanctions on them," during Cheney's tenure at Halliburton, he ignored that and "the company did business in all three countries." For example, with Cheney at the helm, Halliburton signed contracts with Iraq worth $73 million through two subsidiaries while that country was on the terrorism list. And Halliburton is being investigated for doing business while Cheney was CEO with Iran, a country also listed as a "state sponsor of terror" by the State Department. "The grand jury has subpoenaed various documents covering Halliburton's Iranian operations, a sign some evidence has surfaced indicating the company "knowingly violated" U.S. anti-terror sanctions.
[b]CHENEY'S DAYS IN COURT:[/b] Cheney, under the guise of "legal reform," has attacked his rivals for being too cozy with lawyers. Watch those stones you're throwing from your glass house, Mr. Vice President. A watchdog site, HalliburtonWatch.org, has found that, with Cheney in charge, Halliburton filed 151 claims in 15 states around the nation, petitioning America's legal system an average of 30 times a year; most actions were filed against other corporations. (Halliburton currently is suing former employees who complained when the giant corporation sliced retiree health care benefits.)
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... Grown-Up Republicans Talk About Bush ...---... |
| 10.05.04 (1:06 pm) [edit] |
[b]It is indeed interesting to listen to Republicans (with whom I disagree on economic policy) nevertheless, discuss the corrupt Bush regime with a modicum of honesty and integrity ...
From Brad DeLong http://www.j-bradford-delong.... ...[/b]
[b]Adeimantos:[/b] It is the enormous breadth of the policy disasters of the George W. Bush administration that is most distressing. Iraq, the failure to cement the alliances we need for the war on terror, economic policy and the deficit--those are obvious, and well known. But things have been equally bad in other areas.
[b]Glaukon: [/b]Yes. This is especially alarming because of the fact that in many other areas--environment, regulation, and trade, for example--the bar for a Republican administration is low, given how very difficult it is for the Democrats to run a sensible environmental or regulatory or trade policy. The unions are scared of free trade, and the fact that the harm done by failure to regulate is so visible and human while the harm done by excessive regulation is much less visible means that Democrats have a very hard time making good policy in these areas.
[b]Adeimantos:[/b] Yes, it is truly remarkable how badly this bunch of Republicans has managed to do--even in these issue areas.
[b]Thrasymakhos:[/b] A lot of my surprise is that it is so *unexpected*. Mammoth policy failure all across the board. Back in the 1970s Donald Rumsfeld Richard Cheney ran what was widely regarded as a very good, fair process, and substance-oriented White House staff for Ford. And it looked at the start of the administration as though Cheney was in command (which he may be) and had brought in his two best friends from the Ford administration--then defense secretary Rumsfeld and then OMB deputy director O'Neill--to be his Grand Viziers for security and economic policy. Yet Cheney and Rumsfeld then conspire to make sure the White House's security decisions are based on analytic garbage. And when Paul O'Neill calls for help to get a good economic policy process, Cheney ignores him. This across-the-board failure can have only one cause...
[b]Glaukon:[/b] I see that somewhat differently. O'Neill was going up against Larry Lindsey, who is (a) as "conservative movement" as they come and who (b) had been with George W. Bush since before George W. Bush was important enough for Tucker Carlson to think he was a joke. O'Neill was bound to lose if Lindsey challenged him--the question was why Lindsey challenged him, since it led to so much lousy economic policy...
[b]Continue reading [/b]... http://www.j-bradford-delong....
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| ...---... Fried Rice, Yet Again ...---... |
| 10.04.04 (10:04 pm) [edit] |
[b]Condi Rice has long been over-rated and under-scrutinized ... Rice is a liar and incompetent, [i]and [/i]she would/should have been [i]fired[/i] (... What if Sandy Berger had spouted Rice's lies & let 9/11 happen by not bothering to read warnings regarding terrorist attacks upon America like Rice??? ...), but[i] for [/i]...[/b]
I did a piece several months ago called Fried Rice, discussing the absurd statement by Condoleezza Rice that George Bush would one day be considered in the same breath as the largest diplomatic figures of the last 100 years, including Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. She was apparently inhaling again as she took to the talk circuit today.
Taking the “we don’t do mistakes” cue from her boss, Rice portrayed today that the pre-invasion comments she made about Saddam’s nuclear capabilities as being accurate and defended the slaughter that ensued. In case you do not remember during the frantic run-up to the war, Bush sent out everyone to scare us into thinking that Saddam had all sorts of WMD. Rice was charged with selling us the nuclear side of it. Her most famous line was “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”. Mixed in with that fear-mongering tactic was some false intelligence. It was asserted that Saddam had recently bought some high-strength aluminum tubing which were, "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs", according to Rice. What she was not telling us however was that there were other rationale for the tubes that were in fact more plausible and in fact that the tubes had already been discredited as being useless for nuclear weapons. When asked about it today she said, "I knew that there was a dispute. I actually didn't really know the nature of the dispute". Well, allow me to clarify for you Condi.
The aluminum tubes were alleged by Condi, at the behest of Bush, to be used for the enrichment of uranium, a critical step toward building a nuclear weapon. Unfortunately for them, aluminum is not a material conducive for enriching uranium. When you combine that with the fact that the dimensions were wrong and Saddam sought no other materials which would be needed for such a venture, many logically concluded that they were purchased for 81mm artillery rockets Hussein said they were for. Of course all of this was known at the time because it was the opinion of the intelligence community that the tubes were NOT related to any nuclear aspirations. Of course the troubling thing for me is how our National Security Advisor did not know this? Compounding the problem with not knowing, Dr. Rice felt the prudent thing to do would be to spread the possibility of a “mushroom cloud” to the American people. This is the same National Security Advisor who “could not have imagined terrorists flying planes into buildings even though she had been briefed about just that.
Continuing in her talk show soiree today, Rice said, "I stand by to this day the correctness of the decision to take seriously an intelligence assessment that Saddam Hussein would likely have a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade". Well, that’s sweet Condi, but asinine. Not only would Saddam not have had a nuclear weapon, it appears he would not have had any weapons at all. I do not understand where the humility in this administration resides. We have found nothing in Iraq but death. The reasons for the war have been proven to be false and even if you want to ignore the culpability of the administration for cooking false intelligence, they should at least have the decency to say, “oops, my bad”, at this point. Instead we have people like Rice touring the Sunday morning talk shows to hype up discredited claims and defend the indefensible. Let’s see what else she had to say:
"[i]We were all unhappy that the intelligence was not as good as we had thought that it was. But the essential judgment was absolutely right. Saddam Hussein was a threat[/i]".
No offense, but I could care less if Rice is “unhappy”. The disingenuousness of this statement is staggering. What Dr. Rice is saying is that regardless of the truth, the judgment is correct. That is so abundantly stupid we should launch an investigation into her academic credentials. Also, the intelligence was good; it said the tubes were NOT for usage in nuclear weaponry. The issue is why the administration chose to lie about it and say that they were for the enrichment of uranium when they knew that aluminum is not suitable for that purpose.
"[i]If you underestimate the nuclear threat of a tyrant, you make a really big mistake[/i]."
Hmm, I would proffer that when you lie to start a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and over 1000 American kids, you make a really, really, really big mistake, or a colossal error in judgment, if you will. I might also ask how this statement is consistent with Bush ignoring North Korea and Iran while they reconstituted their nuclear capabilities.
The bottom line is that this administration has no credibility left. It is devoid of substance and has lied so many times that it is a reflex action at this point, not a conscious decision. The New York Times has quoted four CIA officials and a senior administration official as saying that Rice's staff had been told in 2001 that Energy Department experts believed the tubes were probably intended for small artillery rockets — and not nuclear weapons. Dr. Rice’s response to that today was that she learned of objections by the Energy Department only after making her 2002 comments.
Are we supposed to buy that? A year before making the mushroom cloud threats, her office was informed that the very tubes she was going to pimp as proof for nuclear potential were not usable for nuclear purposes. For a year, no one mentions it to her. Then she goes to the American people and puts visions of mushroom clouds in their heads by using these tubes as her proof. If this is not enough, two more years later she has the unadulterated nerve to defend the entire process. If it was not so frightening and pathetic it would be laughable. People get fired for such stupidity out here in the real world. In the land of the Bush Cabal, they get oil tankers named after themselves.
[b]Source:[/b]
Anthony Wade is co-administrator of www.ibtp.org, a website devoted to educating the populace to the ongoing lies of President George W. Bush and seeking his removal from office. He is a 37-year-old independent writer from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple websites. A Christian progressive and professional counselor, Mr. Wade believes that you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies and excess. - http://www.opednews.com/wade_...
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| ...---... The Iraq War is Illegal ...---... |
| 10.04.04 (7:06 pm) [edit] |
[b]Below is the Congressional authorization for force that Bush used to launch the invasion of Iraq.[/b] However, if you read Section 3, paragraph B, Bush was required to prove to the Congress that Iraq was in violation of UN Resolutions by still being in possession of weapons of mass destruction, and secondly, that Iraq was behind 9-11. Both claims have since been disproved and discredited, the product of the Pentagon Office at the heart of the latest Israeli spy scandal http://www.whatreallyhappened... .
Therefore, under United States law, the war in Iraq is illegal. And We The People are not under any legal or moral obligation to pay for it, let alone let our kids be killed in it.
If anything, Bush and his pro-war Neocon buddies should be required to reimburse the treasury for their private use of government property. I leave the question of civil lawsuits for wrongful deaths to the families of the dead American service people, and the live service people still suffering from depleted uranium.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[b]Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)
HJ 114 EH
107th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. J. RES. 114
JOINT RESOLUTION
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.[/b]
Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;
Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;
Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;
Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;
Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations';
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;
Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;
Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;
Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);
Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1), Congress has authorized the President `to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677';
Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),' that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and `constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,' and that Congress, `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688';
Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;
Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to `work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge' posed by Iraq and to `work for the necessary resolutions,' while also making clear that `the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable';
Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;
Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and
Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
[u]SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE[/u].
This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002'.
[u]SEC. 2. SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS[/u].
The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by the President to--
(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq and encourages him in those efforts; and
(2) obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
[u]SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES[/u].
(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to--
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION- In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that--
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
(c) War Powers Resolution Requirements-
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.
[u]SEC. 4. REPORTS TO CONGRESS[/u].
(a) REPORTS- The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 3 and the status of planning for efforts that are expected to be required after such actions are completed, including those actions described in section 7 of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338).
(b) SINGLE CONSOLIDATED REPORT- To the extent that the submission of any report described in subsection (a) coincides with the submission of any other report on matters relevant to this joint resolution otherwise required to be submitted to Congress pursuant to the reporting requirements of the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148), all such reports may be submitted as a single consolidated report to the Congress.
(c) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- To the extent that the information required by section 3 of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) is included in the report required by this section, such report shall be considered as meeting the requirements of section 3 of such resolution.
[b]Passed the House of Representatives October 10, 2002.
Attest:
Clerk.[/b]
[b]107th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. J. RES. 114
JOINT RESOLUTION
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.[/b]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[b]See also "Iraq: The Words of Mass Deception" on http://www.whatreallyhappened... [/b]
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| ...---... What Wasn't Asked in the 1st Debate ...---... |
| 10.04.04 (5:43 pm) [edit] |
[b]To his credit, The [i]NewsHour's [/i]Jim Lehrer asked John Kerry and George W. Bush serious questions about Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Sudan. [/b]But the veteran moderator couldn't find the time to mention Abu Ghraib, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the intelligence failures preceding September 11 in a ninety-minute discussion about American foreign policy. That's timid journalism, an unfair limiting of the debate and a disservice to the American electorate tuning in.
[b]Abu Ghraib:[/b]
The worst stain on the US military since My Lai and a gigantic blow to US credibility, Abu Ghraib symbolizes the key tragedy of the American occupation in Iraq, the moment when world opinion dramatically swung against the US presence once and for all. It convinced the Muslim world the US fought a war to humiliate them, rather than spread freedom and democracy. After the links to Al-Qaeda and stockpiles of WMDs proved nonexistent, Bush repeatedly http://slate.msn.com/id/21000... mentioned Saddam's torture chambers as a justification for invasion. The US lost that card too.
In the wake of Abu Ghraib, only two percent http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5... of Iraqis regarded the Americans as "liberators," according to a Coalition Provisional Authority poll, down from fourty-three percent http://www.cato.org/dailys/05... at the time of invasion. Top journalists like Seymour Hersh traced these orders straight to Donald Rumsfeld's http://www.newyorker.com/fact... office. Shouldn't the abuses that drastically emboldened the insurgency and lost the moderate Iraqi "swing vote" have been discussed at the debate?
[b]Israel-Palestine:[/b]
Both candidates slipped in pledges to protect Israel in the context of helping Iraq. "A free Iraq will help secure Israel," Bush said http://www.washingtonpost.com... . Kerry followed soon after. "I'm going to get it right for those soldiers, because it's important to Israel," he said http://www.washingtonpost.com... . But Lehrer failed to ask the third rail question of American politics - how they would solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and why Bush has so woefully disengaged over the last four years?
Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe the conflict represents a critical threat http://www.jewishvirtuallibra... to vital US interests, according to Gallup. Ninety percent of Arabs have an unfavorable http://www.aaiusa.org/PDF/Imp... opinion of US policy toward the Palestinians and over sixty percent of our European allies believe America should do more to address the issue, found the Pew Project on Global Attitudes. "Change Middle East policy," and "Stop Supporting Israel," are the two most common Arab prescriptions for fixing the US image problem, according to Zogby International http://www.aaiusa.org/PDF/Imp... . General Anthony Zinni - Bush's former envoy to the Middle East - recently said http://www.cdi.org/friendlyve... , "The road to Baghdad led through Jerusalem. You solve the Middle East peace process, you'd be surprised what kinds of others things will work out." Given the sharp increase in fighting in both Samarra http://www.csmonitor.com/2004... and Gaza http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin... , Lehrer should've posed that possibility.
[b]9/11 Intelligence: [/b]
Bush opposed http://www.democrats.org/spec... the 9/11 commission, then he supported http://www.americanprogressac... it. Condi Rice wouldn't testify, then she did. The American people sat transfixed by Richard's Clarke's testimony http://www.9-11commission.gov... and reacted with shock when Rice revealed the title of the August 6 memo Bush received http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPO... : "Bin Laden determined to strike in US." The worst intelligence failure in American history happened under Bush's watch. The bipartisan findings of the 9/11 commission - now a national best-seller - are about to be implemented by Congress. What homeland security issue is more important? How could this topic not come up once?
If Jim Lehrer won't ask the tough questions, do you really think Charles Gibson and Bob Schieffer will?
[b]Source:[/b]
Ari Berman, [i]The Daily Outrage[/i], The Nation, http://www.thenation.com
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| ...---... It's the I.Q. Stupid ...---... |
| 10.04.04 (4:50 pm) [edit] |
"You can't legislate intelligence and common sense into people." - Will Rogers
[b]Whatever the outcome of the November presidential election, Bush demonstrated last Thursday evening that he is [i]not[/i] a smart man (and [i]not[/i] a wise man [i]either[/i]) ... Kerry is a [i]much, much [/i]smarter and [i]much, much [/i]wiser man[i] by far [/i]and "We the People" should vote for him for president if we care about our nation's future ...[/b]
[b]Kerry outsmarts Bush in the crucial first debate.[/b]
John Kerry didn't destroy George W. Bush in the presidential debate Thursday night. John Kerry didn't turn water into wine, and he might not have turned any red states blue. But for 90 minutes, John Kerry put George W. Bush on the defensive. For 90 minutes, John Kerry looked like he could be president. And for the moment - for the moment - a race that once seemed lost suddenly seems alive again.
John Kerry won.
It happened slowly, and sometimes it seemed that it wasn't happening at all. Kerry opened in fits and starts. He answered moderator Jim Lehrer's first question with the sort of strong, clear, declarative sentence that seems to evade him - Lehrer asked Kerry if he thought he could make America safer, and Kerry said, "Yes, I do" - but then interrupted himself to offer expressions of gratitude to the hosts of the debate. Later, Kerry waited way too long to respond to Bush's "flip-flop" charge, and his first few swings at it were ineffective. "I believe in being strong and resolute and determined," Kerry said at one point. "We have to be steadfast and resolved, and I am," he said at another.
But as the night went on - as Bush smirked and stumbled and even seemed to sigh - Kerry hit his stride and found his strength. The moment came about half an hour in, when Lehrer asked Bush about his policy of preemptive war. Bush said he had "never dreamt" of starting a war before Sept. 11 - "but the enemy attacked us, Jim."
Kerry was on it, and his response was devastating. "The president just said something extraordinarily revealing and frankly very important in this debate," Kerry said. "In answer to your question about Iraq and sending people into Iraq, he just said, 'The enemy attacked us.' Saddam Hussein didn't attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al-Qaida attacked us. And when we had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, 1,000 of his cohorts with him in those mountains, with the American military forces nearby and in the field, we didn't use the best trained troops in the world to go kill the world's number one criminal and terrorist ... That's the enemy that attacked us. That's the enemy that was allowed to walk out of those mountains."
Bush had no response, at least no intelligent one. "Of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us," he said. "I know that." But it wasn't so clear sometimes that Bush did know that. Earlier in the debate, he had mixed up Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and had to stop to correct himself.
It wasn't Bush's only low point. Bush's message discipline has served him well in this campaign - every man, woman and child in America knows that John Kerry is a "flip-flopper" - but Thursday night, message discipline looked like mindless repetition. Bush used the words "mixed signals" or "mixes messages" nearly a dozen times, and it seemed like a lot more. He accused Kerry of changing positions eight times. And he complained seven times about Kerry's calling Iraq "the wrong war at the wrong time."
Again and again, Bush jumped on the end of Kerry's answers, asking Lehrer for time to respond, then found himself with nothing to say. The president sputtered, stared off into the distance - invoking nothing more than that footage of him listening to "The Pet Goat" - then inevitably returned to the riff he repeated all night long. In case you hadn't heard, Kerry changes his positions and sends "mixed messages."
And when Kerry turned the tables on Bush - when he challenged him on Iraq or North Korea - Bush seemed to have little to say beyond his first line of defense. The president seemed either unwilling or unable to deal with the tragedy of Iraq. On a day when 41 Iraqis were killed in car bombings - 34 of them children getting candy from U.S. troops - Bush said nothing at all about the suffering of the Iraqi people. He described Iraq in the way that some people talk of losing weight: "It's hard work."
It's really hard work, so hard that Bush used the phrase 11 times. And Bush said he understands it's hard. "I get the casualty reports every day," he said. "I see on the TV screens how hard it is." Bush seemed to save himself from the emotion-free zone a few minutes later, when he got choked up talking about his meeting with a woman who had lost a son in Iraq. But then he bungled it with another "hard work" and a little Bushism to boot. "You know," he said, "it's hard work to try to love her as best as I can, knowing full well that the decision I made caused her loved one to be in harm's way."
But it wasn't Bush's stumbles that mattered Thursday night. Bush has bumbled and fumbled in a million other speeches and press conferences and interviews, and it hasn't done a thing to undercut his support with his half of the electorate. People - some people - even find it endearing.
What mattered Thursday was Kerry's performance. Kerry had the chance to share the stage with the president, and he had to look like he belonged there. Just before the debate, Kerry advisor Mike McCurry acknowledged that voters "don't put Kerry in the context right now of commander in chief." McCurry wrote it off to the "usual life cycle" of a presidential election, but it was more than that. Whether in the caricature the Republicans have drawn for him or in his own meandering style, Kerry had failed to come across as fully presidential. When he'd say something like, "When I'm president," it seemed, well, off.
In the run-up to the debate, it was unclear that Kerry would be able to change that. First, Matt Drudge and Lynne Cheney suggested that Kerry had taken on some kind of artificial orangey glow. Then, on "Good Morning America" Wednesday morning, Kerry flubbed a question he should have been ready to nail. Asked about his infamous "I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it" comment, Kerry said he'd made it in "one of those inarticulate moments late in the evening when I was dead tired." Kerry was wrong; he'd made the comment early one afternoon.
And Thursday, the Kerry campaign managed to get into a spat over the timing lights. The two campaigns had agreed that the lights would be visible to the television audience; the Kerry campaign hadn't contemplated that they'd be mounted on the lecterns. In the view of reporters, Mike McCurry and a team of Kerry aides fought it out with a handful of Bush advisors. The lights stayed, and Kerry looked both hyper-technical and weak for raising the issue.
But all that disappeared as Kerry found his stride - his presidential style - Thursday night. As Bush got angry, Kerry got stronger. With Bush deep in heavy-repetition mode on North Korea and Iran, Kerry stepped back and explained the crises in the two countries calmly, methodically and with a confidence that came from knowledge. And somehow, he did it without devolving into Gore-ian condescension. While Kerry didn't score any ha-ha one-liners - it's not his style, and he looks goofy when he tries - he nailed Bush a couple of times with simple, clear condemnations. Going after Bush's budget priorities, Kerry said: "We didn't need that tax cut. America needed to be safe."
Kerry advisor Tad Devine said that Kerry "looked and acted like a president," that he had counteracted in 90 minutes the $150 million in Republican advertising. While Karl Rove would never go that far, he clearly understood that John Kerry had kept himself in - or put himself back in - the race Thursday night. "This is going to be a close, hard-fought race right down to the end," a subdued Rove told Salon. "I think people are going to look at each one of these and sort of draw an opinion from each one. There's going to be very little movement one way or the other."
That's not so clear. While polling in the presidential race won't be available for a few days, the networks' instant polls held considerable promise for Kerry. CNN polled 615 registered voters right after the debate; they said Kerry won, 53-37. And the pundits seem to be on board, too. All through the day, Kerry's team talked of the importance of the post-debate spin, a lesson learned four years ago when Gore won the debate but lost in the war of the talking heads. But by the time Team Kerry rolled into Spin Alley, their candidate had made their job easy. Devine pronounced Kerry's debate as "the best wire-to-wire performance I've ever seen in a debate." Even John McCain, on hand as a Bush surrogate, conceded that Kerry had done a good job.
Karl Rove and the Republicans will certainly fire back Friday. They'll call Kerry on a factual flub or two - when Kerry said he'd never called Bush a liar, you knew that the Republicans would find a time that he did, and they did - and they'll get back on their flip-flop talking points. But for one night, at least, John Kerry has taken control.
[b]Source:[/b]
Tim Grieve, Salon.com, http://www.salon.com/news/fea...
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ...---... Ohioans Take A Second Look ...---... |
| 10.04.04 (3:37 pm) [edit] |
[b]Look again. Ohioans who thought they liked the "certainty" that's been coming out of the the White House the past four years seem to want to take another look.[/b] According to David Halbfinger's article http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... for the [i]New York Times[/i], "Previously undecided Ohioans who came to Mr. Kerry's town-hall meeting here and some new polls are any indication, swing voters are giving Mr. Kerry a second look after his strong showing in the first presidential debate. And they are liking what they see."
[b]If Ohioans and other Americans are smart, they sure as hell bette take a second look ...[/b]
We are surprised that Dick Cheney would dare to even show up for a debate with John Edwards. Just one glace at the two side by side is enough - before either even opens their mouths: the snarling, aging, corporate-cocktail-jowled Cheney and the young, smiling, vibrant Edwards. Anyway, the two will face off in Cleveland Ohio on Tues. night (Oct. 5). The "I just spent two days in Ohio," says Edwards (via the Guardian http://news.independent.co.uk... ). "More than [i]237,000 jobs [/i]have been lost. The unemployment rate in Ohio has gone up 60 per cent since George Bush took office. Health- care costs are skyrocketing. Family incomes are going down. More families are losing their homes than ever before."
[b]Yep, it's recession, inflation and paying off the Bushies massive debt that we working people face ...[/b]
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| ...---... Media Twists: We Deceive, You Decide ...---... |
| 10.04.04 (2:40 pm) [edit] |
[b]In the wake of President Bush's disastrous showing at last week's debate, Fox News political reporter Carl Cameron attributed ridiculous quotes http://www.masstort.org/fox/F...%20-%20You%20Decide%20200 4%20-%20Trail%20Tales%20- %20BTrail%20Tales-B%20Wha t's%20That%20Face.htm to John Kerry, designed to make him seem patrician and out of touch. Fox pulled the story from its website after Josh Marshall exposed it as a complete fabrication http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... . [/b]
After Kerry's strong performance during the debate Friday night, it was no secret that Republicans and the right-wing media were desperate to find a way to criticize Kerry. But no one knew they were this desperate. Carl Cameron, the top political reporter at Fox, made up ridiculous quotes which he attributed to Kerry and posted on Fox's website as news. Cameron – who bills himself as an objective journalist – falsely quoted Kerry saying, "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" and "Women should like me! I do manicures." Coincidently, Cameron's quotes parrot Republican talking points that aim to depict Kerry as patrician and Bush as a man of the people. Another Cameron doozy attributed to Kerry: "I'm metrosexual – [Bush is] a cowboy." Fox pulled the story from its website after journalist and blogger Josh Marshall exposed it as a complete fabrication. Fox spokesman Paul Schur said that Cameron "made a stupid mistake which he regrets. And he has been reprimanded for his lapse in judgment." But Schur refused to say what discipline Cameron faced, later saying "we're simply moving on." Cameron has declined to discuss the incident and continues to report from the campaign trail. Write Fox and tell them that Cameron lacks the objectivity to cover the presidential race.
[b]FOX NEWS DOESN'T LEARN:[/b] The day after the Cameron incident, Fox News posted an interview with a group called Communists for Kerry, which it presented as a legitimate, pro-Kerry organization. Fox quoted 17-year-old Komoselutes Rob, a member of the group, as saying, "We're trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office." The report concluded, "it is unclear whether the Kerry campaign has welcomed the Communists' endorsement." What Fox didn't mention: Communists for Kerry is a parody by a Republican front group. Fox News later retracted the article and claimed it wasn't at fault because "FOXNews.com's reporter asked the group's representative several times whether the group was legitimate and supporting the Democratic candidate, and the spokesman insisted that it was." If Fox would have bothered to click the "About Us" link on the group's website, it would have discovered "Communists for Kerry is a campaign of the Hellgate Republican Club, a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy '527' organization that exists for the purpose of; Informing voters with satire and irony."
[b]CAMERON PALS AROUND WITH BUSH BEFORE INTERVIEW:[/b] This isn't the first time that Carl Cameron's objectivity has been called into question. In a scene captured in the film "Outfoxed," Cameron is caught palling around with Bush moments before an interview during the 2000 presidential campaign. Cameron: "My wife has been hanging out with your sister." Bush: "Yeah, good." Cameron: "She's been all over the state campaigning, and Pauline has been constantly with her." Bush: "Yeah, Doro [Bush's sister] is a good person." Cameron: "Oh, and she's terrific. When she first started campaigning for you, she was a little bit nervous, but now she's up there—" Bush: "Getting her stride?" Cameron: "She doesn't need notes, she's going to crowds and she's got the whole riff down." Bush: "She's a good soul." Moments later, the cameras turned on and Cameron slipped instantly into his "objective journalist" persona. Cameron later said that "The whole thing is, in retrospect, an embarrassment that I feel really bad about."
[b]CAMERON REPEATEDLY DESCRIBES KERRY AS OUT OF TOUCH MILLIONAIRE:[/b] On July 3, Cameron "reported" that "The problem for Kerry may be who he is. An Ivy League millionaire, who has rubbed elbows with the world's wealthiest sophisticates, while most of rural America is considered Bush country." Cameron made no mention that Bush attended Yale, is a millionaire, and has spent as much time as anyone rubbing elbows with "wealthy sophisticates." On June 29, Cameron similarly noted that "Kerry has always been one of the haves, educated at the finest schools [and with] a billionaire wife." Find out more about how Fox News anchors' "reporting" often becomes indistinguishable from Bush campaign propaganda.
[b]CAMERON PUSHES MYTH THAT BUSH NEVER SAID MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: [/b]On Sept. 27, Carl Cameron "reported" that "Though the banner said mission accomplished, the president never actually use[d] those words. Nonetheless, a new Kerry attack ad repeats the charge." One problem: Bush did say "mission accomplished." On June 5, 2003, Bush said to troops in Qatar, "America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished."
[b]BRIT HUME SAYS CAMERON IS FAIR TO KERRY:[/b] Days before Carl Cameron presented fake Kerry quotes as news, Brit Hume, Fox's Washington managing editor, said, "our day-in, day-out coverage by Carl Cameron has been extremely fair to Kerry." Of course, Hume himself isn't the most objective observer, either. In June, July and August, Kerry's evaluations on Hume's show, Special Report, "were negative by a 5 to 1 margin." http://www.washingtonpost.com...
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... Bush's (Ir-)Rationale for Iraq War Goes Down the Tubes ...---... |
| 10.04.04 (2:32 pm) [edit] |
"[The tubes] are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." - Condoleezza Rice, 9/8/02, http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPO...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"Ms. Rice's staff had been told [in 2001] that the government's foremost nuclear experts seriously doubted that the tubes were for nuclear weapons…The experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were likely intended for small artillery rockets." - New York Times, 10/3/04, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...
[b]Are you a dupe or are you willing to face reality??? ... The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has neo-con [i]conned[/i] us big-time ... Time for a change of administration ... It's time for Kerry!!! ...[/b]
The central claim at the heart of the Bush administration's case for going to war was thoroughly discredited http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... by the New York Times yesterday. Before the war, the Bush administration stated without doubt that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding a nuclear weapons program and, as proof, it pointed to the only physical evidence it could find: Iraq's attempt to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes. We now know, however, that the smoking gun was a fabrication. According to the New York Times, top U.S. nuclear weapons experts strongly contradicted the White House claim. The tubes, simply put, were the wrong kind for enriching uranium. Nonetheless, the White House ignored the experts and kept their views from the public. The result: "a largely one-sided presentation to the public that did not convey the depth of evidence and argument against" the apocalyptic claims.
[b]THE TRUTH BEHIND THE ALUMINUM TUBES:[/b] The tubes were the wrong size – "too narrow, too heavy, too long" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... for a centrifuge. They had a special coating to protect them from the weather, which was "not consistent" with use in a centrifuge, as it could cause bad reactions with uranium. They were ill-suited for bomb making.
[b]DISINGENUOUS RICE:[/b] National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice hit the Sunday show circuit yesterday in an attempt to spin this latest evidence that the administration manipulated intelligence. Appearing on ABC News This Week, she said it was still unclear whether Iraq was using the tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for a conventional rocket program – ignoring the conclusion of the Senate intelligence committee, U.N. investigators and intelligence experts from the United States. "As I understand it, people are still debating this," she stated. David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said with the "overwhelming number of experts and the evidence" debunking this claim, Rice was "grasping at straws" to suggest this was still a debatable issue, adding, "I think she is being disingenuous http://www.washingtonpost.com... and just departing from any effort to find the truth."
[b]CONDI THEN AND NOW:[/b] In 2002, Rice charged the tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," ominously adding, "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." She also claimed in July 2003 that "the consensus view" http://www.pbs.org/newshour/b... in the intelligence community was that the tubes "were suitable for use in centrifuges to spin material for nuclear weapons." Yesterday, however, Rice admitted she in fact knew at the time that intelligence analysts were locked in intense debate over the issue.
[b]CHENEY'S CHARGES:[/b] Appearing at various times on Meet the Press in the lead up to war, Vice President Cheney went even further, saying "he knew 'for sure' and 'in fact' and 'with absolute certainty'" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... that Hussein was buying the equipment to build a weapon. Cheney claimed: "He [Saddam] has reconstituted his nuclear program" – none of this was backed by the CIA report.
[b]POWELL PUTS DOWN EXPERTS:[/b] In a 2003 speech to the U.N. Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell referenced the tubes, saying, "Other experts and the Iraqis themselves argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher." The New York Times points out, "Mr. Powell did not acknowledge that those 'other experts' included many of the nation's most authoritative nuclear experts, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... some of whom said in interviews that they were offended to find themselves now lumped in with a reviled government."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ...---... Four Years Of Failure ...---... |
| 10.04.04 (12:48 pm) [edit] |
"The president [Bush] appears to believe that every economic problem is spelled T-A-X.
That misguided thinking has precluded him from adopting a sound policy program.
The centerpiece of his economic agenda, the tax cut that he pushed through Congress, was fiscally irresponsible." - Joseph E. Stiglitz, http://www.commondreams.org/v...
No wonder 67 percent of Americans http://www.spacewar.com/upi/2... find the American Dream harder to achieve. Median real income has fell by $1,500 in the last three and a half years. Nobel-winning economist Joe Stiglitz says it was the Bush administration's wrong choices that got us here. They may have inherited a recession, but they made it worse—a lot worse.
[b]Joseph E. Stiglitz is professor of economics at Columbia University and a member of the Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001.[/b]
Many around the world are surprised at how little attention the economy is receiving in President Bush's re-election campaign. But I am not surprised: if I were President Bush, the last thing I would want to talk about is the economy.
Yet many people look at America's economy, even over these past three and half years, with some envy. After all, annual economic growth—at an average rate of 2.5 percent—may have been markedly slower than during the Clinton years, but it still looks strong compared to Europe's anemic 1 percent growth.
But these statistics mask a glaring fact: The average American family is worse off than it was three and half years ago. Median real income has fallen by more than $1,500 in real terms, with American families being squeezed as wages lag behind inflation and key household expenses soar. In short, all that growth benefited only those at the top of the income distribution—the same group that had done so well over the previous 30 years and that benefited most from Bush's tax cut.
For example, some 45 million Americans today have no health insurance, up by 5.2 million from 2000. Families lucky enough to have health insurance face annual premiums that have nearly doubled, to $7,500. American families also face increasing job insecurity. This is the first time since the early 1930s that there has been a net loss of jobs over the span of an entire presidential administration.
Bush supporters rightly ask: is Bush really to blame for this? Wasn't the recession already beginning when he took office?
The resounding answer is that Bush is to blame. Every president inherits a legacy. The economy was entering a downturn when Bush took office, but Clinton also left a huge budget surplus—2 percent of GDP—a pot of money with which to finance a robust recovery. But Bush squandered that surplus, converting it into a deficit of 5 percent of GDP through tax cuts for the rich.
The productivity growth that was sustained through the downturn presented both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity: If the economy was well managed, the incomes of Americans could continue to rise as they had done in the 1990s. The challenge: to manage the economy so that growth would be robust enough to create the new jobs required by new entrants to the labor force. Bush failed the challenge, and America lost the opportunity because of his wrong choices.
True, the economy was stimulated a little bit by Bush's tax cuts; it was probably stronger in the short run (though arguably not in the long run) than it would have been had there been no tax cuts. But there were other policies that would have provided far more stimulus at far less cost. Bush's objective, however, was not to maintain the strength of the economy; it was to push forward a tax agenda that shifted the burden away from those who could best afford to bear it.
Bush's failed policies have not only cost the economy dearly; they have left the economy in a far weaker position going forward. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office agrees that even without Bush's new expenditure initiatives and tax proposals, costing trillions of dollars, the deficit will not be eliminated in the foreseeable future—or even cut in half, as Bush has promised. Expenditures on which America's future economic health depends—on infrastructure, education, health and technology—will be crowded out, jeopardizing long-term growth.
Because fiscal policy did not stimulate the economy, a greater burden was placed on monetary policy. Lower interest rates worked (a little), but for the most part by encouraging households to refinance their mortgages, not by stimulating investment. The increased indebtedness of households is already leading to higher bankruptcy rates and will likely dampen the recovery.
National debt, too, has risen sharply. The huge trade deficit provides the spectacle of the world's richest country borrowing almost two billion dollars a day from abroad, contributing to the weak dollar and representing a major source of global uncertainty.
There might be some hope for the future if Bush owned up to his mistakes and changed course. But no: Bush refuses to take responsibility for the economy, just as his administration fails to take responsibility for its failures in Iraq. In 2003, having seen that its tax cuts for the rich had failed to stimulate the economy as promised, the administration refused to revise its strategies, but instead just prescribed more of the same medicine. It now promises to make those tax cuts permanent. The real risk is that this is one promise that Bush, if re-elected, will try to keep.
At the end of August, I joined nine other American Nobel Prize winners in economics in signing an open letter to the American public. It is hard to get any two economists—let alone two Nobel Prize winners—to agree on anything. But in this case our concerns were so grave as to overcome any disagreements.
We wrote: "President Bush and his administration have embarked on a reckless and extreme course that endangers the long-term economic health of our nation…. The differences between President Bush and John Kerry with respect to leadership on the economy are wider than in any other Presidential election in our experience. President Bush believes that tax cuts benefiting the most wealthy Americans are the answer to almost every economic problem."
Here, as elsewhere, Bush is dead wrong, and too dogmatic to admit it.
[b]Source:[/b]
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Professor of economics at Columbia University and a member of the Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001.
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| ...---... Bush Blows Debate: Talks to Rove in Earpiece!!! ...---... |
| 10.03.04 (6:21 pm) [edit] |
[b]Since it seems that the dim-witted idiot Bush illegally used an earpiece to get his 'weasel-words' from Karl [i]"Joseph Goebbels"[/i] Rove, violating the debate rules and [i]still managed to lose the debate[/i], the right-wing neo-con liars are in panic-mode have to fabricate more phony lies about Kerry as their mendacious neo-fascist [i] quid pro quo[/i]!!! LOL!!![/b]
During the Presidential Debate Bush made what may be his most costly error- he exposed that he’s using an earpiece to help him answer debate questions.
In the middle of an answer Bush said, "now let me finish" as if someone was interrupting him - yet nobody did - he was talking to the person in his earpiece.
Listen to the mp3 yourself- or watch the video at c-span:
- rtsp://cspanrm.fplive.net/cspan/project/c04/c04 093004_debate1.rm ffwd to 40 min 30 sec
There is an mp3 http://nyc.indymedia.org/user... with the audio at NYC indymedia http://nyc.indymedia.org/news... .
I’ve been thinking for years that we need something major to blow this scam wide open, like Bush exposing himself on national tv. Last night he did just that.
The ’let me finish’ quip was clearly bush talking to someone (probably Rove) in his earpiece- saying ’let me finish’ (before you give me the next answer).
He blows it 60 seconds into his 90 second reply- so no warning lights had gone off and the moderator had not motioned for him to end as there was plenty of time left.
There is really no other plausible explanation for this huge blunder- who was he telling to ’let him finish’? The voices in his head?
Is he talking to God again? Shouldn’t this be enough to warrant a major investigation of some sort- bush is so incompetent he needs an earpiece to speak in public!
The entire Bush regime is a house of cards- let this be the first card pulled from the bottom tier - send this fool and his evil cabal to the ICC for War Crimes.
This info has been sent to the Kerry campaign, will they do anything with it?
If it were Kerry’s blunder, you know Bush’s team would be all over him.
If Kerry won’t do the same, one must ask- why not?
[b]Source:[/b]
Bellaciao, http://bellaciao.org/en/artic...
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| ...---... Bush/Cheney's GOP Operatives Wrote Allawi Screed ...---... |
| 10.03.04 (4:16 pm) [edit] |
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[b]Bush is a liar ... Cheney is a liar ... The | |
