It seems as if waving the magic election wand hasn't worked as advertised. BBC NEWS reports
A senior Iraqi official has said the government is incapable of managing prisons, hours after an attempted jail break left at least nine people dead.But before you get your muttering naboo of negativity of a self all worked up and whatnot, remember that freedom and democracy are messy things.
Deputy Justice Minister for Prisons Bhushu Ibrahim Ali said the authorities lacked the technical and financial capacities needed to supervise prisons.
Impeachment is the only option.
Section. 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.Lying to Congress, lying to the U.S. public, making false statements and directing others while under oath to make false statements are all "high Crimes." Impeach now.
CNN reports that more Americans have died in Iraq.
A roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 others while they were on nighttime "foot patrol near Falluja," the Marine Corps said Friday.Now BushCo. will tell us that this kind of violence is just because of the upcoming elections. They'll tell us that they predicted an uptick in violence before the elections. All of which dodges the question, if we or rather the Iraqis are making progress on the political front, why are there still enough disaffected Iraqis around capable and willing to put together such deadly bombs? And why are they capable of targeting Marine foot patrols with such accuracy? Wouldn't it make sense that if progress was really being made on the political front that we'd be seeing a reduction in pre-election violence because people would see the elections as a way to gain agency and thus influence the shape of policy? That we're seeing continued violence on this scale doesn't bode well for the political process in Iraq.
Oh and 21 Marines out of action means that about 2/3 of a platoon were taken out of action. As anyone will tell you, small unit cohesion is critical to combat operations. Losing 2/3 of a platoon really means you've lost the entire platoon for at least the foreseeable future, which means that this kind of attack is a tough one and really weakens our ability to respond to any upsurge in pre-election violence. Of course, Faux News and the rest of BushCo. will choose to ignore such realities.
It's official; George Bush no longer believes in personal responsibility. He said so in his November 26, 2005 Radio Address.
We are thankful for the abundance of this prosperous land. We are thankful for the freedom that makes possible the enjoyment of all these gifts. And we acknowledge with humility that all these blessings and life itself come from Almighty God.Wow. It's not hard work. It's not education. It's not self-discipline. In fact it appears that taking personal responsibility for one's life choices don't play that much of a role in success; it's all god's doing whether we succeed or not. Since some Americans are more "prosperous" than others, I guess god loves some of us more than others. I wonder if George can explain that to me?
After listening to Republican after Republican insist last night that real progress is being made in Iraq, I thought it would be a good idea to remind myself how good things are really going. Reuters.com reports,
Two improvised bombs killed five U.S. army soldiers patrolling near the Iraqi town of Baiji on Saturday, and wounded another five, the U.S. military said.Yep, looks like progress to me. We've be reading reports like this for at least a year and there appears to be no end in sight. No plan. No policy. No strategy. Nothing but violence as far as the eye can see.
In another installment of doing my part to inform the Americn public of what is really going on in Iraq I quote this NYT report detailing another wave of bombings.
A pair of suicide bombers detonated explosive belts inside two Shiite mosques in the northern Kurdish town of Khanaqin today, collapsing the buildings and killing at least 70 people and wounding more than 100. The attack came as worshippers were gathering for Friday prayers.Earlier in the day,
two suicide truck bombs exploded outside a hotel in downtown Baghdad that houses many foreign journalists. Those blasts killed at least six Iraqis and injured more than 40, and reduced a neighboring apartment building to rubble.It's just not "soft" targets that bore the brunt of violene in Iraq today,
The well-organized assault at the Hamra Hotel, one of the most important and perhaps the most heavily populated expatriate center outside the fortified Green Zone, was the latest strike in a growing jihadist campaign against virtually all foreign presence here.
at least 50 insurgents carried out a coordinated attack on Thursday on American and Iraqi Army posts on the main road in the western provincial capital of Ramadi.See, once you really know what's going on in Iraq you'll agree that we're making progress and that our presence there really is making America safer. So if you're baffled as to how our presence in Iraq is making the U.S. safer, just read the news. I mean if we weren't there these bombings would be happening in cities across America.
It's hard to see how elections are going to make much difference given the level of sectarian violence taking place in Iraq. Elections staged by a government and occupying power that lack credibility stand very little chance in curbing the violence. Unfortunately it's long past the time that either we or the Iraqi "government" can call on the U.N. to step in and take over. We've accomplished little more than creating a failed state. It's going to take a lot of time and a lot of blood spilled before Iraq will be functional. Our actions over the past two years have done nothing to shorten that process and most likely have done much to make it bloodier and longer. Our policy is completely bankrupt. It was bankrupt from the start. Our failure to build a truly international coalition to effect regime change is bearing its bitter fruit. Our ability to positively influence world events is shattered and may never be repaired. It took nearly a generation for us to recover from Vietnam, it may take us even longer to recover from Iraq.
Since neo-cons are trying their best to con the American public into believing the problem in Iraq isn't that things are going from bad to worse but rather that the American public doesn't know what's really going on in Iraq, I've spent some of my idle time compiling a little list of the news out of Iraq. From Reuters.com
American Philip Bloom, who controlled three companies that worked on reconstruction in Iraq, was charged on Wednesday with paying bribes and kickbacks to U.S. occupation authorities and their spouses, The New York Times reported.Sounds good to me. I mean what's a regime change without some bribes?
From the New York Times
Five marines were killed and 11 wounded Wednesday in an ambush at a farmhouse while hunting for insurgents on the outskirts of this rural town, Marine officials said. It was the deadliest day for the Marines since beginning an aggressive sweep along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border early this month. [. . .] Military officials also announced Wednesday the deaths of two other marines with the Second Marine Division in Anbar Province, one killed Wednesday by a homemade bomb near Haqlaniya and the other by a car bomb near Al Karma on Tuesday. An American soldier died Wednesday of wounds suffered in a roadside bomb attack near Baghdad the day before, officials said.Sure sounds like the Iraqi "army" is starting to take the lead and that the insurgents are on their last legs. Just in case you're not sure the same NYT article quotes a Colonel Davis as saying the following about the insurgents
"Their tactics were very good, their discipline was very good," he asserted. "It's not your average insurgents running around because they have nothing better to do."Discipline and improving tactics are always a sign of an insurgency in its last throes.
And then there's the news that the Iraqi "government" tortures people. This from the NYT.
Iraq's government said Tuesday that it had ordered an urgent investigation of allegations that many of the 173 detainees American troops discovered over the weekend in the basement of an Interior Ministry building in a Baghdad suburb had been tortured by their Iraqi captors. A senior Iraqi official who visited the detainees said two appeared paralyzed and others had some of the skin peeled off their bodies by their abusers.The silver lining to this is that U.S. troops discovered the torture and reported it. Whew, becaus you know we don't torture, only our Iraqi proxies do, you know the ones we trained. But the bad news is that the tortured prisoners are Sunnis. That should do wonders for Shiite-Sunni relations. Oh, an it appears there might be more secret detention centers in Iraq.
So you see, once you know what's going on in Iraq you have to admit things are going pretty well. If only more Americans knew how things were progressing in Iraq they'd be more supportive. And they'd realize that as the Washington Post reports, life is returning to "normal" in most of Iraq,
Nov. 10 -- Two suicide bombers struck a popular restaurant in Baghdad and an army recruiting center north of the capital Thursday, killing at least 40 people and injuring three dozen more, police and witnesses said.
From CNN.com
Frist told reporters Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is 'not concerned about what goes on' behind the prison walls.Yep, taking a page right of Rummy's book, it's not the torture, but the fact that people had cameras that we should be worried about. Frist's statements that he is "not concerned about what goes on" and "I'm going to make sure that everything that's done is consistent with the Constitution ... and the laws of the United States of America" seem to contradict each other. I guess Frist thinks the Constitution includes some language about keeping the public un-informed and about it being ok to run a secret network of prisons in order to torture (cruel and inhuman punishment) outside of congressional and judicial review.
Again it's sad to see so many Republicans so ignorant of the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution. Maybe we should require a test of some sort during campaigns. Maybe we could stage live events where candidates write essays on the Constitution and then orally defend those essays? Or maybe some kind of standardized test on the Constitution? We could call it "No Candidate Left Behind."
Reuters.com reports,
Four U.S. soldiers were among at least 15 people killed in a bloody day of suicide car bombings in and around Baghdad on Monday as a major offensive against Sunni Arab insurgents took place near Iraq's border with Syria.The deaath of four more soliders is bad, but as the Reuters article points out,
The attack echoed a similar attack a week ago when four U.S. soldiers were killed in Yusufiya, just south of Baghdad.It appears that we're stuck in a sprial of violence and there are no ideas coming from the White House or the Pentagon about how to break free. Having some real partners in our grand coalition sure would help. We keep repeating the same mistake over and over again all the while claiming victory is just around the corner (and revising what "we" mean by victory each time).
Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and the last five years will have been a bad dream?
The New York Times reports the latest bit of good news out of Iraq. It appears we owe the Iraqi government money.
An auditing board sponsored by the United Nations recommended yesterday that the United States repay as much as $208 million to the Iraqi government for contracting work in 2003 and 2004 assigned to Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary.Now we know why the Pentagon never released its own audits of KBR.The work was paid for with Iraqi oil proceeds, but the board said it was either carried out at inflated prices or done poorly.
So let's see, no WMD, no cakewalk, no Iraqi oil revenue paying for the whole thing, and now Big Daddy Cheney might have to give some of the money he stole back to the Iraqi government. Seems everything is going accordingn to plan. Nothing to see here folks, move along, nothing to see here. I see Big Daddy Cheney's approval rating hitting single digits, which means we'll declare the U.N. a terrorist organization and conduct a shock and awe style strike against its New York compound.
The New York Times reports,
The Iraqi government issued a plea on Wednesday to former junior officers in Saddam Hussein's military who were sacked by the U.S. occupiers after his fall to return to the army as it battles a fierce Sunni Arab insurgency.I guess this means that the US training of Iraqi armed forces isn't going al that well. That and the government sees this move as a way to solidify its position before the national elections. But mostly it's a sign that despite all of BushCo's assertions that Iraqi forces are well trained or on their way to be well trained things aren't going that well. This despite the billions of dollars we've spent to make the Iraqi armed forces independent.
The Independent reports,
The Pentagon has admitted for the first time that it is keeping track of civilian casualties in Iraq. The figures, slipped into a bar graph in a lengthy report to the US congress this month, show that the daily number of Iraqi casualties has more than doubled in the past 18 months.Chances that George Bush or Dick Cheney have seen these numbers, zero. Reason for keeping these figures secret, your guess is as good as mine, but George Bush's poll numbers and his "accountability moment" last November might have something to do with it. Speaking of that "accountability moment" last November, am I the only one who's noticed a real lack of terror alerts since then? I mean there was that bogus NYC subway threat, and the Baltimore tunnel thing, but really I miss the bi-monthly terror alerts.
The report says that nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded.
As the Bush Admin. unravels in scandal and deception the deaths and injuries in Iraq continue. FOXNews.com reports that since Thursday (10/27/05) eight US soliders have died in Iraq.
The eight deaths raised to 2,015 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an AP count.On Thursday five soliders were killed and on Saturday three were killed with four wounded. The bloodshed continues with no end in sight and yet Bush remains un-Impeached for his crimes.
The NYT reports that while FEMA staff were desperately emailing Michael Brown about the situation in New Orleans he was more concerned about where he would eat dinner that night. After receiving emails detailing how conditions in the Superdome were rapidly deteriorating,
Brown's press secretary wrote colleagues to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. ''He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes,'' wrote Brown aide Sharon Worthy.Sure sounds like Brown et al really took things seriously and did their best. Why couldn't Brownie just order in some pizza or eat out of the vending machine? That after three days of being told that the medical staff at the Superdome was running out of oxygen for patients and that toliet paper was running low, Brownie's immediate staff was more concerned about where to eat dinner is just criminal. Just criminal.
''We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you.''
The Bush Family to the poor and the sickFUCK OFF The NYT has the details:
The Bush administration approved a sweeping Medicaid plan for Florida on Wednesday that limits spending for many of the 2.2 million beneficiaries there and gives private health plans new freedom to limit benefits. [. . .] "The state will set aside a specific amount of money for each person enrolled in Medicaid," based on the person's medical condition and historic use of health care.Just hope you don't suddenly develop a new medical condition, get hit by a car, get caught in a hurricane, etc. This is the first big step of the government (that is us collectively) washing our hands of responsibility for the poorest and sickest members of our communities. These folks are going to end up at emergency rooms (and not a few will be turned away). The end result is it will cost us more to "provide" them with health care via the emregency room than it would to actually provide real health care to them via Medicaid.
Of course if you are poor and sick (or poor because you're sick and don't have a trust fund) it's your own damn fault. You should have taken personal responsibility before you got sick and set up a medical savings accoount. Fuckers. Let's review, can't declare bankruptcy because of medical bills, college tution rising through the roof, health insurance costs skyrocketing and big corporations cutting benefits, gas and other energy prices soaring, and wages stagnent. Yep, we're doing well. Let's cut some more taxes!
I sure hope the middle class is enjoying those tax cuts they didn't really get. tution rises across the board, again. At private schools average tution rose "5.9 percent [. . .] to $21,235." At public schools tution "rose 7.1 percent to $5,491," down from a 10.5 percent increase last year.
While tution increases at private colleges might not have a lot to do with Bush's tax give aways to the super wealthy, the increases we've seen over the past four years at public school tution has a lot to do with Bush's economic and tax policies. As states lose more and more federal aid, as more and more good paying manufacturing and other jobs are outsourced, and as more and more states are ruled by the GOP state university trustees and presidents are faced with increasing shortfalls in state contributions to support higher education. The result is increases in tution, fees, and other costs passed on to students. So much for Bush being "the education president." All of this is striking given Bush's dislike of "elite" private universities. You'd think he'd want to fund the public ones, but his masters on Wall Street are calling a different tune, which is driving the U.S. to win the race to the bottom.
Of course, Georgie doesn't pay attention to polls but some one in the White House does,
President George W. Bush's job approval rating has fallen to a new low of 39 percent in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday.I'm sure Georgie thinks he's doing a bang up job. Oh, and things aren't much better for the Rubber Stamp Republican Congress,
48 percent of respondents said they preferred a Democratic-controlled Congress, compared with 39 percent who said they preferred Republican leadership.Looks like the GOP crony gravy train may be coming to an end sooner than later. In any event, the mid-term elections are still a year away so Georgie, Big Daddy Cheney, and Money Bags DeLay can still appoint some cronies and extort and launder more cash before they head off to some undisclosed location.
The corruption goes on and on. The New York Times reports that billions of dollars went missing.
Iraq has issued arrest warrants against the defense minister and 27 other officials from the U.S.-backed government of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi over the alleged disappearance or misappropriation of $1 billion in military procurement funds, officials said Monday.No wonder Bush and his cronies didn't want those Iraq reconstruction bills to have any auditing or oversight. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of that money in a Swiss bank account under Cheney's name, or Georgie's, or Rice's, or DeLay's. Or maybe some of it even found its way into the RNC slush accounts that keep the Republican Party going.
February 2004 was the last time the U.S. military averaged less than a fatality a day in Iraqi. In fact, February 2004 is the only month since March of 2003 that the U.S. military ever experienced less than a fatality a day. Just think about that for a moment. Almost twenty months of "turning the corner," "momentary uptick in violence," "last throes," etc.
21 Dead Soliders, Marines, Airmen, etc. As the Bush smoke and mirrors campaign continues here in the States the blood continues to flow in Iraq. It must be because the insurgency is in its last throes or something. Or maybe it's because democracy is messy. Or maybe it's because those terrorists hate freedom. Or maybe it's because George Bush is a fucking idiot.
Washington Post reports that the smoke and mirrors program of encouraging energy conservation by consumers is picking up steam. Meanwhile the same report points out
The Energy Department has not kept up with reviews of efficiency standards for residential and commercial appliances that could result in changes that decrease energy consumption. For years, the Energy Department has missed legally mandated deadlines to review a number of efficiency standards and determine whether to strengthen them. The administration is continuing to push for expanding domestic energy supplies by drilling for oil and natural gas in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.Makes BushCo's claim that "conservation has long been part of Bush's agenda" ring pretty hollow. Drilling for oil and giving large sums of money to multi-national energy companies "has long been Bush's agenda." During the 2000 election Bush made fun of those funny hybrid cars, his Energy Dept. has failed to do it's legal duty under laws passed by the Congress of the United States, and yet he still claims to have an "energy policy" that includes conservation. Bush with his limited imagination has failed to grasp one of the important lessons of the ongoing hurricane season, which is being dependent on fossil fuels is an economic liability. Real leadership would have seen this five years ago and proposed an energy policy that sought to diversify our energy infrastructure.
Oh, and the same Washington Post article notes that the average family will pay 19% more in energy costs in 2006 than in 2004. I'm not real good at math but that's almost $800. That's roughly half of what Bush claimed "the typical family with two children" would save in taxes under his give away to the rich in 2001. Add increasing college tution at most state schools and you're pretty much back to zero. So much for those tax cuts the middle class and working class didn't really get. All of this is the result of policy choices made by George Bush and the Rubber Stamp Congress--or maybe George Bush is the rubber stamp since he's never vetoed a bill in nearly five years.
Values.
A Texas grand jury today indicted U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on a new charge of money laundering.This is a different grand jury than the one that indicted DeLay last week. GOP, it's all about values. This is the GOP George Bush leads. George Bush has called DeLay a great friend and has "looked" into his soul and found it "good." We should be very worried about George Bush's ability to discern the character of anyone, let alone the qualifications of anyone for any position of any kind.
Bush names Hariet Miers, White House counsel as his pick for the vacant Supreme Court seat. Another crony. Just what we need, someone more loyal to George Bush than to the Constitution. She's never been a judge. She has worked for George Bush in some capacity since 1995. She has very little public record. Based on George Bush's track record on assessing the character and competency of the people he's appointed to other posts I don't think we can give him a pass on this nomination. Let's review the types of folks George Bush thinks were qualifiied for a top post in his administration, Mike Brown, Don Rumsfeld, Bernard B. Kerik, John Ashcroft, etc. Loyalty over qualifications. Loyalty to George Bush should not be the most important attribute in a Supreme Court nominee. This is clearly the pick of a man of little courage, imagination, and intellect. We've borne the brunt of Bush cronies for the past five years, we can't bear one on the Supreme Court.
Yup, we're making progress in Iraq. Gens. George Casey and John Abizaid appearing before the Senate admitted that we seem to be back sliding in Iraq.
Casey and Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said the number of Iraqi security battalions able to operate on their own without U.S. forces had declined in recent months. Of the roughly 100 Iraqi battalions, only one was able to operate independently, down from three, they said, but did not elaborate.
'We fully recognize that Iraqi armed forces will not have an independent capability for some time, because they don't have the institutional base to support them,' Casey said.
That's right we've turned the corner, except fewer Iraqi troops are able to operate on their own than the last time the Pentagon was held accountable.
And remember Wolfowitz's assertion that the Iraqis would be able to pay for things like security, new cars, electrical plants, water treatment plants, and health care with all that oil money? Well, that was just wishful thinking.
Casey also said the Iraqi government had been unable to pay an unspecified number of the 67,000 Iraqi police, who are among the 192,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi forces.I'm sure the fat cat cronies at Haliburton and Bechtel got paid though for all that "reconstruction" they've been doing.
Just imagine how bad things could be going in Iraq if we hadn't had that accountability moment last November. Just imagine if that guy with a "plan" had been elected. I mean really.
Among the people George Bush's pardoned is
Jesse Ray Harvey, Scarbro, W.Va.That's right Bush pardoned someone who apparently blew up some kind of energy facility. Sure sounds like someone who should be pardoned. Of course, it was all just a big misunderstanding. Just like this person really didn't make counterfeit money
Offense: Property damage by use of explosives and destruction of an energy facility; 18 U.S.C. 844(i) and 1366(a).
Rusty Lawrence Elliott, Mount Pleasant, Tenn.So don't be surprised when Bush pardons Tom DeLay, I mean if Georgie is willing to pardon people who blow things up and who make counterfeit money the sky is the limit. It's all about values.
Offense: Making counterfeit Federal Reserve notes; 18 U.S.C. 471.
Bush sends crony who doesn't really know what she's doing instead of an expert. This from the Washington Post on Karen Hughes public diplomacy tour of the Mideast.
Hughes betrayed some nervousness in her first diplomatic foray, which will also take her to Saudi Arabia and Turkey. This is her first visit to all three countries, and as she spoke to reporters she clutched briefing papers that appeared to be the diplomatic equivalent of Cliffs Notes. Turkey was a "democratic state" and Egypt was the "most populous" country in the region, the document said.
Asked if she was meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hughes turned uncertainly to an aide and indicated she wasn't quite sure of the answer. The aide whispered back and Hughes replied, "We are respectful of Egypt's laws."
The activities of the Muslim Brotherhood are officially banned, but it is regarded as the country's largest opposition party and has pressed for a more open political system in Egypt, the stated goal of U.S. policy. She also has no plans to meet with representatives of Kifaya, an umbrella opposition group.
Great so despite having seen how relying on cronies instead of people with knowledge and expertise doesn't work so well, Bush still sends Karen Hughes on a mission to convince people that we really care about the Middle East, its peoples, and the issues that concern them. Hughes qualifications for this mission and for the job as an undersecretary of state are what exactly? Beyond loyalty to Georgie and the ability to lie pretty well, what in her background, training, etc. makes her suitable for this role? Ohhh....right she was able to hoodwink large numbers of American voters into thinking that George Bush was qualified to be President of the United States.
It appears that after another week in which the last throes of the insurgency continue the U.S. military is reduced to Vietnam era style body counts.
Coalition forces killed six insurgents in northern Iraq on Sunday during raids on al Qaeda in Iraq safe houses, the U.S. military said.The CNN story goes on to recount how many insurgents we and the Iraqi government have captured or killed since mid-August. The fact we're still capturing and killing isurgents in such numbers makes it clear we're not making much headway. We had no real policy for dealing with the insurgency before hurricane Katrina and now that the 'brain trust' at the White House is scrambling for their political lives it's likely that we'll see the U.S. military left twisting in the wind. Meanwhile the insurgency doesn't seem to be bothered too much by our military "successes." The insurgents appear just as capable of striking whenever and where ever they choose. The same CNN story notes how despite our killing of six insurgents and capturing a bunch more, Faris Nasser Hussein a member of the Iraqi parliament, his brother, and their driver were killed while on the road to Baghdad from Mosul. Haidar Qassem Shanaw another member of parliament was wounded in the attack. Oh, and the insurgents also managed to blow up a train carrying fuel outside of a Baghdad refinery. But rest assured, Rummy, Bremer, etc. did a "heck of job in Iraq." Heck of job.
CNN reports that the New Orleans school system is broke.
New Orleans teachers will not get paid for periods after Hurricane Katrina because there is almost no money left in the city's strapped school system, an executive of the outside firm that runs the schools said Wednesday.I guess it was a good thing for that hurricane to hit after all. Or maybe not. The system was in the process of finding an additional $50 million in order operate when the storm hit. This is George Bush's America. A major school system is out scrounging for money to keep the doors open and to pay teachers. Kind of makes you wonder about all that "no child left behind rhetoric." This in of itself is a disaster. The kind of "quiet" disaster happening every day in George Bush's America. Tax cuts for the rich, not even crumbs for the poor.
While conservative commentators are blaming the poor and local officials, Nicholas Kristof reminds us that, "the number of poor people has now risen 17 percent under Mr. Bush." That's right, 17% more people with just a bus or subway pass and maybe enough food to eat for the week and thus have no way of renting a car or buying a plane ticket to escape a natural disaster or a terrorist attack.
Should there have been a better evacuation plan for New Orleans? Sure. But imagine if there weren't so many poor folks to start with. That would have meant fewer folks at the Superdome or the Convention Center. Or imagine if FEMA or DHS had actually helped the local and state leaders develop an implement a real evacuation plan. Four years after 9/11 and DHS and FEMA clearly don't have a clue on how to deal with diasters "that no one ever thought could happen." Four years of the Radical Republicans telling us they'll keep us safe and FEMA and DHS have done little to help cities prepare for diasters. Conservatives will like to pass the buck and say that it's the fault of local (Democratic) leadership, but when you're paying for one "terror alert" after another in order to keep Georgie's poll numbers up, it's hard to find the cash to do such things. All those billions sent to cronies or to tax cuts could have gone to help local and state officials plan for responding to a disaster instead of making a big show of doing something. These problems are too big and complex to pass onto one city or one state. The diaster in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast shows why we need a functioning federal government. One run by people who know what they're doing (not old buddies from college suddenly in need of a job).
It's time for America to grow up and remember why the founders of this country ditched the whole confederation idea in which states were pretty much on their own. They did so because it didn't work. And Rebulicans only push the whole "state's rights" thing becuse they believe they can control a state without an active press much easier than they can the entire country. It's time for America to realize that the America the Republicans want to bring us is based on a model that didn't work all that well and was ditched because of it. That model brings us more poor people, more people without health insurance, schools that are beholden to narrow minded special interests who can intimidate local and state officials, a country where the powerless and the poor are at the mercy of nature, chance, and the whims of the powerful, and brings us a federal government woefully unprepared to respond to disasters. The best way to avoid disasters like we're seeing in New Orleans is to have a more equitable distribution of wealth and having a Congress that really reflects the people who elect it. That means an end to voter intimidation, special "junkets" paid for by the powerful and wealthy, and electoral districts that reflect the communities they represent rather than some political interest. Republicans like to bemoan the loss of community, yet they draw electoral districts that no more resemble communities than George Bush resembles a compassionate leader. It's time for a change. It's time we once and for all reject the Republican vision of America. The Repulican talking point of "personal responsiblity" sounds great until an event like a hurricane, a stock market crash (or just the company you work for going broke because of the corrupt criminals in charge of it have sucked it dry), or a terrorist attack disrupts even the best laid plans of being "personally responsible."
The levels of incompetence displayed by BushCo is just staggering. From Reuters.com comes this,
Up to 30 gunmen in 10 cars fired on Iraq's interior ministry at dawn on Monday, killing two police and wounding five, ministry sources said, in what appeared a carefully coordinated attack on a sensitive target.Yet more evidence of the lies of George Bush. We never had control over Iraq, the elections, the Constitution, the elections, etc. never would and most likely never will quell the insurgency. These aren't "propaganda" attacks as the U.S. military claims. They are real, they are reminders of what happens when you invade a country based on lies and follow that up with a thoroughly incompetent job of managing the invasion and its aftermath because you were more concerned about rewarding political loyalty at home than doing the right thing. Attacks like these are the result of corruption in the Iraqi "government." The same Reuters story notes that there appear to very good reasons for Sunnis to distrust the Interior Ministry,
On Sunday, the influential Muslim Clerics Association said it had discovered the bodies of two Sunni clerics and three other men in a morgue in Baghdad, three days after they were arrested by Interior Ministry troops.Oh yeah, that's democracy and freedom for you. All of this bloodshed, torture, carnage, and human misery is the fault of George Bush and his political cronies who were more interested in making a quick buck or scoring political points. Bush appointed political cronies to run things in Iraq after he and Dick Cheney brow beat the CIA and military into invading the place. We're reaping the fruits of that policy. We blindly pursued a policy of "market driven solutions" instead of doing what was best for the people of Iraq once we had invaded their country. Bush and his cronies were more interested in lining their pockets and proviing some "political point" about the power of the "market" than in rebuilding Iraq economically and politically. The results are clear to see.
Is it too much to hope that the reconstruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast will be managed by professionals instead of cronies? Is it too much to hope that we don't reap the same fruits in this country as a result of Bush's failures?
CNN.com is running the following quick poll "Should President Bush nominate a current Supreme Court jurist for chief justice or pick someone new?
Current justice
New nominee "
Too bad there isn't an option, "Neither. President Bush and his entire administration should resign. Congress should pass a law calling for new Presidental elections."
Chief Justice William Rehnquist has Died.
UPDATE: Here's a link to the AP story.
We're fucked. Now...where'd I put that passport?
The cenus figures for 2004 are out and the news isn't pretty. The New York Times summarizes them thusly, "Even as the economy was growing, income stagnated last year and the poverty rate rose, the Census Bureau reported today. This is the first time on record that household income has failed to increase for five straight years." Let that last bit sink in a bit. George Bush has been President roughly for five years and household inomces haven't increased in all that time. Yep. Despite his promise that tax cuts for his wealthy friends would drive the economy to new heights, the rest of us haven't seen much in terms of real improvement. I guess those of with jobs should just shut up and consider ourselves lucky despite the fact that
Median pretax household income, at $44,389 last year, was at its lowest point since 1997, after accounting for inflation.Poverty also rose a tick from 12.5% to 12&%. People are working more hours just to keep from sinking like stones.
Bush & Co. reached into their Iraq bag of tricks and are telling reports that hope is just around the corner because the employment market has been "improving" since 2004. Problem is, there is no trickle down in this trickle down economy. Despite the mounting evidence that Bush "plan" (or giveaway) hasn't really improved the lives of oridinary Americans, Bush and the Rubber Stamp Congress will no doubt call for yet more tax cuts for the super rich. Maybe if the likes of Kenny Boy Lay buy another vacation home or invest in some sweat shops over seas with all those tax savings, we'll all get raises.
From the New York Times, "A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance." The Bush Admin has a habit of demoting people who don't go along with its agenda of fucking the poor, corportate welfare, or just plain old corruption.
NBC4 in Columbus, Ohio has this from the AP,
The head of Gov. Bob Taft's security detail has been demoted after an investigation found that he attended strip clubs in New York, tried to pick up a woman at a bar during Taft's trade mission to Asia and received phone calls at his office from a go-go dancer in Columbus.Millions missing in shady rare coin investment, millions more missing in another shady investment scheme, unreported golf trips with big donors, trips to strip clubs, calls from go-go dancers, what's next? This is all a big deal since this is the same GOP that found Bill Clinton so horrible because of his lack of "values." This is all big deal since this is the same GOP that says it's the party of values. I guess we're finding out what the GOP's values are.
Iraq burns. Oil spikes. George Bush is on vacation. Meanwhile, the NYT reports
Moody's cut Ford's long-term credit ratings by one notch to 'Ba1,' the highest junk rating, from 'Baa3.' It cut the long-term ratings on Ford Motor Credit by one notch to 'Baa3,' the lowest investment-grade rating, from 'Baa2.' The rating outlook for both companies is negative, meaning another rating cut is likely over the next 12 to 18 months.One of the corner stones of the American economy is slowly crubbling despite the Bush tax cuts and corporate give aways. It appears George Bush's legacy will be lies, lots of Americans dead because of a pack of lies, and the demise of one of the big three automakers. I can't wait for the Presidental Library in Crawford (of course that will mean Bush will have to release papers).
According to the New York Times Rumsfeld admits that the whole "turning the corner" and "last throes" talk was just that. Speaking at the Pentagon he said, "Regrettably, completing the constitution is not likely to end all the violence in Iraq or solve all the country's problems."
Yep. We have no plan. The plan we were told we have really wasn't a plan you see, it just polled well at the time.
So let me see, no WMD, no democracy, no elections as the way to ending the violence, exactly what does that leave us with? Apparently all Rummy could say is that "It has to be a heart wrenching thing for the families involved." That's it? Just "heart wrentching" to know that your daughter, son, father, mother, husband, wife, friend, etc. died for what exactly? For a constitution that really isn't a constitution? For more violence and for our leaders who were so sure about the war to not have any answers? Oh and did I mention George Bush and the Rubber Stamp Congress are still on vacation? And all they can say is it must be "heart wrenching" to know you loved one died for a pack of lies?
But hey, NFL football is almost here, and college football starts next week, and the NAStyCAR race to the Cup is heating up, and...well the new sitcoms are right around the corner.
US policy really does seem adrift. Over the past month we've been told we're close to being able to reduce troop levels, then that we're still in for a long haul, then that we'll be able to reduce troop levels soon, then we send 700 highly trained paratroopers to serve as prison guards, and now it appears that we'll have large numbers of troops in Iraq for at least four more years. CNN.com is reporting, "The U.S. Army is making plans to keep the current number of soldiers in Iraq -- well over 100,000 -- for four more years, the Army's top general said Saturday." Meanwhile, with all this flip flopping going on, Georgie is relaxing and getting away from it all. Too bad the rest of the world isn't taking August off along with Georgie.
Instead of spending time "working hard" on resolving the problems we're facing in Iraq, including the woeful state of recruiting for the army, Georgie went bike riding and took some naps. It's clear we don't have enough troops to do the job. The same CNN story noted that "the National Guard has seven combat brigades in Iraq -- the most of the entire war --
plus thousands of support troops." That sure sounds like a military stretched thin. What happens if N. Korea conducts a test launch of a nuclear capable missile? What happens if China decides to invade Taiwan? What happens if there's a major earthquake in California or a hurricane in southeast? George Bush has gotten us so bogged down in Iraq that there's no way we can respond in any effective way to any crisis.
From Reuters.com
U.S. diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraq, negotiators said on Saturday as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline to draft a constitution under intense U.S. pressure.This means there will be some kind of religious-based litmus test for all laws in Iraq. It seems that Bush & Co. are willing to do anything to cut their losses in Iraq. This is the result of setting deadlines more in tune to U.S. domestic politics than reality in Iraq. This is the result of not building a real international coalition. This is the result of not having enough troops on the ground. This is the result of invading a country on a lie. A Kurdish politican said,
"We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi'ites," he said. "It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state ... I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want."Of course, you could argue that what the American people want isn't really the question. it's what the Iraqi people want. But try telling the mothers and fathers in Ohio, Georgia, etc. that their sons and daughters died for this.
Via Reuters.com comes the news that, "The U.S. military will send 700 Army paratroopers to Iraq to help provide security at detention centers, officials said on Wednesday." Now keep in mind that last month Rumsfeld said, " the longer-term plan was to turn over responsibility for the detainees to the Iraqi government." Hmmm...sending 700 highly trained paratroopers "from the 82nd Airborne" doesn't sound like we're about to turn things over to the Iraqis. And one has to wonder why we're using the 82nd Airborne as guards. I guess we just don't have any other troops so we have to tie down some of the best infantry soliders we have as prison guards. One has to wonder what happens if there is a crisis somewhere in the world that requires a quick reaction force. Sure sounds like the Bush Admin has a handle on keeping our military prepared. Guard duty must do wonders for sharpening the skills of a crack infantry unit. I'm sure they'll get in lots jumps while guarding those terrorists in Iraq.
From the New York Times comes more bad news out of Iraq. Seems even those Iraqis who voted in the elections are resorting to non-democratic means to get their way.
Armed men entered Baghdad's municipal building during a blinding dust storm on Monday, deposed the city's mayor and installed a member of Iraq's most powerful Shiite militia. [. . .] "This is the new Iraq," said Mr. Tamimi, a secular engineer with no party affiliation. "They use force to achieve their goal."The armed men installed "Hussein al-Tahaan, is a member of the Badr Organization, the armed militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq." SCIR controls much of the soutern part of Iraq, mostly by imposing a strict version of Islamic law. It appears the PM of Iraq doesn't plan to do much about this and even seems to approve of the action. His spokesperson "gave clear indications that the prime minister would not stand in the way of the move."
This is just one result of not having enough troops on the ground in Iraq. Our failure to build a real international coalition and have enough troops to secure the cities and towns of Iraq resulted in the flourishing of militias who now seem willing to impose their will and to act unilaterally. This is not a good sign for the future of the still unwritten constitution. Bush & Co. have been pushing the idea that Iraq has been making real strides on the political front. This coup has to be seen as real set back and as just one more indication that Bush & Co. have no idea of what is really happening in Iraq. Of course, we wouldn't even be having these problems if we hadn't rushed to invade Iraq on some deluded premise cooked up in radical right wing think tanks.
Oh, and the same story mentions that on Tuesday five American soliders were killed by insurgents. Four died in Northern Iraq and one died in a car bombing in Baghdad. On Monday a U.S. Marine was killed on Monday in Ramdi. It also mentions that at least nine Iraqi security officials were killed in four incidents that involved small arms. These aren't random car bombings. These are organized attacks that are targeting specific individuals or types of people. Yet another sign that Gerogie has no idea about what is really going on in Iraq. Yet, Georgie and his rubber stamp Congress remain on vacation and don't seem all that concerned that even more chaos is breaking out in Iraq.
From the LA Times, "Another Marine in Iraq died today." 22 Marines dead in four days and my Sinclair Broadcasting owned TV news has the gall to claim Bush's vacation is a working one because he's given a speech and is meeting with the President of Columbia in between naps.
Bush should be busy on his speech announcing his and Cheney's resignation and in which he urges Tom DeLay, Sen. Frist, and the rest of the whores in Congress to resign as well.
The New York Times reports,
Fourteen marines were killed early today when their troop carrier struck a gigantic roadside bomb in the western town of Haditha.The Bush PR team will keep on insisting that we have the insurgents on the run. The facts on the ground say otherwise.
Amazingly, Bush and the Congress will remain on vacation congratulating themselves on a job well done. Amazingly, the voters in OH-2 sent another Bush rubber stamper to Congress last night. I'm sure more than a few voters in southern Ohio might be thinking maybe just maybe they should have voted for someone who will show a bit of independence in Congress. I can't think of a single Bush & Co. policy that has actually worked as promised. It's beyond time for us to stop sending people to Congress who will do nothing other than sign blank checks for George Bush. We need people willing to stand up on the House floor and bring impeach charges against Georgie and Big Daddy Cheney.
CNN.com has a clearer picture of how six of the seven marines who recently died were killed.
Insurgents attacked a group of Marines patrolling on foot outside Haditha on Monday, the Marine Corps said in a written statement. Five died in the initial attack, and the body of a sixth was discovered later a few kilometers away. All were killed by small-arms fire, the Marines said.Remember, these are the same insurgents who were crippled earlier in the summer and late fall. These are the same insurgents who our military and the Bush PR machine claimed were unable of conducting sophisticated operations. And keep in mind that there have been two major anti-insurgency sweeps since January along with a third operation that “cleaned” out insurgents between Haditha and Hit on the Euphrates. It seems to me, ambushing and killing a marine patrol with small arms fire is evidence of a fairly high level of sophistication. These insurgents didn't rely on remotely detonated bombs, didn't rely on suicide bombers, but were well trained and equipped. They were able to stand toe to toe with U.S. Marines and inflict fairly heavy casualties. This is not something an insurgency on its last legs or incapable of exerting command and control is able to do. It's clear that we've made precious little progress in disrupting the insurgency and its ability to recruit, retain, and train fighters.
No further information was released about the gun battle.
Come Aug. 15th the Bush PR machine will make a lot of noise (in fact it’s already doing so) about the progress we and the Iraqis are making. Like all the earlier claims about progress in Iraq, these claims will be more fantasy than reality.
More Americans and Iraqis die
Today, an American military spokesman, Staff Sgt. Don Dees, said in a telephone interview that seven American marines were killed on Monday, six of them during operations in the restive Al Anbar province west of Baghdad and one in a suicide car bomb attack in the town of Hit. Also on Monday, eleven bodies were found in southwest Baghdad, most shot but two beheaded.This on the same day we announced some kind of "plan" to leave Iraq bit by bit. My guess is that "restive Al Anbar province" will be one of the last, that violence will continue to rock Iraq, and Bush & Co. will leave before finishing the job in order to not have news reports of dead soliders and marines during the mid-term elections. Politics over policy.
New York Times reports that oil "jumped to a new high above $62 a barrel" today. As Larry Goldstein of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation notes, "'The market is hypersensitive to facts, rumors and noise because the supply cushion is gone.'"
Kind of makes you wish for the good old days of September 2000 when folks were worried about oil going for $35 a barrel. Remember back then when candidate George Bush was accusing Vice President Gore and President Clinton of playing politics by releasing some 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve? Remember when candidate George Bush said,
We need to use our strong hand in the diplomatic circles to make it clear to our friends overseas that we don't want them holding our nation and our consumers hostage. We expect them to increase the supply of crude oil, so that the price of crude oil drops.Too bad he's squandered all that diplomatic capital. Remember when candidate George Bush said of Vice Presiednt Gore's tax plan, "You may get a break on transportation, but only if you drive around in a hybrid electric and gasoline-engine vehicle." Just imagine how much better off we'd be if five years ago the government offered tax cuts on hybrid cars instead of Hummers. Just imagine.
Those were the same days when candidate Bush declared,
Today, the armed forces of the United States are used too much and supported too little. Military commitments around the world have multiplied, stretching the services to the limit. Our military suffers from back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, and rapidly declining readiness.Things have gotten worse instead of better under George Bush. Oil trading above $60 a barrel. Our troops sent to war without the proper equipment and then stuck in a country that is spinning out of control. Facing an insurgency while lacking the proper spare parts, body armor, and other equipment that would make their job a little safer. Worst of all, they were sent there on a fool's errand with no thought of an exit strategy. The military Bush inherited fromClinton was pretty efficient and well trained. Can we say the same things today? Our military sturggles to meet recruiting deadlines. Struggles with readiness issues. And according to some reports the military is rationing equipment like body armor.
These are difficult days for the military and they will not continue. [. . .] [I will] provide the armed forces with clear missions, better pay, better housing, better training
The more one digs the bigger George Bush's lies become.
And with John Bolton's appointment to the U.N. it appears that George Bush wasn't joking when upon visiting Congress for the first time as President-elect said, "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long as I'm the dictator."
Washington empties as the fat cats go on a five week vacation.
Elsewhere, the U.S. military says four U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in southwest Baghdad late Saturday. And the military reports killing 11 insurgents during a battle near the northwestern town of Haditha.Yep...you've read that right, the Republican controlled Congress leaves town for five weeks while our soliders continue to fight and die. Instead of investigating the President and the lies he told to get into Iraq the fat cat Republicans and Democrats are off on junkets probably drinking wine and playing golf with corporate lobbyists.
On the eve of the energy bill's passage the New York Times reports,
the Environmental Protection Agency made an 11th-hour decision Tuesday to delay the planned release of an annual report on fuel economy.It seems that loading down the energy bill with pork is ok, but that someone at the White House decided it would be bad for the American public to know
that loopholes in American fuel economy regulations have allowed automakers to produce cars and trucks that are significantly less fuel-efficient, on average, than they were in the late 1980's.Yep, that's right fuel efficiency has declined.
The average 2004 model car or truck got 20.8 miles per gallon, about 6 percent less than the 22.1 m.p.g. of the average new vehicle sold in the late 1980's, according to the reportSo you can see why this report coming out the same week in which an energy bill designed to "reduce" our dependence on foreign oil (but somehow manages to not increase the fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks) is sent to the President would be a bit embarrassing for the White House and all those oil industry whores in Congress.
How the spokesperson for the EPA can kept a straight face when announcing the delay is beyond imagination.
New York Times
In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of 'a global struggle against violent extremism' rather than 'the global war on terror,' which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.Hmmm...weren't these the same folks who took offense at the idea that what we were really facing was a challenge that required intelligence, compassion, understanding, and a lot of POLICE type work? Somewhere there's a guy in a cubical burning scraps of paper and changing headlines, press releases, and re-shooting press conferences to excise the offending language of "war" and "terrorism."
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had 'objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution.' He said the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that 'terror is the method they use.'
And does this mean that George Bush is no longer a "war" president? If so, does that mean the press can now ask questions?
Via CNN.com comes news that the U.S. military in Iraq has been making up quotes in response to attacks. The military blames it all on "an administrative error." Sure.... And the quotes just so happen to use the same kind of language that Georgie uses. Now the news releases
Just in case you needed another reason to distrust anything Bush & Co. says. The Bush spin machine has taken over the "professional" military. Lies all the way down. We're headed for a constitutional crisis of historic proportions.
From Sunday:
"The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the ISF and all of Iraq. They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified."
From July 13:
"The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the children and all of Iraq,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified. 'They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists."
Reuters reports,
The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate theYep. That's fighting for freedom and democracy.
Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.
The White House tried to spin this as some how being about the right of the President to set military policy. That would seem to make sense, except the last time I checked the United States Constitution in Article. I, Section 8 specifically gives Congress the power
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;That's right, so despite claims by the White House that Congressional oversight of the military is somehow un-Constitutional are just a bunch of hot air. But then again, it appears no one in the Bush Administration has really read the Constitution. "To provide for" doesn't mean writing a blank check to the President so he can run torture camps.
And dare I say that the White House's claims that prohibiting torture would somehow "restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice" and thus endanger the national security of the United States is just laughable? That's right, the same White House that leaked the identity of a CIA agent and took the country to war on forged evidence is all of the sudden concerned with the national security of the United States.
Via Daily Kos comes the Republican briefing book on nominee Roberts. One thing that caught my eye is this bit on how to paint any opposition to Roberts as evidence of anti-religious bias.
The unspoken undercurrent of these charges, and the likely basis for a whispering campaign against Roberts, is that he is a practicing Catholic and therefore predisposed to advancing the social policies of the Catholic Church through judicial opinions.It's clear that the Radical Republicans will try to paint anyone who even asks Roberts about his views on Roe v. Wade as an anti-Catholic bigot. Of course, you won't see any those same Radical Republicans voicing concern over the anti-Catholic practices of the Mississippi branch of Bethany Christian Services--the adoption agency that thinks Catholics don't make good adoptive parents.
The very same briefing book makes it clear that the Radical Republicans plan on using the "religious as victim" card in pushing Robberts through.
At bottom, critics who attack Roberts' unstated views on abortion are simply attempting to impose a religious litmus test on nominees, i.e., practicing religious (especially Christians) need not apply. This is the same scurrilous attack on several of the President's lower court nominees, such as Bill Pryor, and has no place in modern politics.I seem to remember several Radical Republicans questioning whether or not John Kerry was religious enough to be President. The only litmus test being applied here is that the non-religious (especially non-Christians) need not apply and should be prevented from participating in public life. Radical Republicans want to put up a lot of smoke that prevents people from asking the legitimate question, "Judge Roberts, will you impose your religious beliefs on others?" It's fine to have religious beliefs. What's not fine is using those beliefs as a lens when deciding legal questions. The Constitution makes it clear that there is to be no state sponsored religion. Imposing one's religious beliefs via the bench is one form of state sponsored religion.
If Judge Roberts can't keep his religion out of my bedroom, my living room, and off of my body and the bodies of those I love, then he doesn't deserve to be on the Supreme Court. If he did write and still believes "that the Supreme Court's conclusion in Roe v. Wade that there is a fundamental right to abortion 'finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution,'" then he isn't quite the legal mind the Radical Republicans say he is and is clearly unable to keep his religion out of my life. As such, he doesn't deserve to be on the Supreme Court.
We need a Justice who thinks, not an ideological hack. Unfortunately, we've gotten a hack. Not surprising coming from an administration comprised of ideological hacks, but disappointing all the same.
The AP reports
Gunmen assassinated a Sunni Arab member of a committee drafting Iraq's constitution Tuesday, another blow to U.S. and Iraqi efforts to draw members of the disaffected community away from the insurgency and into the political process.The deadline for finishing the draft is Aug. 15. If the Iraqi security forces can't even protect a member of the committee drafting the constitution you have to doubt their recent claims about putting a dent in the insurgent's ability to operate in coordinated manner. Issa and Hussein weren't some low-level targets of opportunity. Killing them took planning and patience.
Mijbil Issa, a committee member, Dhamin Hussein, an adviser to the group, and their bodyguard died in a hail of gunfire from two vehicles as they left a restaurant in Baghdad's Karradah district, police said.
So far the Bush plan of pretending Iraq doesn't exist and that we don't have over a 100,000 troops there isn't working any better his plan of micro-managing the country did. The killing and violence continues. And George Bush still has no plan. He and his poltical spinners pooh pooed the idea that Iraq would cost us $200 billion, claimed that such a figure was crazy talk, and yet we've burned through that and more. Handing off security to a government that doesn't really exist was a bad idea. What made Bush & Co. think that anyone in Iraq would fall for the ruse that the "government" in Baghdad was in charge of things?
Remember those flip flop chants at that little rally the Republicans had in New York City las fall? MSNBC.com reports
President Bush said Monday that if anyone on his staff committed a crime in the CIA-leak case, that person will 'no longer work in my administration.' His statement represented a shift from a previous comment, when he said that he would fire anyone shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of a CIA officer.[. . .] Bush said in June 2004 that he would fire anyone in his administration shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame. On Monday, however, he added the qualifier that it would have to be shown that a crime was committed.I'm waiting for the White House Press Corps to break out in choruses of "Flip Flop! Flip Flop!" at the next press briefing. It'd be fun and we can all sing along.
Just in case you were looking for yet another reason why faith-based initiatives or public funds via vouchers going to religious schools are a bad idea comes this nice little bit via the AP,
[t]he Mississippi branch of Bethany Christian Services of Grand Rapids, Mich., told a Jackson couple this month that the Catholic religion conflicts with the agency's 'Statement of Faith,' and another Mississippi couple said they were rejected for the same reason last year.According to Bethany's Mississippi director Karen Stewart,
It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith.
Bethany's "Statement of Faith" is worth a read.
Bethany Christian Services is founded upon the Scriptures which reveal the triune God. Members of the national board, local boards, staff and adoptive applicants indicate their personal agreement with Bethany’s Statement of Faith by signing below.Whew, that "Statement of Faith" seems pretty restrictive. Seems like they have a particular idea about what it means to "Christian." Heck, I'm surprised it doesn't include something about how the Pope is the devil incarnate and how priests are his evil minions. And it really seems to contradict with Bethany's "Cultural Diversity Statement" that states in part,
I believe that the sovereign, triune God created the world out of nothing and sustains His creation. The heavens and earth are His handiwork. He made man and woman in His image and likeness as the crown of creation. All creation reflects His greatness and power.
I believe that God created the family, giving Adam and Eve the responsibility to conceive, bear and nurture children. As the creator of life, God Himself begins each human life at conception and gives to each person, as His image bearer, meaning, dignity and value.
I believe that sin entered the world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sought to be independent of Him. As a result of this Fall, all people are estranged from God and live in a world permeated by sin.
I believe that God, by His grace, provided redemption and restoration in Jesus Christ for all who repent and believe. As the Savior, Jesus takes away the sins of the world. Jesus is the one in whom we are called to put our hope, our only hope for forgiveness of sin and for reconciliation with God and with one another.
I believe that in all matters of faith and life, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the final authority. The Scriptures point us with full reliability to Jesus, God’s Son. The Scriptures tell us that we receive forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus Christ, and that God provides salvation by grace alone for those who repent and believe.
I believe that forgiveness comes through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, who was made flesh, took our place in death, rose from the dead, and is now in glory with the Father interceding and praying for His people.
I believe that God, through His Spirit, lovingly calls, redeems and adopts us into His family, the Church and that, in gratitude for God’s saving love in Christ, we are called to live a life of faithfulness and obedience according to the scriptures.
Bethany will serve children and families, regardless of their cultural, racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Now you might be saying to yourself that a private adoption agency can do whatever the heck they want. And you'd be right. Except that the Mississippi branch of Bethany is funded in part by "Choose Life" license plates folks can purchase from the STATE of Mississippi. Now officials in Mississippi are trying to say that it merely collects the money and passes it onto the nonprofit " Choose Life Mississippi." Nice try, but the way I see it, if state workers are processing the money, at some point taxpayer dollars are going to a group that discriminates based on religion. And other Bethany branches are getting state funds for helping to provide foster parents. Your tax dollars being used to discriminate on the basis of religious faith. It's not right. End of story.
Bloomberg.com reports, "U.S. military investigators told senators today that forcing a top male detainee to wear lingerie and perform dog tricks was 'no evidence of inhumane treatment' at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison for terror suspects." Are these the types of things free people do? Are these the kinds of things a democratic nation does? How anyone can read the following and not consider it torture is mind boggling:
to get al-Qahtani to talk, interrogators told him his mother and sisters were whores, forced him to wear a bra, forced him to wear a thong on his head, forced him to dance with a male interrogator, told him he was homosexual and said that other prisoners knew it.The ends do not justify the means. When we use the tactics and strategies of those we oppose we become them. We lose our dignity.
He was also strip searched, threatened with dogs, forced to stand naked in front of women and forced him onto a leash, to act like a dog.
This was done in our name. These acts do not constitute the actions of some "bad apples." These actions were approved and ordered at the highest levels. George Bush makes a mockery of the ideals upon which this country was founded. That we've had trouble in the past living up to those ideals is no reason to allow George Bush and his minions to continue making a mockery of those ideals.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands . . . ." It is soon becoming time for us to dissovle the political bonds that tie us to the President of the United States and the government he leads. "The history of the present [government] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny."
"J'Accuse...!"
BBC NEWS reports, "Nine building workers have died in Iraq after being arrested on suspicion of insurgent activity and then left in a closed metal container." Says a lot about our progress in Iraq. If this is progress, I'd hate to see what failure would look like.
Shiite radicals are rapidly taking over Basra. Among closing instrument shops, intimidating vendors who sell alcohol and cigarettes The New York Times reports,
Few women walk around without a head scarf and full-length black robe. A young woman who gave her name as Layla said she could wear jeans without a robe a year ago. But seven months before, as she strode from her house, a group of men came up to her and warned her that she was improperly dressed.I'm wondering if this is what George Bush means by freedom.
She says she no longer goes out in public without a robe.
As if that wasn't bad enough, it seems the entire security apparatus of Basra has been infiltrated by Shiite radicals with ties to Iran, "Posters of clerics, including Moktada al-Sadr, who ignited two uprisings against American-led forces, adorn concrete barriers at police checkpoints. Leaders of the militias say their fighters now make up a large part of the uniformed security forces." And "Posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution, are plastered along streets and even at the provincial government center." The Times story goes on, "The governor also talks eagerly of buying electricity from Iran, given that the American-led effort has failed to provide enough of it." Our "re-construction" of Iraq is so incompetent that the government there is looking to Iran for electric power? That's outrageous given all the spin coming out of White House about how things have improved in Iraq since the invasion. One has to wonder what has become of the billions of dollars we've spent to restore the electric grid in Iraq.
Yep, so it seems "freedom" and "democracy" are going the same way as WMD. We invaded Iraq to take out the WMD. When it became clear that WMDs were a fantasy of Big Daddy Cheney and his cabal, Georgie shifted the reason for the Iraqi war to spreading "freedom" and "democracy." While one could argue that what's going on in Basra is a form of democracy, the religious parties did win a majority in the recent election, what they're doing officially and unofficial can't be considered "freedom."
Did we go to war so religious extremists could threaten musicians, threaten women, and impose a radical religious agenda? Did we go to war in Iraq so that the Iranians could gain a foot hold in Iraq? The whole Iraq debacle has gotten us so distracted and given the terrorists a great example of Western neo-colonialism and imperialism with which to recruit new members that it's little surprise that bombs went off in London today. George Bush's Iraq folly hasn't made us any safer. It's time to admit that the Bush policy has failed and try a new track. One based on attacking the root causes of terrorism: poverty, a lack of economic equity, a lack of political transparency, and a lack of political and social agency for marginalized groups in much of the world. Only if we start dealing with these issues in a real and meaningful way will we have any hope of defeating terrorism and religious radicalism.
It's been over four years since George Bush said we need an energy policy. For over four years he's been trying to force through a give away to his pals in the oil industry. This week he'll be at the G8 stonewalling any attempts to curtail or even cap emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Bush and his backers in the extractive industries prefer to bury their heads in the sand, but the rest of us have to live in the real world. We're near our capacity to drill, pump, and mine our way to economic stability.
Today's news that oil is again trading above the $60 mark makes that clear. And as the BBC story notes, "'The market's strong price response to this weather threat again underscores how tightly balanced and vulnerable the entire energy supply system is,' said Tom Wallin, analyst at Energyintel." When a minor hurricane or tropical storm sends oil prices past the $60 range it's a clear sign that we need to stop drilling and start pushing to market renewable energy sources. We need to start building real mass transit systems in the U.S. We need to start really requiring automobiles to be efficient. We need to stop being dependent on a single source of energy. We can't wait four more years.
Imagine if Bush had shown real leadership and said, "we need a hydrogen car on the road in four years." Honda is test leasing one right now, why aren't Ford, GM, etc. doing the same? Instead of tax breaks for the super rich we need tax breaks to replace every single incandescent light bulb with a compact florescent one. We need tax breaks to improve the efficiency of every oil burning furnace or better yet, replace them with something non-fossil fuel based. Of course doing so would require expending a bit more energy in the short term, but would save huge amounts in the long term. Every year, every month that we delay doing something about our reliance on fossil fuels raises the costs of switching over higher and higher. In the meantime our economy will suffer from paying ever increasing costs for fuel. Just imagine the comparative advantage we'd be enjoying now or in the very near future if we had started to migrate away from fossil fuels a decade ago? Imagine how much money we'd have to 'save' Social Security, or invest in education, or.... Yeah, some of this is pie in the sky. There'd be costs in the transition, but if we had done something ten years ago, or even four we'd be that much closer to not being help captive by ever increasing fossil fuel prices. Instead of being on the downward slope of investing in renewables we're locked into the upward slope of fossil fuel prices. That's leadership for you.
The Republicans have been in charge of Congress since the mid to late 90s, and they've done nothing to increase fuel efficiency. They've done nothing to move us away from a fossil fuel based economy. And the Democrats have been right there with them, aiding and abetting. Both parties are beholden to legacy special interests.
Now, we're all familiar with "overspending" and graft at the TSA, but this is a bit excessive. The Washington Post details
a federal audit that calls into question $303 million of the $741 million spent to assess and hire airport passenger screeners for the newly created Transportation Security Administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.I'm not so good at math, but that's something like 40% of the total spent on things like,
· $526.95 for one phone call from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Chicago to Iowa City.The audit found "a consistent theme of a failure to follow federal contracting rules for documenting and justifying charges and cost increases." All of this happened while Bush & Co. gutted worker's rights claiming that allowing TSA and other employees of the Homeland Security to be union members would raise costs and make it difficult to ensure quality and thus safety.
· $1,180 for 20 gallons of Starbucks Coffee -- $3.69 a cup -- at the Santa Clara Marriott in California.
· $1,540 to rent 14 extension cords at $5 each per day for three weeks at the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colo.
· $8,100 for elevator operators at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan.
· $5.4 million claimed for nine months' salary for the chief executive of an "event logistics" firm that received a contract before it was incorporated and went out of business after the contract ended.
Other eye raising expenses include:
$20-an-hour temporary workers billed to the government at $48 per hour, subcontractors who signed out $5,000 in cash at a time with no supporting documents, $377,273.75 in unsubstantiated long-distance phone calls, $514,201 to rent tents that flooded in a rainstorm, $4.4 million in "no show" fees for job candidates who did not appear for tests.Ahh...the efficiency of privatization. Now you might be thinking that, "well they had to have the interviews and testing someplace right?" And you might be thinking that hotels are notorious for over charging for mundane things, right? And you be right, except the company, NCS Pearson Inc., has some 925 "private assessment centers" scattered across the country. Sure there may have been some scheduling conflicts, but some how or another the decision was made to move all of the TSA-related interviewing and testing to hotels. In Pearson's bid for the contract they said they would use their "private assessment centers" but someone at the TSA must have realized that doing so wouldn't provide much opportunity for graft and decided hotels would be better. And I say "apparently" because there is no paper trail about the decision and the TSA official Pearson says ordered the change now works for a private company that does business with the TSA.
Pearson tries to wrap itself in the flag and says that all of the costs were necessary because of the need to protect the American public. Just remember that the costs we paid, including phone calls "'made in the late hours of the evening to residential numbers after normal work hours (past 10:00 p.m.),'" (I guess Pearson doesn't issue cell phones to its employees) were the result of federalizing the hiring of airport security. That's right Bush & Co. "federalized" the program and the proceeded to sub-contract the work right back to the private sector that had done such a good job of protecting the American public in the first place. I mean what good is a war if you can't profit from it?
Bloomberg.com: reports, "A senior Iraqi Shiite Muslim lawmaker, Dari al-Fayadh, and his son died in a suicide car bombing in Baghdad." Al-Fayadh served as the acting speaker of the Iraqi parliament during its first session in March. He was a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the same part as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. So a year after the turn over of "power" the carnage continues with no end in sight. We were told once the CPA turned power over to Iraqi things would get better, we were told once there had been elections things would get better, we were told so many things that have turned out to be lies.... A year after we turned things over it's hard to see any meaningful progress in Iraq. I know it's hard work and all but one would expect that things would be at least a bit better. Bush & Co. keep telling us that all we hear is the bad news, but then they never offer up any hard evidence of anything really good happening. Ok, some schools might be open, but the road to the Baghdad airport remains dangerous. Ok, they had elections, but bombs go off every day all over the country. There still appears to be massive corruption and "in Baghdad, the power is off for four hours, then on for only two."
Meanwhile Bush will get on T.V. tonight, probably surrounded by flags and soldiers in uniform and maybe a tank or two in the background (shit, he might even have Saddam's golden gun on the table too) and tell the American people that victory is just around the corner if only we remain steadfast. No matter what Georgie says, remember it's been a year and what do we have to show for our efforts? He'll be sure to talk about "political" progress but ask yourself, how much of the country does the Iraqi government really control? How much of an impact are they having? No amount of liberal bashing will make the situation in Iraqi any better. We need a new policy and it appears the only way we're going to bet a new policy is through regime change in Washington, D.C. Bush has managed to ensure that any President who follows him will have a poison pill to swallow.
Yep. We've turned the corner for sure. New York Times reports, "A U.S. military helicopter crashed in a field north of Baghdad Monday morning." The report continues, "Heavy gunfire was heard at the time of the crash, and white smoke billowed from the helicopter before it burst into flames and slammed into the ground, the AP reporter said. Gunfire was also heard after the crash."
This is in addition of another round of bombings. I wonder what Georgie will say on Tuesday to make all of this seem ok. What ever Georgie says, it'll be just putting lipstick on a pig. This is what happens when you make up reasons to invade a country. The complete lack of WMDs in Iraq and the knowledge that the U.S. made up reasons to invade can't be doing anything but help the insurgency. Add to this the complete incompency of the "Iraqi" government, our own reconstruction efforts, and the rampant corruption and you've got a perfect storm. The only thing I want to hear out of Bush on Tuesday is that he and his entire gang are resigning. Really. It's the only thing he can say to make things better. He and is gang have fucked up everything they've touched and it's time for them to go.
While yet more bombiings took place in Iraqi, Bush & Co. have decided to back away from the "victory is just around the coner" line. Now they're embracing the "it'll be a long time" before we leave, hoping that "leveling with the American public will help their pool numbers. USATODAY.com reports
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday he is bracing for even more violence in Iraq and acknowledged that the insurgency "could go on for any number of years.". 12 years. Yep that's right twelve years. Remember last week Sec. of State Rice said we'd be there for a generation. Now this is interesting since Bush & Co. told us during that accountability moment back in November that we were making good progress and that the Iraqis would be able to finish the job once they had an elected government. Now it appears that we'll be doing most of the job for the foreseeable future. Remember how the story was that we'd see an increase in attacks before the "handover" of power, then it was how we'd see an increase in attacks leading up to the first elections? Now Rummy and friends are saying this:
Defeating the insurgency may take as long as 12 years"
"I would anticipate you're going to see an escalation of violence between now and the December elections."Sounds like just another excuse for why our policy (if we can call it that) has failed in Iraq. Rummy on Sunday as much as admitted that we've failed, "Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency." True he went on to say something about us establishing an environment in which the Iraqis themselves can "crush" the insurgency, but that's nothing more than a slick way of passing the buck. According to this logic, if the insurgency continues it's not our fault but the fault of the Iraqis to fight back, a failure on the Iraqis' part to use the training and funds we've given them.
The Bush shell game continues. And remember, "a great many of the bad things that could have happened did not happen." I'm not sure what many of those things are but according to Rumsfeld those bad things include oil wells on fire. I sure am glad we had enough troops to make sure the oil wells stayed safe. Too bad the road from Baghdad airport didn't get the same attention.
New York Times reports,
Four car bombs that exploded within about 10 minutes of each other in Baghdad early today killed at least 17 people and wounded 68 others, an Interior Ministry official said. They were the second wave of near-simultaneous bombings in the capital in about 12 hours, bringing the death toll in that period to 35.Nothing to see here folks, move along, nothing to see here. Baghdad is no more dangrous than Houston, so move along folks.
So Thomas Friedman declares. Friedman then goes on to explain,
It is the fact that his vice president has made clear that he is not running for president after Mr. Bush's term expires in 2008. So Mr. Bush has no heir apparent. And that explains, in part, why his second term is drifting aimlessly, disconnected from the problems facing the country.Yeah, that's the problem. Never mind that it was Dick Cheney who pushed all those crazy policies in Bush's first term. Never mind that it was Cheney who pounded the table in order to get us into Iraq. Never mind that all of the trouble we're having in Iraq can be traced back to decisions made in Bush's first term. Never mind that the energy policy (or lack of one) Friedman criticizes is the very policy that Bush pushed in his first term and is the same policy Cheney put together in all those secret meetings.
I'm having trouble buying into the idea that George Bush & Co. aren't so beholden to special interests that they'd pursue policies that actually made sense for the long term. I'm also tired of people making excuses for George Bush. In the early days of his first term the excuse was that he had gotten a late start because of all those Democratic court challenges. After 9/11 there was the line that the economy was in doldrums because of 9/11. Then it was the obstructionist Democrats who were to blame. And now it is a VP who doesn't plan on running for President. I can't wait to see the next excuse they run out for George Bush's incompetence.
There’s more good news on the economic front. BBC NEWS reports, "Ford has issued its second profit warning of the year and announced 1,700 job cuts among white-collar staff in North America." This on the heels of GM's massive lay off announcement. Yep, the economy is just spinning along. And it's just not the heavy industries that are suffering.
Grocery chain Winn-Dixie announced it is cutting 22,000 jobs via store, distribution center, and production center closings. That means a lot of good paying trucking and factory jobs are going to disappear in a lot of southern towns. While part of Winn-Dixie's woes can be blamed on Wal-Mart's expansion, it is telling that the pie isn't big enough to support Winn-Dixie and Wal-Mart. As incomes shrink or remain stagnate consumers are looking for cheaper and cheaper prices. Unfortunately, the cheap prices available at Wal-Mart are the result of low wages so the spiral just gets deeper.
And, "The ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index fell to -10 in the week ending June 19 from -9 the previous week." That means the claims from the Bush Admin. that things are looking up aren't all that true--at least that's what people are thinking. According to the ABC News/Washington Post poll, "The number of consumers who had positive views of the national economy fell to 38 percent from 39 percent." .
It's just not consumers who are feeling glum about the economy. The New York-based Conference Board said its index of leading indicators fell to 114.1 in May. The Conference Board reported that only one of the ten indicators included in the index showed an increase in May. That one was stock prices. Since January the index of leading indicators has been falling. Think about that, for the first five months of the year, the leading indicators have been falling yet George Bush and his merry band keep telling us that things are just fine and dandy. Unfortunately the numbers don't support such a view.
