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.
