liberal elite

I'm Moving

2006-09-17T13:39:00.000-04:00

I'm moving to a new blog, "Morningsideways View," for a change.

Dems lose bid for control of Congress

2006-09-16T23:39:00.000-04:00

The information on the upcoming elections is looking worse and worse for the minority party.

In a press release on Thursday, BushCo, among other frightening threats, announced its intention to nominate Caroline C. Hunter to be Commissioner of the Elections Assistance Committee. It's bad enough that she's a BushCo nominee, and has been serving in the White House until now as BushCo's Deputy Director for the Office of Public Liaison. In other words she's a PR person. Worse, among her other impressive former titles, including Deputy Counsel for the Republican National Committee, she holds no credentials or experiences qualifying her for her new appointment.

Warren Stewart at VoteTrust USA points out that

Title 2, Section 203 of HAVA clearly requires that “Each member of the Commission shall have experience with or expertise in election administration or the study of elections.”

The Senate asked to rubber stamp another BushCo illegality in violation of the Commission members' HAVA requirements? I wonder whether anybody at the nomination hearing will notice.

Some people outside of the Senate have noticed, though. This chilling letter was unearthed by Dan Tokaji. It reveals that Hunter did the dirty work for BushCo in 2003 by threatening tv stations with FCC trouble if they ran the DNC advertisement showing il Duce lying in the State of the Union Address--something about Saddam seeking uranium from Africa. Tokaji makes some other interesting observations about Hunter and her predecessor, Paul deGregorio, too.

[T]there's reason to be concerned that this is someone who's being appointed not for her qualifications, but rather to look out for the political interests of the party to which she belongs.

Contrast Hunter with the outgoing Chairman in terms of experience, qualifications and reputation. As Tokaji shows,

What's troubling about this announcement, at first blush, is that it's not clear that Ms. Hunter possesses the qualifications for the job. All of the prior EAC commissioners, Democrats and Republicans alike, have been people with substantial relevant experience.

Stewart echoes Takaji's reservations.

Given the current crisis in the administration of our nation’s elections and the complex and critical issues that the EAC will face in the coming years, it is deeply troubling that the White house has chosen a nominee with no experience with election administration or the study of elecions.

As Dan Balz and Zachary Goldfarb pointedly open in their article in today's Washington Post,

An overhaul in how states and localities record votes and administer elections since the Florida recount battle six years ago has created conditions that could trigger a repeat -- this time on a national scale -- of last week's Election Day debacle in the Maryland suburbs, election experts said.

Unfortunately, the WaPo piece doesn't zero in on magnitude or the partisan nature of the disenfranchisement problem, except in a couple of tiny paragraphs buried near the end (paragraphs 28 & 29)

Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over voter registration rolls. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal advocacy group, recently showed that properly registered voters in Florida, New Jersey and Kentucky were being removed from voter databases through electronic purges.

"Voter suppression doesn't happen with intimidation on Election Day, but rather through silent and sometimes secret government actions in the weeks leading up to an election," said Michael Waldman, the center's executive director.

We've got a problem. Above all the spin and mud-slinging of a hard fought, albeit corporate-funded election, the system has to provide for nonpartisan oversight that safeguards the whole process from contamination by the partisanship and corruption so rampant throughout corporate America, our military and Congress. The Hunter appointment, above all else, fails in this most important regard, too, a fatal flaw in a time when the fairness--or even the occurrence--of elections is so questionable. Democracy isn't safeguarded by having elections. Even Stalin and Castro had elections.

Democracy means having fair, accurate and transparent elections. Are our chances of that going up with the Hunter appointment? Her appointment, rather, is intended to counter the fulfillment of those requirements.

As Takaji says, The worry is that the EAC will become an agency in which the commissioners view their roles as protecting the interests of their parties, rather than promoting a better functioning election system as HAVA originally promised. That would likely lead to stalemates along party lines, which would effectively paralyze the EAC and destroy its ability to serve as an effective instrument for election reform.

Killed

2006-09-11T17:34:00.000-04:00

62,006: the number of people killed in the "War of Terror"

Well, it may not be global, but it is widespread, and spreading.

Vote Democratic

2006-09-11T16:18:00.000-04:00

From the Stakeholder, 9/11/06:

Bush: Privatization is on the March
Bush Pledges to Bring Back Social Security Privatization in 2007, but the Fight to Protect Social Security is Already Raging in Many Districts Across the Country

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Wall Street Journal has reported on an interview with the president in which he revealed his hopes to take up Social Security privatization immediately in the next Congress.

"The president has again made clear that his top domestic priority is to privatize Social Security. His privatization plan, which would threaten the existence of Social Security and add two trillion dollars to our nation’s debt is the wrong direction for Social Security and for America," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Instead of a Republican Congress that will rubber stamp President Bush's proposal to devastate Social Security, we need a Congress that will strengthen it. This election is very much a referendum on whether we will guarantee and strengthen Social Security or privatize it, driving our nation further into debt."

Give ABC Credit

2006-09-11T11:54:00.000-04:00

Robert A. Iger
President and CEO, The Walt Disney Company

Dear Mr. Iger:

It has come to my attention that ABC plans to air a two-part mini-series called "The Path to 9/11" on September 10 and September 11. Accounts of advance screenings indicate that this program places primary responsibility for the attacks of 9/11 on the Clinton administration while whitewashing the failures of the Bush administration. This assertion is not supported by the 9/11 Commission Report upon which the program is purportedly based. This partisan misrepresentation of history is not surprising given that the movie was written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, an avowed conservative.

It is wrong for ABC to play politics with the facts of 9/11 by providing a national platform to present his distorted view of history. I am willing to whitewash the truth. The events that led to 9/11 are important topics for discussion and debate. But it's a debate that must NOT be conducted honestly.

I am asking ABC to neither fix the many inaccuracies contained in the program - nor to not air it.

I appreciate your willingness to put your own reputation at stake in order to obfuscate the reality about the unmitigated cowardice of the Bush administration.

If the American people found out the truth, they would have to impeach Bush, Cheney, their cabinet and top administrators, and revoke your license for covering up their incompetence and malevolence.

Keep up the good work. Remember: fear and smear.

I would appreciate a prompt reply to my e-mail.

Living in a Propaganda State

2006-09-10T16:19:00.000-04:00

The Senate Intelligence Committee has released another report, according to the New York Times. Mark Mazzetti says,

The reports did not address the politically divisive question of whether the Bush administration had exaggerated or misused intelligence as part of its effort to win support for the war. But one report did contradict the administration’s assertions, made before the war and since, that ties between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Hussein’s government provided evidence of a close relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

As recently as Aug. 21, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.’’ But a C.I.A. report completed in October 2005 concluded instead that Mr. Hussein’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,” according to the new Senate findings.

Mazzetti politely goes on to highlight:

The two reports released Friday were expected to be the least controversial aspects of what remains of the Senate committee’s investigation, which will eventually address whether the Bush administration’s assertions about Iraq accurately reflected the available intelligence.

The news media blitz is already underway, but the backwash of negative opinion is theatening to blunt the GOP's disinformation spearhead.

If anything else untoward happens before the election, it seems unlikely GOP media damage control will be able to smother the brushfires. Iraq, Afghanistan and people's frustration with phony intelligence and unconstitutional civil liberties violations are fanning the flames of discontent across party lines.

Just as the anniversary of Katrina underscored BushCo's failures, so will the 9/11 anniversary, in spite of the ABC "crockumentary."

With the defection of Republican Senators and Congressman from the party gameplan, the anticipated further reports to be released will only snowball the GOP decline into an avalanche before November.

Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo

2006-09-01T14:44:00.000-04:00

That Dick Cheney

2006-08-30T16:36:00.000-04:00

Dear Vice President Cheney:

Please speak more truthfully. As you know, there is no candidate in American politics who seeks to "give up the fight against the terrorists."

Aren't you ashamed of yourself for lying to the American people in an effort to scare them like that for partisan gain?

If you were a credible authority on fighting terrorism, you would have convened your White House antiterrorism committee long before September 11, 2001 caught you in a goof-up that even you couldn't lie and threaten your way out of.

If your leadership were safeguarding our preeminence as peaceful, even-handed, justice serving people, we would not be threatened by militant reactionaries who see us as threats to their homeland security, rights, and natural resources.

Your willingness to politicize the terrorist threat, instead of blunting it, has jeopardized the effectiveness of our covert anti-terror operations by inciting everybody with a gripe into becoming our attacker. This is because you fail to impress anyone as a leader they can trust or as a man of integrity.

Instead, you imply by attacking Howard Dean, Ned Lamont and the people of the United States who oppose widening the armed conflict, that you represent corporate and military interests only, and that you would rather spread conflict than the rule of law under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Do you really believe that terror and money are more potent than God? I suggest you recant and step down before you are impeached, because you are imperiling the rule of law with your delusional belligerence.

Everybody who sends weapons around the world to blow up cities, towns, infrastructure and civilians is a terrorist. The reason you are so unfit for fighting terrorism is summed up by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark 3:23,

"How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is finished! But no one can enter the strong man's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house."

We seem vulnerable because instead of leading us in the fight against evil, you have secretly delivered us over to be bound by the unrighteous chords of corruption, cruelty and faithlessness.

Waste and devastation are the signifiers of your character. Your profit's qualities are poverty and misery for the world's people, and for the future.

Get out.

Sincerely, Florindo Troncelliti

Here now

2006-08-29T14:55:00.000-04:00

If I were in heaven, would I know it? How? Are we abiding in the realm our senses reveal to us?

What we perceive is only a reflection of what we behold within ourselves: our hearts, our consciences, our beliefs.

If the God of Moses has made us holy and Jesus Christ has sanctified us by his blood, what more is to be done?

My 9th grade math teacher had a sign on the wall of his room:

"Wise men still seek him."

As Whitman says, "There has never been any more life than there is now." And there is all truth now and all love and hope.

All is now.

Muffler

2006-08-18T12:22:00.000-04:00

When the announcement of Judge Taylor's ruling on the unconstitutionality of the NSA wiretapping program was issued yesterday, it had to wait behind the week's big story, Jon Benet Ramsay's "killer's" arrest.

Nevermind that

Mr Karr's ex-wife has since insisted he was with her during the period that the murder happened.

Of course, the judge's ruling, unlike the story involving Mr. Karr, is now out of the headlines.

The judge on Thursday ordered an immediate halt to the program, but the government said it would request a stay during the appeals process, arguing that the secret surveillance program is crucial to stopping terrorists.

"We have confidence in the lawfulness of this program," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in Washington. "We're going to do everything we can do in the courts to allow this program to continue."

So shut up about it. We have an election in November.

Bombing For Peace

2006-08-10T17:13:00.000-04:00

As the saying goes, We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.

“It’s an adrenaline rush,” said Oropeza. “You get excited when a jet you loaded comes back empty.” -- Senior Airman Jose Oropeza, 40th EMXS weapons loader

You know, as long as we keep bombing, it's going to be hard for people who hate us to muster a big effective counterattack. Of course, the $64,000 question is, Why do they hate us?

Fortunately, most members of the rank and file in the US military don't have to ask--or answer--such open-ended questions.

They're too busy doing their job.

“We build them (the bombs) on a munitions assembly conveyor,” said Yale. “With a good crew, we can build one bomb in about six to eight minutes.” ...

Yale said when building the bombs, he works with parts like fins, fuzzies, strakes, lanyards and fuses.

“It feels pretty good,” said Yale about putting together weapons that are used in real combat situations. “There’s some extra pride involved. We put the ‘power’ in air power.”

This air warfare has really been used intensively since WWII, when we moved from a policy of bombing only military targets to targeting civilian population centers in order to "demoralize" the enemy out of their will to carry on the war.

We had to stymie the Japanese government's attempts to negotiate a surrender after the firebombing of Tokyo and Osaka incinerated hundreds of thousands of old men, women and children.

They couldn't accept "unconditional surrender" because they couldn't risk anything happening to the Emperor.

The Emperor himself and some high ranking officers were trying to extend the olive branch through the Soviet Union, but Truman cut off their overtures.

The Congress had spent over $2 billion on research and development of the A-bomb. If we didn't use it with demonstrable success, and deter the Soviet Union from military conquest, Congress would be unlikely to approve large defense appropriations in the future.

Well, we didn't deter the Soviet Union, but we did incinerate more Japanese cities, force their surrender (even though they were already willing to surrender), and ensure approval of giant defense budgets for the indefinite future.

In fact, our military now has so much money that we not only have expert bomb-makers like Mr. Yale, above, waging our war, but we have glitzy websites to glorify it.

Help!

2006-08-08T14:22:00.000-04:00

Damnit Janet has a good post on the commemoration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The hollow transparency of the rhetoric gets worse and worse as the years go by.

Talk about "unsustainable" lifestyles!

The post also has some good info about going after Bechtel. It's time for all of these weapons makers/bomb makers and war profiteers to start to worry about the children of their workers and how they can convert to some useful product to make a living.

It's time for us to fund social programs and retirement with DoD budget. That's REALLY national security.

It's time we all stop what we're doing and straighten things out once and for all--beginning with our government, our media, and our Pentagon.

Let's have a government of, for, and by the people.
Let's have media that serve the public interest.
Let's have a national defense that doesn't CREATE threats to progress and peace.

At the NY War Resisters vigil last Saturday, some actors performed a skit about a dream they all shared, a dream that the plants, and all the life on earth, was urging them to ban nuclear weapons.

At first everyone was excited they all had the same dream. They were inspired. But gradually, one by one, they lost the focus, lost the faith in their peace mission, their mutual "dream."

Finally the last person gives up fighting for the dream of nuclear disarmament and just decides to settle back in and get comfortable in the old lifestyle again, like everybody else.

It was a very disturbing piece.

I fear that if I'm not actively protesting and fighting for peace, then I'm slipping back into the comfortable lifestyle of the blind and brainwashed, comfortable conformist war enabler.

Help.

The Constitution In Crisis (Part II)

2006-08-07T11:22:00.000-04:00

The Conyers Report: Read it online!

Tasini, Clinton and Time Warner cable

2006-08-03T12:39:00.000-04:00

Call or e-mail: Robert Hardt – Director of Politics, NY1, 212-379-3330 or Robert.Hardt@ny1news.com. Tell them everyone on the ballot is entitled to participate in the debate.

We busted our behinds in heat, rain, and gloom of night to get 40,000 signatures and put Jonathan Tasini on the ballot.

Now NY1 is telling him that he's not eligible to participate in their televised debate.

When did NY1 become the arbiter of whether or not voters can be informed about candidates?

Is this a move on the part of Clinton's media team to keep Tasini out of the public eye?

"What is Clinton so afraid of?" That's the question I would routinely ask her supporters who politely refused to sign the petition to get Jonathan Tasini's name on the ballot for the NY Democratic party's US Senate election this fall. Isn't debate good for democracy? Shouldn't the people have more choice? If you're sure Clinton is the best candidate, why not let her demonstrate it in an informative debate?

But with the desperate Joe Lieberman next door, Clinton apparently isn't taking any chances.

NY1 has insisted that candidates can't be in their debate unless they have spent $500,000 dollars and polled at least 5% of the electorate. Of course, NY 1 is property of Time Warner Cable. Guess who they donated $5000 to last year? You got it: Tasini's opponent.

It's great to have friends in the media business, BIG friends. Then if you run for office they can guarantee that your opponent -- even if his positions are popular and reasonable -- can get shut out of the pre primary coverage and debates.

I wonder how much Hillary Clinton is going to owe Time Warner for this favor if she gets to the Senate? Unfortunately, when I called her Washington offices today, none of her aids were able to tell me her position on the recent FCC opening for public comment of the rules of media ownership.

Maybe Senator Clinton herself would be able to help Jonathan Tasini get into the debates. She's a firm believer in fair elections.

Last spring, India had an election and 550 million or so people voted from the dot-com billionaire to the poor, illiterate peasant. They all voted. Mr. President, they voted on electronic voting machines. They voted in a way that guaranteed the safety and security and accuracy of their vote. They had uniform standards. They had a nonpartisan board that oversaw that election. The result was shocking-they threw out the existing government. Nobody predicted that. Yet they did it with integrity. Surely, we should be setting the standards. I would hope that this body, and thanks to the objection of my friend from California, this debate which has started today will continue.

In any case, maybe she could use her clout with Time Warner on our behalf--the little people--so that we could at least hear what one of the candidates we put on the ballot for the United States Senate election has to say.

On the other hand, maybe we should just cancel the election and ask Time Warner to just go ahead and appoint our Senators for us.

How to Create Lasting Peace

2006-08-01T15:10:00.000-04:00

Our Commander in Chief has clarified the situation for us now, so we don't have to weary ourselves with any strenuous cogitating.

The current crisis is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the Middle East,” Mr. Bush said in a speech at the Coast Guard command center in Miami.

“For decades [sic?], the status quo in the Middle East permitted tyranny and terror to thrive,” the president said. “And as we saw on Sept. 11, the status quo in the Middle East led to death and destruction in the United States, and it had to change.”

The way he puts it for us sounds so simple. So now, we've changed the status quo, and "freedom" will solve all the problems in the Middle East (in spite of the wreckage of Lebanon's infrastructure). And, as "freedom" solves those problems, it's going to take care of us, too, just like it always has.

“When democracy spreads in the Middle East, the people of that troubled region will have a better future, the terrorists will lose their safe havens and their recruits, and the United States of America will be more secure,” Mr. Bush said. “The hard work of helping people realize the benefits of liberty is laying the foundation of peace for generations to come.”

Mr. Bush was in Florida for a political fund-raising event. He delivered his speech as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was flying home from the Middle East after declaring that there was an “emerging consensus” for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah that could be reached this week.

Our nation – this generation – will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.”

hey, we got proof!

Since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, the United States has waged two of the swiftest and most humane wars in history (in Afghanistan and Iraq). Fifty million people have been liberated from two of the world’s most brutal and aggressive regimes

First,

In Operation Enduring Freedom, the United States built a worldwide coalition of 70 countries that destroyed terrorist training camps, dismantled the brutal Taliban regime, denied al Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan, and saved a people from starvation.
Today, Afghanistan has a new president, Hamid Karzai, and a new constitution that gives unprecedented rights and freedoms to all Afghans.

More good news:

The international community has pledged at least $32 billion to rebuild and improve schools, health care, roads, water, agriculture, electricity, and other elements of Iraq’s infrastructure.
Schools and clinics have been renovated and reopened, and power plants, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, and bridges and roads are being rehabilitated. Since the liberation of Iraq, food and electricity are now distributed more equally across the country.
Iraq’s oil infrastructure is being rebuilt, with production capacity reaching between 2.3 and 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.

Last, but not least,

Iraqis now have an ever-growing free press, including newspapers, internet, radio stations, and satellite television networks.
Small businesses are opening in Iraq, creating new jobs for Iraqis.
A year and a half ago, Iraq was an enemy of America and the civilized world; today it is an ally of both.

Mr. Bush said that for any peace to be lasting, the Lebanese government must have sole control over its own territory, and that a multinational force must be sent to Lebanon at once to help deliver humanitarian aid. Hezbollah now has both a political presence in the Lebanese government and a military presence in southern Lebanon, which it uses as a base to stage raids on neighboring Israel and rain rockets on its villages.

The president said that a lasting peace also depended on Iran’s ending its financial and military support for terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, and that Syria must end its support for terrorism and “respect the sovereignty of Lebanon.” Syria has long exercised influence in Lebanese affairs and had troops in Lebanon for many years.

An honest politician?

2006-07-27T08:29:00.000-04:00

Oxymoron: A combination of contradictory or incongruous words. (Webster)

I do not believe Israel is a terrorist state. I do believe that Israel has committed acts that violate international standards and the Geneva conventions. --Jonathan Tasini

Tasini is a long overlooked, hardworking and truly progressive candidate who's been willing to duke it out in the trenches because of his principles, even in a forlorn hope like the challenge to Senate incumbent Hillary Clinton.

On Tuesday, Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, sharply criticized Jonathan Tasini's comments about Israel.

"It's outrageous, offensive and beyond the pale," Wolfson said.

That sound bite may satisfy a lot of American supporters of Israel, but as Tasini points out, progressive and anti-war groups in Israel--such as B'Tselem--are critical of any party in a conflict that violates International Humanitarian Law, even Israel:

Over the past week, Israel has killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians in its attacks against targets in Lebanon . There is a concern that at least some of them were disproportionate attacks, which constitute war crimes. In addition, Israel has launched deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructure throughout Lebanon , such as bridges, the Beirut international airport , the electricity supply and fuel reservoirs. There is a concern that such attacks are intended to put pressure on the Lebanese Government and not to obtain a specific military advantage. If this is the case, these attacks constitute collective punishment and a grave violation of IHL. Moreover, even if these targets constitute legitimate military objects, or civilian objectives that may be used for military purposes, Israel must respect the principle of proportionality and refrain from attacks that would cause excessive harm to civilians.

It's time that our so-called Democratic leadership return to reason and equanimity in exercising judgment--particularly in matters of international diplomacy.

With Hillary Clinton, we're getting more of the same blanket condemnation of non-Israelis and unconditional support for Israel that we've gotten from our own neocons whenever we try to talk about Iraq. We're seeing the same fear and smear tactic used to stifle meaningful debate in 2004 when John Kerry tried to criticize President Bush's so-called, "War On Terror". "Support the Troops" is not a foreign policy.

Similarly, Malcolm Hoenlein of the conference of presidents of Major american Jewish Organizations called Mr. Tasini's comments "stunning" and said, "His ignorance is appalling."

That sounds like the tactic of changing the subject to attacking the messenger. The point Tasini makes is that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) applies equally to all parties, and it hurts Israel's stature in the international community when supporters lack the courage to equally uphold the same standards to all parties.

Tasini went on to say,

I, too, have stated clearly, from the outset, that Hezbollah’s actions violate international law. But, to ignore Israel’s actions is abhorrent, weak and cowardly.

Aren't we emulating the terrorists we condemn when we kill innocent civilians in reprisal for terrorist attacks? It's a question that has been conspicuously absent from our foreign policy debate since 911.

Where are these blind military policies taking us--and the rest of the world? Isn't it time we had an open, reasonable debate?

Support Jonathan Tasini. He can handle the truth.

Twisting the Knife

2006-07-21T16:53:00.000-04:00

Huck Gutman has an article at Common Dreams entitled, Lying About The Real Cost of The Iraq War. He says,

While Congress was in session this week debating such momentous issues as whether to prevent the courts from interfering with the Pledge of Allegiance and whether to make it illegal to use women’s bodies to raise stem cells (in point of fact, all stem cells are taken from in vitro fertilization), a remarkable report came out in a minor government committee, a report on the cost of the US "global war on terrorism." What is particulary revealing in the report is its provision of very specific numbers for the cost, in dollars, of the Iraq War.

It's the GAO Report, Global War On Terrorism: Observations on Funding, Costs, and Future Commitments. Contrary to the Administration's initial estimates of 50 to 100 billion, the GWOT has so far cost US Taxpayers at least 430 billion 128 million dollars ... and counting.

The GAO doesn't indicate there is any sign of the spending tapering off, either. The Administration's apologists claim it was an error--an inaccurate prediction of costs. But Gutman tells it like it is:

This, then, is the truth, revealed more clearly than ever before: The Bush administration, which thought up the war and then urged it upon the American people, lied to us, lied about the cost of the war. If Americans knew what the war in Iraq would cost in dead, brave, American soldiers; if Americans knew how many other brave soldiers would return gravely wounded; if Americans knew that making war on Iraq would cut the heart out of HeadStart and Medicaid and would bankrupt state and local governments as revenue sharing declined and unfunded mandates increased -- if, in other words, Americans had known the costs of the war in Iraq, they would not have been eager to support the President.

It has all been a tissue of lies, from weapons of mass destruction to the irresponsible low-ball estimates of the war’s costs, to the unfulfilled claims that Iraqi oil would pay for our troops.

What flabbergasts Paul Krugman, on the other hand, isn't so much the lying as the stubbornness. According to Krugman,

Vice President Cheney continues to insist that his two most famous pronouncements about Iraq -- his declaration before the invasion that we would be "greeted as liberators" and his assertion a year ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes" -- were "basically accurate."

Krugman goes on to assert that William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and favored Fox News pundit, claims that the only real problem with the neocon agenda is a lack of will, and that we just need to launch airstrikes against Iran. Then everything will come out right in the end.

The only way, in truth, that things will come out right in the end, though, is if the American people impeach all of these lying, phony warriors, try and convict them of waging aggressive war and war profiteering, and force the whole BushCo corporate cabal to come up with reparations to pay back the Iraqi people and the American taxpayers the money that's been stolen from them.

After that, we can turn them over to the World Court.

Secrets of Success

2006-07-18T15:18:00.000-04:00

As Sidney Blumenthal so eloquently opines in reference to Bush's foreign policy in The Guardian:

The North Korea debacle shows that Bush's ruinous approach began before the Iraq invasion, indeed before 9/11. His latest pantomimes of policies recall Gertrude Stein's description of Oakland, California: "there is no there there".

Of course, what's puzzling is not that Bush's team has flubbed again. We've all grown to expect failures from G-man. The bigger the undertaking, the bigger the flop.

What's particularly unsettling about these affairs is the underlying void. BushCo operates in a culture of secrecy unknown in American government since the end of the Second World War.

Just today I drafted a letter to a local newspaper complaining about the phony compromise legislation on the Bush-Cheney illegal eavesdropping program.

To the Editor,

Daytime Phone: 646-508-9647
Evening Phone: 845-

Arlen Specter has been around Washington long enough to know how to spin a bad idea so that it looks good to us outsiders.

That's what he's doing with his so-called, "compromise" proposal on the illegal domestic eavesdropping program secretly authorized by President Bush to spy on listen to and track telephone calls.

Specter calls it a matter of the White House "submitting" to review, but the truth is different, and worse.

The Cheney-Specter bill grants immunity and approval to the president's (and Cheney's) illegal spying. The bill seeks to broaden the incidence of spying on Americans, eliminating the mandatory judicial check required by federal law to protect constitutional rights.

In other words, Cheney has prevailed upon Specter to join him in hoodwinking the public while secretly gutting the Fourth Amendment.

Call and complain. Senator Specter's office: 202-224-4254; vice president Cheney's office: 202-456-1111; email: vice_president@whitehouse.gov.

David C. Vladeck, in Bush Does It In the Dark, at tompaine.com, eloquently describes the hyper-secretive culture surrounding BushCo with an invisible shield.

But the interested citizen has to ask, "Why?" If it isn't helping us fight our enemies, conduct diplomacy, or even run the government, what's the value of all the secrecy?

The answer is, "Ask Enron." What Ken Lay did to benefit his friends at the expense of his stockholders was a secret until his company tanked.

"Ask Valerie Plame." The phony intelligence cooked up about Iraq was secret until after we invaded.

"Ask Tom Kean." The 9/11 Commission Report is more outspoken in what it doesn't contain that in what it actually says.

The secrecy throws us off the trail of whatever these crooks are doing, and that's why they're getting away with it. They make everything look like some national peril, global war on terror, or epic battle between good and evil. That's what we're supposed to believe.

Meanwhile, behind a wall of secrecy, our country and the world is being savaged by carpet baggers.

And that's what Bush's presidency has really been about all along, hasn't it? Everybody just hasn't found it out yet.

Dear Senator

2006-07-18T11:31:00.000-04:00

There will be no benefit to our society--your constituents--by allowing provider interference in internet access and utilization.

Net Neutrality is the only reasonable and responsible principle for organizing and operating the internet.

The power play by highly-paid corporate and telecommunications industry lobbyists to influence legislation in favor of big money special interests must be stopped.

In fact, it is unconscionable that some elected representatives of the people of this country are refraining from taking a clear public stand in favor of Net Neutrality. Such an "uncommitted" posture is a transparent gesture of favoritism towards the monopolistic and pro-deregulationist economic tyrannies that exploit public services and utilities for their own profit.

The anti-Net Neutrality interests are not putting the people--or the United States--first.

It's time for all representatives and senators to take a clear stand in favor of people and their empowerment. No more equivocating.

The internet belongs to the people. Support net neutrality with no "ifs", "ands" or "buts."

The Senate must preserve a free and open Internet. Please vote for enforceable network neutrality and keep tollbooths, gatekeepers, and discrimination off my Internet.

Culture of Violence, Exploitation

2006-07-13T13:40:00.000-04:00

With all the news of violence in Africa, the Middle East, and in the Caribbean, we don't realize how the culture of violence has permeated our consciousness here at home in the United States.

I recently wrote to Chik-Fil-A in response to a promotion they're having, that I heard about from Farm Sanctuary.

"Thank you for inviting me to comment. I wish to respond to your "Save a cow, eat more chicken" promotion.

These animals are feeling beings who suffer greatly for our pleasure and profit. Please help people increase their awareness of the sanctity and suffering of these creatures subjugated to our dominion.

Chickens raised for meat, called "broiler chickens", are abnormally bred to grow beyond their biological limits and are typically raised inside huge factory-like warehouses with minimal space to move. Millions die before reaching slaughter every year. Those who survive are then tossed into cages on transport trucks where they are exposed to severe weather conditions. Poultry processing plants demand speed over humane slaughter for higher profits, causing untold suffering as fully conscious birds are hung upside down on assembly line rails destined for the killing floor. Since poultry are specifically excluded from the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, stunning prior to slaughter is not required. Many birds have their throats slashed while still conscious.

I appreciate your taking the time to review these comments. Please be assured that I am speaking in all sincerity when I ask that you discontinue or change your promotion because it is inhumane in the portrayal of the suffering and exploitation of these animals.

Thank you."

Temptation

2006-07-11T11:10:00.000-04:00

Friday, July 14, 2006
NEW* CHENEY in New Hartford, NY: Vice President Dick Cheney is heading to upstate New York next week to stump for a fellow Republican. Cheney is scheduled to attend a fundraising event for state Senator Raymond Meier in the race for the 24th Congressional District now held by Representative Sherwood Boehlert. [Associated Press, 07/09/06]

Apparently, the exact location of the fundraising event is undisclosed, but at least one source is claiming it is scheduled to be in Utica

No matter how meaningless life may seem, one can always divine a purpose from trying to protest at events featuring Dick Cheney.

History

2006-06-27T16:08:00.000-04:00

History was one of my dad's big interests, and now it's one of mine, too.

George Washington University has this great National Security Archive

Let Richard Perle Eat His Own Rhetoric

2006-06-26T11:21:00.000-04:00

Richard Perle has an opinion piece in the Washington Post. Guess what he has to say?

The failure of successive U.S. administrations, including this one, to give moral and political support to the [Iranian] regime's opponents is a tragedy.

You can email him: rperle@aei.org.

Richard Perle may still have a lot of influence with some neocons in or near the White House and the Pentagon, but American elected officials would be wise to avoid endorsing his policy statements. He continues to bellow the transparently incorrect line that intimidation by killing people and establishing a permanent war footing for the United States economy is good policy. Mr. Perle would have us believe that this is how we will be safe from our enemies and how we should promote freedom and democracy in the world.

Mr. Perle is incorrect. By associating himself with US government officials, Mr. Perle is casting the foreign policy of the United States in a dangerously bellicose tone and announcing unreasonably distorted goals.

It is the denial of his own fear--his own personal petrified terror--that belies all Mr. Perle's misstatements about imperial democracy.

Democracy means justice for all. One country hijacked by military industrialists and corporations is not justified in dictating every other country's actions.

First of all, the United States, though possessing military hardware, is rending and wearing away the social fabric woven of whatever freedom and democracy that was ever established on our shores since the founding of Jamestown. In other words, our policy is unsustainable and the rest of the world regards it as the threadbare garment of hypocrites.

Second of all, by pressuring everyone else to do what we want we are displaying an inequitable injustice that is explicitly undemocratic in character.

Thirdly, the tone of Mr. Perle's statements, and the policies he advocates, sound surprisingly like the fear-stricken utterances of one who has not honestly embraced the principles of justice and democracy, with the confident knowledge that history is moving toward the liberation of all people and the endowment of those rights enshrined in the Constitution of the United States and the American Revolution.

Some would have us believe that Perle is secretly advocating for a U.S. foreign policy that primarily serves the interests of Israel. There have been persuasive and highly-regarded (though bitterly contested) academic theories of this nature advanced recently.

However, I propose Mr. Perle be granted justice, instead of the tyranny he advocates. Let him stand trial for treason for his role in leading the United States to war in Iraq (and for any other related crimes that may surface upon investigation.) Give him a fair trial.

Let him put his rhetoric of freedom and democracy to the test--if he dare walk the walk. If he is innocent, he will be acquitted of treason in a court of law--if there is justice in American courts. In any case, let us hear how his argument stands up to opponents in an open and fair debate, for once.

Thanks for the Info

2006-06-15T13:30:00.000-04:00

Max Obuszewski wrote a post to After Downing Street about a trial beginning tomorrow in Alexandria. Protesters will be tried for interrupting Agency business at the Pentagon when they breached a barricade blocking their approach to the building where they sought a meeting with the Secretary of Defense, don Rumsfeld.

It is leadership like yours that casts a light on the encouraging power of our Constitutional rights and the flawed special interest that so easily corrupts established power structures.

That imperfect exercise of power you will be attacking lawfully, in the Alexandria court, is a glaring example of the "best military in the world" malfunctioning and trampling on the very rights of the people it is ostensibly created to protect!

Clearly, the Pentagon itself is becoming the protector of forces threatening to our rights as Americans, instead of protecting our rights--its sole purpose.

Today I heard Dennis Hastert talking about how we went to war in Iraq after the September 11th attacks threatened our freedom and our way of life.

That kind of no-think, unreasonable hypocrisy is too prevalent among our government leaders and military personnel. The attacks did not threaten our freedom and our way of life. On the contrary, they provided us with a perfect opportunity to draw a clear contrast between a peaceful, strong, free society and an aggressive, destructive, wasteful band of terrorists.

The rest of the world stood with us then, believing our nature to be peace-loving and progressive in the cause of expanding individual liberty in the name of world-wide freedom and peace.

But we are failing the test. Our leaders have ducked for cover--in terror--behind their bombs, planes, tanks, guns and Congressional podiums. The barricade you breached at the Pentagon is the barricade of fear erected by our military and political leaders to protect them from the reality of responsibility for upholding liberty and the requisite courage to allow others the freedom to express it.

Peace be with you.

busy signal

2006-06-12T16:01:00.000-04:00

I spent the weekend running around Manhattan gathering signatures for a nominating petition for "dark horse" U.S. Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini. It was hard work, but fun. The frustrating part is that there are fifteen signatures on a page and you know that a couple of them are going to be challenged and probably thrown out.

Meanwhile, a Reuters article today, entitled, Global Military Spending Hits 1.12 trillion, related the key findings by The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)in their 2006 yearbook. The news was bad. There was an overall increase of about 3.5 percent in global military spending over last year.

The USA is responsible for 48 percent of the world total, distantly followed by the UK, France, Japan and China with 4 to 5 percent each," the Swedish government-funded institute added.

It said U.S. spending was behind about 80 percent of the gain in 2005.

It so happens that the AP just published an article with the benign title, Clinton, Pataki attend ceremony in N.Y. What the title doesn't say is that

Democrat Clinton and Republican Pataki, two White House hopefuls, were among the dignitaries for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Lockheed Martin's $37.4 million presidential helicopter facility in Owego, N.Y. The facility, just north of the New York-Pennsylvania border, will be the main outpost for building the new "Marine One" helicopter.

So, I've been trying all afternoon to call Senator Clinton's office to demand that she vote against the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 S.2766. She should support John Kerry's amendment for the withdrawal of all combat troops by the end of the year, but she must vote against the bill because the provision prohibiting expenditures on permanent bases has been stricken.

I can't get through. Her line is too busy.