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March 31, 2005

Bush Got What He Wanted, Not What He Needed

What you see is what we asked for. The New York Times offers some insight into the Intelligence Report issued today on the WMD intel used to justify the Iraq War.

It found no evidence that intelligence had been politically twisted to suit preconceptions about Iraq's unconventional weapons programs, and made no formal judgments about how top policy makers had used that intelligence to justify war. Yet in its own way, the presidential commission on intelligence left little doubt that President Bush and his top aides had gotten what they wanted, not what they needed, when they were told that Saddam Hussein had a threatening arsenal of illicit weapons.

"It is hard to deny the conclusion that intelligence analysts worked in an environment that did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom," the commission said. But that understated indictment is about the extent of the commission's effort to explain the responsibilities of the nation's highest officials for one of the worst intelligence failures of modern times.

So the latest and presumably the last official review of such questions leaves unresolved what may be the biggest question of all: Who was accountable, and will they ever be held to account for letting what amounted to mere assumptions "harden into presumptions," as Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of the commission, put it.

Will we ever know who killed J.R.? Don't count on the CIA or the DIA to tell you.

Posted by Steven at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)

RIP: Terri Schiavo

The New York Times offers a solumn editorial/obit of Terri Schiavo.

Posted by Steven at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

Terri's War

Is there a scarier place to live than in Florida right now? This is terrifying (are they, then, terrorists?).

Norm Olson, senior adviser to the Michigan militia and pastor of a strong right-to-life church in Wolverine, said Tuesday he had put together an unarmed coalition of state militias that were prepared to storm the Florida hospice where Terri Schiavo has been left to die, and take her to a safe house.

And then do what? Watch her die in private? She's got that already.

Olson said he needed only the OK from Schiavo's father, Robert Schindler, either directly or through his attorney David Gibbs, to put the plan, called "Operation Resurrection," into action on Sunday.

But Olson said Gibbs contacted the FBI instead of passing his message on to Schindler.

Olson said the FBI had been monitoring e-mails within militia groups and on Tuesday, March 29, sent an agent from Traverse City to his home in Alanson and other agents to militia leaders in the South to question them about the plan.

The FBI was unavailable for comment.

Olson said that last Thursday he phoned Gibbs' secretary with a message that he had organized 1,500 to 2,000 militia members from Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia and Michigan, who were ready to remove Schiavo from the hospice and take her in a convoy to a safe house.

Olson said he never was able to speak directly to the Schindlers or Gibbs.

"Gibbs probably told the Schindlers not to get the militia involved. That's why Schindler came out with statement that he did not want any civil disobedience. Now they're begging for someone to do something, but it's too late," Olson said.

Olson said the militias needed time to arrange for an ambulance, medical support staff and a safe house before the plan could be put into action.

"We would have overwhelmed the local law enforcement," Olson said, adding the militias would not have been armed.

Uh-huh. 2000 private militia, allegedly unarmed; local law enforcement, already established as determined to uphold the court order, and definitely armed. This would not have been confused with the annual July 4th parade and barbecue in the town square.

Olson said the other reason for the plan was to put Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, the brother of the U.S. president, on the spot.

"He would have had to send in state police or the National Guard to turn us away," Olson said. "None of us believe that he is helpless. He is the chief officer of the state and has the power of executive clemency. (Jeb) Bush was a liar when he said he couldn't do it. He knows his office has to represent the people. And judges have to know they are not infallible. All this was thwarted by Gibbs."

I like the bit about Bush being a liar. I don't know if there's any judges who consider themselves infallible.

He said the march to the hospice would have been similar to the massive March on Washington led by Martin Luther King in 1963.

What bullshit.

"We were just going to push people out of the way. It was the mood and the heartbeat of America," he said.

Yeah. Right. No risk of escalation here. This would have been a battlefront on Florida soil.

"In reality there are four branches of government in America, and we the people are the fourth. That's what our march was going to do: Show the American people that we were still in control."

"We the people are the final judges, not the black-robed demons. I do not believe that 70 percent of the American people thought it was wrong for government to get involved. They turned around when they believed Terri Schiavo's was a lost cause and wanted to be on the winning side."

OK, three points.
1. Nice comment on judges. That's the way to conduct a useful dialogue. Not.
2. Polls indicated 82% of Americans thought that the federal government should stay out of this affair. But, faith ("...I do not believe...") is a very powerful thing.
3. Um, you just said that people were the fourth branch of government -- so, should you be getting involved, or not? Just searching for the consistency here.

"America has lost hope because, where there's life there's hope, but it is the black-robed devils who are deciding who lives and dies."

"We should all err on the side of life, whether it's an unborn American or someone facing the end of life. The feeding tube is like an umbilical cord or premature babies in an ICU (intensive care unit).

Life, invariably, inevitably, comes with death. We know this. There's not many who are seeking to embrace this actively, but the incapacity of people merely to acknowledge this is exasperating. A "culture of life" without practical, pragmatic, sensible limits robs the dying of their remaining dignity, and that's a very bad tradeoff.

"The case of Terri Schiavo is tragic, macabre, dark and evil," Olson said.

The circus surrounding her final days certainly isn't helping improve matters.

I never could teach Joshua the most important lesson.

What's that?

Futility. That there's a time when you should just give up.

I maintain that someone in this sordid mess needs to recognize this.

I don't know the Schindlers personally and cannot honestly hold an opinion on the sort of people they are. But I do appreciate that they did not accept this appalling offer.

Posted by at 12:26 AM | Comments (1)

March 30, 2005

Viva El Pappa

Oops, I'm sorry. "El Pappa" means "The Potato" (without the 'e', sorry Mr. Quayle). I meant to say "El Papa," which means "The Pope." The potato is a vegetable, and the Pope is... well, hold on a minute.

According to this AP report (posted on Salon.com), the Pope is now being fed through a tube.

So, how long before thousands of Catholics and attendant nutcases march on the Vatican calling them murderers for allowing an ailing old man to proceed to his exist interview with his Boss?

Posted by at 07:45 AM | Comments (1)

March 29, 2005

Right To Torture ... er ... Lifers

Maybe the Schiavo pro-lifers have skeletons in their closets? Check out this set of quotes from a man who is holding vigil over Terri Schiavo, a scant month after he held Iraqis in buckets of water and electrocuted their nuts. These people make me sick, but they are the face of America overseas.

Posted by Steven at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2005

DeLay: Been There, Did That

Guess who also put a relative to death via feeding tube? DeLay let his injured, comatose father die without life-support in 1988, and now he's taking his personal guilt out on Michael Schiavo and his brain-dead wife Terri.

A family tragedy that unfolded in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal — without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the debate raging outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice.

The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family members keeping vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman — Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment, was DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay.

Then, freshly reelected to a third term in the House, the 41-year-old DeLay waited, all but helpless, for the verdict of doctors.

Today, as House Majority Leader, DeLay has teamed with his Senate counterpart, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), to champion political intervention in the Schiavo case. They pushed emergency legislation through Congress to shift the legal case from Florida state courts to the federal judiciary.

And DeLay is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo's husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls "an act of barbarism" in removing the tube.

In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old widowed mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew — we all knew — his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay.

When his father's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated," said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His bedside chart carried the instruction: "Do not resuscitate."

On Dec. 14, 1988, the DeLay patriarch "expired with his family in attendance."

Do you need any more proof that this sick bastard is a hypocrite? By his own "evolving" standards, he murdered his own father. Now he's washing the guilt off on another man whom he has never met and who did nothing to deserve this depraved treatment. "Follow the money," said 'Deep Throat'. We say, "follow the guilt."

Posted by Steven at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2005

Cynicism Buffet

From the NY Times:

Gov. Jeb Bush's last-minute intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, even after the president had ended his own effort to keep her alive, may have so far failed in a legal sense, but it has cemented the religious and social conservative credentials of a man whose political pedigree is huge and whose political future remains a subject of intense speculation.

Well, we're all glad that this burlesque show of candlelight vigils for the brain dead has helped Jeb's career. You almost wish some of this Left Behind bullshit were true. Anything to get these fucking people off the planet.

Posted by at 12:40 AM | Comments (1)

March 24, 2005

It's Great To Be The King

You just cannot do wrong in the driver's seat. No smack-down for CEOs who screw up. Golden parachutes abound. Catch up on the benefits of CEO-dom in this Washington Post piece.

High-profile meltdowns aside, it still pays to be the boss.

Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Carly Fiorina, recently muscled out of her job over lackluster performance, walked away with an exit package worth $42 million. Boeing Co.'s Harry C. Stonecipher, pushed out over an affair with a female employee, nonetheless is eligible for retirement benefits of about $600,000 per year. Franklin D. Raines bowed out under heavy pressure in December following accounting problems at Fannie Mae. But the firm says he is now owed $114,393 per month in pension benefits.

At many other corporations untouched by scandal, pay continues to climb whether performance is great, lousy or middling.

"Even though the escalation of pay has often been justified as necessary, when you look at the details, that is not the case, because much of the pay is not all that sensitive to performance," said Harvard Law School professor Lucian A. Bebchuk, author of the new book "Pay Without Performance."

"Our view is that pay is much less connected to performance than investors commonly recognize," he said.

Between 1993 and 2002, total compensation paid by all public companies to their top five executives was $260 billion, according to a study by Bebchuk and Cornell University professor Yaniv Grinstein.

From 1993 to 1997, executive pay amounted to 6 percent of total corporate profit, the study said. That number increased to 10 percent of aggregate corporate profit from 1998 to 2002. At companies whose shares are part of the Standard and Poor's 500-stock index, average chief executive pay rose from $3.7 million in 1993 to $10.3 million in 2002, a hike of 178 percent, the study said.

Posted by Steven at 05:25 PM | Comments (0)

More Ayatollah DeLay

DeLay's gone bonkers. Check out this little screed by Tom "The Hammer" DeLay.

"It is more than just Terri Schiavo. This is a critical issue for people in this position, and it is also a critical issue to fight that fight for life, whether it be euthanasia or abortion. I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, one thing God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo to elevate the visibility of what's going on in America. That Americans would be so barbaric as to pull a feeding tube out of a person that is lucid and starve them to death for two weeks. I mean, in America that's going to happen if we don't win this fight.

"And so it's bigger than any one of us, and we have to do everything that is in our power to save Terri Schiavo and anybody else that may be in this kind of position, and let me just finish with this:

"This is exactly the kind of issue that's going on in America, that attacks against the conservative moment, against me and against many others. The point is, the other side has figured out how to win and to defeat the conservative movement, and that is to go after people personally, charge them with frivolous charges, link up with all these do-gooder organizations funded by George Soros, and then get the national media on their side. That whole syndicate that they have going on right now is for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to destroy the conservative movement. It is to destroy conservative leaders, and not just in elected office, but leading. I mean, Ed Feulner, of the Heritage Foundation today was under attack in the National Journal. This is a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in. And you need to look at this, and what's going on and participate in fighting back.

"You know, one way they stopped churches from getting into politics was Lyndon Johnson, who passed a law that said you couldn't get in politics or you're going to lose your tax-exempt status, because they were all opposed to him when he was running for President. That law we're trying to repeal. It's very difficult to do that, but the point is, when they can knock out a leader, then no other leader will step forward for a while, because they don't want to go through the same thing. If they go after and get a pastor, then other pastors shrink from what they should be doing. It forces Christians back into the church. That's what's going on in America. The world is too bad and I'm going to get inside this building and I'm not going to play in the world. That's not what Christ asked us to do.

"And so they understand that. It is a political maneuver, and they are going to try to destroy the conservative movement, and we have to fight back, so please, this afternoon, each and every one of you, if you know a senator, give them a call. They'll say our bill can pass in the House. Tell them, okay, your bill is fine, but the House bill is better, and I want the House bill. Particularly if you know Democrats. Don't let them get off the hook by hiding behind one House and the other is adjourned. We can do anything we need to do to pass any bill that we need to pass."

Sure sounds like someone at the end of a very, very long cocaine overdose. Can this guy sound any more PARANOID?

I think it's hilarious when a conservative thug like "The Hammer" whines that his political agenda is being thwarted, and that worse, there's a conspiracy to destroy him. There is no conspiracy, just a general goal of all Progressives to check his unstopped power. And to whine about the same techniques used to destroy Bill Clinton's Presidency (turn about is NOT fair play to these bullies) is just pathetic.

Finally, to compare his situation to Terri Schiavo's is just disgusting. Perhaps if he were to suffer severe brain trauma and be put in a coma, I might feel some sympathy. But until then, Mr. DeLay, go fuck your awful self.

Posted by Steven at 03:44 PM | Comments (2)

Schiavo For Dummies

It's just another anti-abortion debate. Read Ed Kilgore's commentary on the Schiavo case to get a sense of what is really at stake, legally.

Posted by Steven at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

More and More Backscratching

Most. Corrupt. Administration. Ever. Shrub's burr-headed, burly bonehead from Oklahoma (a state regularly derided by Texas), Joe Allbaugh, has registered himself to lobby for ... wait for it ... KBR (the subsidiary of Halliburton that is ripping off the U.S. public in the Iraq War). Joe left Bush's White House after the election, and now can claim a contract renewal for his new (old?) masters in Halliburton.

You know, I wonder if the bunker Cheney hides in is just the basement of Halliburton in Dallas?

Joe Allbaugh, the Oklahoman known for his flat-top haircut and loyalty to President Bush, has a new client: Halliburton, the Houston-based company once led by Vice President Cheney.

Allbaugh, a close adviser to Bush during his Texas days, registered to lobby on behalf of Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), Halliburton's construction and engineering subsidiary. Allbaugh's wife and partner at the Allbaugh Company, Diane Allbaugh, is also listed on the registration, which was filed last week with the Senate Office of Public Records.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Halliburton said Allbaugh had not been commissioned to do any direct lobbying.

"KBR hired Joe Allbaugh as a consultant to provide strategy support for our Government and Infrastructure business," the statement read. "Mr. Allbaugh has not been tasked with any lobbying responsibilities."

But Allbaugh's lobbying disclosure form says the company will "educate the congressional and executive branch on defense, disaster relief and homeland security issues."

A spokesperson for the Allbaugh Co. said Allbaugh was traveling on vacation. The spokesperson said the firm was tapped to advise KBR solely on homeland security issues.

Allbaugh's close ties to the White House give him contacts throughout the administration, Congress and the private sector. As director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during the first two years of the Bush administration, Allbaugh was charged with overseeing the federal government's disaster preparedness and relief programs.

This administration is the most corrupt in American history.

Posted by Steven at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)

Vegetables and Nuts

By the time you read this, someone at Free Republic who's still taking his meds will probably have deleted this post from their user-driven "discussion forum" blog.

If you look at the posting volume in Free Republic, it is clearly waning, but it has acheived some notoriety as a voice of the organized far-right. For that reason, it's worth seeing what comes slithering out when you pick up a rock in their front yard. Here's the post:

According to a NY times news report, Judge Greer directed state sheriffs to take whatever actions were necessary to enforce his order.

It is imperative, in our e-mails and phone calls to the office of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, that we specify that he should call out a unit of the Florida National Guard to save Terri's life by taking her into protective custody. He has this authority under Florida Statute 250.28.

Greer's order forces the all of the State Sherrif's to prevent the Governor from utilizing *any* attempt by *any* state agency (DCF, etc.) to take Terri into protective custody. THE JUDGE IS PRE-EMPTIVELY THWARTING ANY ACTION BY THE GOVERNOR!

The Sherrifs do not have the firepower and training to stand up to the Guard, and will have no choice but to submit.

I'm sure that Jeb Bush is anxious to be remembered as the first Governor to order state militia to fire on state law enforcement. I guess it's lucky for the Sherrifs that the Florida National Guard is in Iraq.

Posted by at 09:59 AM | Comments (1)

Beyond McCarthyism

Frank Rich's column in The New York Times offers several startling insights into this growing jihad against our secular society and Rule of Law.

As Congress and the president scurried to play God in the lives of Terri Schiavo and her family last weekend, ABC kicked off Holy Week with its perennial ritual: a rebroadcast of the 1956 Hollywood blockbuster, "The Ten Commandments."

Cecil B. DeMille's epic is known for the parting of its Technicolor Red Sea, for the religiosity of its dialogue (Anne Baxter's Nefretiri to Charlton Heston's Moses: "You can worship any God you like as long as I can worship you.") and for a Golden Calf scene that DeMille himself described as "an orgy Sunday-school children can watch." But this year the lovable old war horse has a relevance that transcends camp. At a time when government, culture, science, medicine and the rule of law are all under threat from an emboldened religious minority out to remake America according to its dogma, the half-forgotten show business history of "The Ten Commandments" provides a telling back story.

As DeMille readied his costly Paramount production for release a half-century ago, he seized on an ingenious publicity scheme. In partnership with the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a nationwide association of civic-minded clubs founded by theater owners, he sponsored the construction of several thousand Ten Commandments monuments throughout the country to hype his product. The Pharaoh himself - that would be Yul Brynner - participated in the gala unveiling of the Milwaukee slab. Heston did the same in North Dakota. Bizarrely enough, all these years later, it is another of these DeMille-inspired granite monuments, on the grounds of the Texas Capitol in Austin, that is a focus of the Ten Commandments case that the United States Supreme Court heard this month.

...

All this is happening while polls consistently show that at most a fifth of the country subscribes to the religious views of those in the Republican base whom even George Will, speaking last Sunday on ABC's "This Week," acknowledged may be considered "extremists." In that famous Election Day exit poll, "moral values" voters amounted to only 22 percent. Similarly, an ABC News survey last weekend found that only 27 percent of Americans thought it was "appropriate" for Congress to "get involved" in the Schiavo case and only 16 percent said it would want to be kept alive in her condition. But a majority of American colonists didn't believe in witches during the Salem trials either - any more than the Taliban reflected the views of a majority of Afghans. At a certain point - and we seem to be at that point - fear takes over, allowing a mob to bully the majority over the short term. (Of course, if you believe the end is near, there is no long term.)

...

Next to what's happening now, official displays of DeMille's old Ten Commandments monuments seem an innocuous encroachment of religion into public life. It is a full-scale jihad that our government signed onto last weekend, and what's most scary about it is how little was heard from the political opposition. The Harvard Law School constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe pointed out this week that even Joe McCarthy did not go so far as this Congress and president did in conspiring to "try to undo the processes of a state court." But faced with McCarthyism in God's name, most Democratic leaders went into hiding and stayed silent. Prayers are no more likely to revive their spines than poor Terri Schiavo's brain.

If the Democrats don't stand up this now, it really will be the "End Times", for democracy and secular America. We'll be worse than any Taliban or McCarthyistic State ever envisioned, and our doom, in the world economy and from the destruction our military can and will inflict as the world turns away from us, will act as a self-serving "prophesy". Remember, George Bush really does think he's the last President before the Rapture. If only Kubrick were alive to re-make Dr. Strangelove (now subtitled, "or how I learned to love the End Times").

UPDATE: I can't help but interject my favorite part of the Rich editorial - Mike

The president was not about to be outpreached by these saps. The same Mr. Bush who couldn't be bothered to interrupt his vacation during the darkening summer of 2001, not even when he received a briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," flew from his Crawford ranch to Washington to sign Congress's Schiavo bill into law. The bill could have been flown to him in Texas, but his ceremonial arrival and departure by helicopter on the White House lawn allowed him to showboat as if he had just landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Within hours he turned Ms. Schiavo into a slick applause line at a Social Security rally. "It is wise to always err on the side of life," he said, wisdom that apparently had not occurred to him in 1999, when he mocked the failed pleas for clemency of Karla Faye Tucker, the born-again Texas death-row inmate, in a magazine interview with Tucker Carlson.

Posted by Steven at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2005

Ayatollah DeLay

DeLay Akbar! Juan Cole offers a succinct comparison of the GOP and the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran and Egypt who have made life hell for their citizens, too.

The cynical use by the US Republican Party of the Terri Schiavo case repeats, whether deliberately or accidentally, the tactics of Muslim fundamentalists and theocrats in places like Egypt and Pakistan. These tactics involve a disturbing tendency to make private, intimate decisions matters of public interest and then to bring the courts and the legislature to bear on them. President George W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders like Tom Delay have taken us one step closer to theocracy on the Muslim Brotherhood model.

The Muslim fundamentalists use a provision of Islamic law called "bringing to account" (hisba). As Al-Ahram weekly notes, "Hisba signifies a case filed by an individual on behalf of society when the plaintiff feels that great harm has been done to religion." Hisba is a medieval idea that had all but lapsed when the fundamentalists brought it back in the 1970s and 1980s.

There's a lot more there ... go read it before Ayatollah DeLay takes away your right to read infidel publications.

Posted by Steven at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2005

Not A Head On A Stick, But Close

Good thing they raised the advertising rates. Clear Channel has been fined $90 million by a Federal district court for malicious, anti-competitive interference of business. A small promoter of supercross (dirt biking) events in Chicago was the plaintiff.

...it was the testimony and e-mails of Clear Channel executives that apparently lost the case. A source who spoke to jurors after the verdict said the testimony of Chief Financial Officer Randall Mays and executive Brian Becker were especially damaging. One e-mail cited the need to "kill, crush and destroy" competition.

No doubt selected people in Washington will be bleating about how this demonstrates the need for more tort reform, as soon as they finish thundering about Terri Schiavo and need another distraction from the Social Security disaster. Clear Channel will appeal, of course, despite being skewered on their own email records; expect a purge of the IT department before week's end. And, of course, it's rather a pity that CC didn't get socked with this fine simply for sucking the life out of radio across the nation.

Posted by at 11:20 PM | Comments (2)

GOP: Grantor of Privilege

Privilege. noun. Private law. See your local GOP Congressman for a brochure. The New York Times offers a perspective on the Schiavo case that may elude the average citizen: the GOP has broken convenant with the Constitution and made private law (in this case, for Schiavo's parents) that overrides States Rights. This is a horrific precedent if it carries through to the Supreme Court and they affirm it. (If they do, it will rain chaos on the land as the wealthy seek private laws from their bought-and-paid Congressmen).

If you are in a "persistent vegetative state" and there is a dispute about whether to keep you alive, your case will probably go no further than state court - unless you are Terri Schiavo. President Bush signed legislation yesterday giving Ms. Schiavo's parents a personal right to sue in federal court. The new law tramples on the principle that this is "a nation of laws, not of men," and it guts the power of the states. When the commotion over this one tragic woman is over, Congress and the president will have done real damage to the founders' careful plan for American democracy.

Ms. Schiavo's case presents heart-wrenching human issues, and difficult legal ones. But the Florida courts, after careful deliberation, ruled that she would not want to be kept alive by artificial means in her current state, and ordered her feeding tube removed. Ms. Schiavo's parents, who wanted the tube to remain, hoped to get the Florida Legislature to intervene, but it did not do so.

That should have settled the matter. But supporters of Ms. Schiavo's parents, particularly members of the religious right, leaned heavily on Congress and the White House to step in. They did so yesterday with the new law, which gives "any parent of Theresa Marie Schiavo" standing to sue in federal court to keep her alive.

This narrow focus is offensive. The founders believed in a nation in which, as Justice Robert Jackson once wrote, we would "submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules." There is no place in such a system for a special law creating rights for only one family. The White House insists that the law will not be a precedent. But that means that the right to bring such claims in federal court is reserved for people with enough political pull to get a law passed that names them in the text.

The Bush administration and the current Congressional leadership like to wax eloquent about states' rights. But they dropped those principles in their rush to stampede over the Florida courts and Legislature. The new law doesn't miss a chance to trample on the state's autonomy and dignity. There are a variety of technical legal doctrines the federal courts use to show deference to state courts, like "abstention" and "exhaustion of remedies." The new law decrees that in Ms. Schiavo's case, these well-established doctrines simply will not apply.

Republicans have traditionally championed respect for the delicate balance the founders created. But in the Schiavo case, and in the battle to stop the Democratic filibusters of judicial nominations, President Bush and his Congressional allies have begun to enunciate a new principle: the rules of government are worth respecting only if they produce the result we want. It may be a formula for short-term political success, but it is no way to preserve and protect a great republic.

The NYT said it, finally. The GOP doesn't give a flying fuck about the rules or their so-called principals ... just the raw exercise of power for personal, petty gain. They're raping the system, the nation's wealth, and the world's good will. How long can this go on?

Posted by Steven at 12:29 PM | Comments (2)

Air America Comes to Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas

Finally. Dallasites can now experience something that has eluded them since the Dallas Morning News cravenly bought out the Dallas Times Hearld and shut it down over ten years ago: listen to an alternative viewpoint. Yes, talk radio has now got a voice on the Left in Dallas: AM 910 now hosts Air America, the talk radio program that features Al Franken.

Job Bob almost certainly sez "check it out."

Posted by Steven at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)

Have You Visited Your Local Gas Pump This Week?

I stopped by mine. Diesel was $2.18/gal., so I went down the street to the competitor's pump. Diesel there is $2.30/gal.! I doubled back and gladly paid $2.18 for fuel, realizing that next week it would be $2.30 or more.

What are you seeing at the pump, America?

Posted by Steven at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

"Masters of Sleeze"

Kudos for Brooks, for once. David Brooks is not known for his liberal ways, but his column today in The New York Times tears Jack Abramoff a new one.

Down in the depths of the netherworld, where Tammany Hall grafters and Chicago ward heelers gather amid spittoons and brass railings, a reverential silence now spreads across the communion. The sleazemasters of old look back into the land of the mortals and they see greatness in the form of Jack Abramoff.

Only a genius like Abramoff could make money lobbying against an Indian tribe's casino and then turn around and make money defending that tribe against himself. Only a giant like Abramoff would have the guts to use one tribe's casino money to finance a Focus on the Family crusade against gambling in order to shut down a rival tribe's casino.

Only an artist like Abramoff could suggest to a tribe that it pay him by taking out life insurance policies on its eldest members. Then when the elders dropped off they could funnel the insurance money through a private school and into his pockets.

This is sleaze of a high order. And yet according to reports in The Washington Post and elsewhere, Abramoff accomplished it all.

Yet it's important to remember this: A genius like Abramoff doesn't spring fully formed on his own. Just as Michelangelo emerged in the ferment of Renaissance Italy, so did Abramoff emerge from his own circle of creativity and encouragement.

Back in 1995, when Republicans took over Congress, a new cadre of daring and original thinkers arose. These bold innovators had a key insight: that you no longer had to choose between being an activist and a lobbyist. You could be both. You could harness the power of K Street to promote the goals of Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich. And best of all, you could get rich while doing it!

...

Abramoff's and Scanlon's Indian-gaming scandal will go down as the movement's crowning achievement, more shameless than anything the others would do, but still the culmination of the trends building since 1995. It perfectly embodied their creed and philosophy: "I'd love us to get our mitts on that moolah!!" as Abramoff wrote to Reed.

They made at least $66 million.

This is a major accomplishment. And remember: Abramoff didn't do it on his own.

It took a village. The sleazo-cons thought they could take over K Street to advance their agenda. As it transpired, K Street took over them.

Keep in mind that Tom DeLay has engineered the K Street lobbying firms to be this way, by forcing them to only do business with Republicans and then shoe-horning these kinds of scams.

Posted by Steven at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

March 18, 2005

They Don't Respect Life

Does the GOP only care about the unborn and brain-dead? Once again, the GOP has shown that it will sink to any low necessary to grandstand its alleged "celebration of life" position on the national stage. Today, the most ethically challenged of the Congress (i.e. Frist, Hastert and DeLay) issue subpoenas for Terri Schiavo and her caretakers in a bid to keep her from being disconnected from her life support hardware. [We won't bother to recap the backstory on this nightmare ... if you don't know who this is, you probably don't read the news at all.]

The courts have ruled, and ruled again, but the GOP, sensing an opportunity to take a family tragedy and turn it into a fund raising, chest-beating opportunity to show what craven, selfish, sick-bastard hypocrites they really are, has swung into action. The same party that started an illegal war, has condoned torture that kills, and that supports the death penalty even for minors, just can't let this devistated woman die in peace.

A Florida judge has delayed an order to remove the feeding tube from a brain-damaged Florida woman at 1 p.m. today after Washington lawmakers intervened by issuing subpoenas for the woman and her husband to appear at Congressional hearings later this month.

The order by Judge David Demers of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court came in response to efforts in the United States House and Senate to circumvent another judge's order to remove the tube from the woman, Terri Schiavo, who suffered severe brain damage 15 years ago. Judge Demers's order was intended to be in force for less than an hour, to give the presiding judge in the long-running case, George W. Greer of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court, time to get to his chambers and weigh the latest developments.

The Washington lawmakers' extraordinary maneuvers managed to block, at least temporarily, decisions by several courts over the last few years that have sided with Ms. Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, who said his wife would not want to be kept alive in her present condition.

The subpoenas came from a House committee inviting Ms. Schiavo, 41, and her husband, Michael, to appear before Congress next week.

A Senate committee also issued an invitation for the Schiavos to appear on Capitol Hill. The Senate majority leader, Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, issued a statement saying that the Schiavos were being called in connection with a Congressional inquiry into the matter later this month. The statement pointed out that federal law protects witnesses called before Congress "from anyone who may obstruct or impede a witness's attendance or testimony."

The maneuver is the latest step by lawmakers who are determined to keep Ms. Schiavo alive to prevent doctors from beginning to withhold nutrition and fluids from her, a process that could result in her death in anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

This whole thing just makes me so goddamned sick to my stomach ... everything they do in the name of "life" turns to shit or death or both. Their war on abortion just increases the number of abortions, as well as the number of unwanted babies. Their position on the death penalty and the sanctification of the Ten Commandments is a blatant and obvious contradiction that they merrily sail through (e.g. "Thou Shalt Not Kill"). And to have the most corrupt goddamned fuckers in the history of Congress leading this Crusade to save a dead woman; it's just beyond the beyond the beyond the pale. That's not a typo.

Red Staters, you are the biggest bunch of evil fuckers to ever walk into voting booths. Shame on you for electing these monsters. Maybe if this personal hell were to happen to you, you'd really understand what it's like (yes, it happened in my family, so I speak with some perspective).

Posted by Steven at 01:09 PM | Comments (3)

March 17, 2005

Homo Sapiens Andro and Gyno

Researchers studying the X chromosome have discovered that the genetic variation between human males and females is greater than the genetic variation between humans and chimpanzee.

As many as 300 of the genes on the X chromosome may be activated differently among women than among men, said molecular biologist Laura Carrel at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, the other author of the paper.

The newly discovered genetic variation among women might help account for differing gender reactions to prescription drugs and the heightened vulnerability of women to some diseases, experts said.

"The important question becomes how men and women actually vary and how much variability there is in females," Carrel said. "We now might have new candidate genes that could explain differences between men and women."

All told, men and women may differ by as much as 2% of their entire genetic inheritance, greater than the hereditary gap between humankind and its closest relative — the chimpanzee.

"In essence," Willard said, "there is not one human genome, but two — male and female."

The more we peer into ourselves, the stranger it will get.

Posted by Steven at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)

Oil Nearly $58

Reported here and here and here. High grade gasoline hit $2.20/gal. in Dallas today. I wonder if the price shock is sinking in yet?

Posted by Steven at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2005

Wead Apologizes to Big Brother Bush

Plus good, double plus good. Check out how much Doug Wead, the guy who recorded Bush's comments in the late 1990's, recants his actions in this article.

Update

Here is the letter.

Doug Wead, an author and longtime Bush family friend, wrote a letter to the USA Today newspaper about his actions.

He said his decision in the late 1990s to record the future president without his knowledge had been "foolish and wrong".

"I taped a man without his permission and he happened to win the presidency," wrote Mr Wead, whose recently published book The Raising of a President drew on the recordings.

"My decision to release a portion of the tapes has come at a terrible price for my family and has deeply hurt many others.

"I was foolish and wrong to tape-record Mr Bush without his permission. I was wrong to play any part of the tapes for my publisher, regardless of the circumstances."

Mr Wead said he had had begun "the work of reparation", cancelling a tour to promote his book, vowing to donate future royalties from its publication to charity, and handing the recordings over to the White House.

Couple of points here. No one "happens to win the Presidency" and Bush, well he didn't win it the first time anyway. That kind of sucking up just hurts to read.

What did they do or tell Doug Wead to get this utter recanting in a very public forum? Why did USA Today publish it? This reads like Galileo's recanting before he Pope (for those who forgot ... the Pope was wrong about Galileo's model of the Universe, likewise, Doug Wead only captured Bush's own words). This government is looking more Orwellian by the day.

Posted by Steven at 12:14 AM | Comments (1)

March 15, 2005

End of Oil (Company by Company)

In Salon is an article that puts hard dates on the peak production years of the major oil firms.

Four years ago, the analysts at John S. Herold Inc. were the first to call bullshit on Enron. On Feb. 21, 2001, three Herold analysts issued a report that said Enron's profit margins were shriveling, the company had too few hard assets, and its stock price was way too high. Less than ten months later, Enron filed for bankruptcy.

Today, the analysts at Herold -- a research-only firm that issues valuations on several hundred publicly traded energy companies -- are making predictions even bolder than their call on Enron. They have begun estimating when each of the world's biggest energy companies will peak in its ability to produce oil and gas. Herold's work shows that the best minds in the energy industry are accepting the reality that the globe is reaching (or has already reached) the limit of its own ability to produce ever increasing amounts of oil.

Since last fall, Herold has done peak estimates on about two dozen oil companies. Herold believes that the French oil company, Total S.A., will reach its peak production in 2007. Herold expects 2008 to be critical, with Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., BP, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and the Italian producer, Eni S.p.A., all hitting their peaks. In 2009, Herold expects ChevronTexaco Corp. to peak. In Herold's view, each of the world's seven largest publicly traded oil companies will begin seeing production declines within the next 48 months or so.

Executive vice president Richard Gordon, who heads Herold's global strategies team, says the firm's goal in doing peak-production estimates for individual oil companies is simple: "If the dinosaurs are going extinct, we are trying to figure out which ones are going to go extinct the soonest."

Herold's projections have enormous ramifications both for stockholders in the major oil companies and for every energy consumer on the globe. If Herold is correct, and the world's biggest oil companies cannot increase their production in the coming years, then several things appear certain:

• Oil prices -- which are already at record levels -- will continue rising as demand outstrips supply. In a few years, gasoline prices of $2 per gallon could seem like a bargain.
• State-owned oil companies like Mexico's Pemex, Venezuela's PDVSA (Petroléos de Venezuela) and Saudi Arabia's Saudi Aramco may be unable to increase their production enough to meet burgeoning global demand.
• The producers who belong to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and Saudi Arabia in particular, may have even more leverage over the global oil market in the coming years.
• The United States will be ever more reliant on oil imported from countries filled with people who don't like George W. Bush or his policies.

In short, this reputable firm is predicting Peak Oil in 2008, or thereabouts.

Posted by Steven at 06:12 PM | Comments (1)

Finally, A Head On A Stick!

When will it be Enron's turn? One of the events that spurred Mr. Jones and Mr. Staton to start this blog was the financial meltdowns of 2000. Mr. Jones coined the phrase "Heads on Sticks" Corporation, to denote all the Enron wannabes.

Today, Bernie Ebbers takes his well deserved place on a stick after being found guilty of fraud. He lead WorldCom down the planet's largest bankruptcy, ever, in case you don't recall.

Former Worldcom chief executive Bernie Ebbers has been convicted of conspiracy and fraud in connection with the 2002 collapse of the telecoms giant.

Mr Ebbers, 63, who is to appeal against the verdict, was also found guilty of seven counts of filing false documents.

Shareholders lost about $180bn (£94bn) in Worldcom's collapse - the largest bankruptcy in US history - and 20,000 workers lost their jobs.

Mr Ebbers could face up to 85 years in prison when he is sentenced on 13 June.

Worldcom emerged from bankruptcy last year and is now known as MCI.

Now if only the conviction would stick after appeals ... Ebbers will be somebody's beotch before you can say "Thanks for using Heads on Sticks Telecom!"

Posted by Steven at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2005

Canadian Intelligence: U.S. Has Worsened Terror Threat

Do you feel safer today? The Globe and Mail reports that the Canadian Intelligence Agency (CSIS) has determined that The U.S. has worsened the threat of Al Qaeda and other organizations with it's "War on Terror".

The U.S.-led war on terrorism has made al-Qaeda an even more dangerous organization, a senior Canadian intelligence official said Monday.

The blunt assessment of the group's increased “lethal effectiveness” came during a bail hearing for an Egyptian national detained as a threat to Canada's national security.

U.S. action in Afghanistan that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks “significantly degraded” al-Qaeda's infrastructure and its ability to provide support for other extremist Islamic groups, said the official, identified only as J.P.

However, that merely prompted terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden to put out calls to like-minded groups “to take over the fight,” said J.P., the deputy chief of counter-terrorism with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service.

“That appeal has been effective,” J.P. told Federal Court Justice Eleanor Dawson, saying that the effect has been a “net increase” in terrorist activities and the results can be seen in “broken bodies and blood in the streets.”

“We now have a more dangerous al-Qaeda.”

Nice Shoot'n, Bush.

Posted by Steven at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)

Too Little, But Not Too Late

SUV sales are hurting, and it's mainly due to fuel prices.

Thoughts:
1. Good.
2. It's nowhere near enough, but every little bit helps.

Rising US gasoline prices are hurting sales of large sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and pick-up trucks, according to some industry analysts, a trend that could stall a major engine of profits for Detroit’s automakers.

The gas-thirsty, full-sized SUV segment lost 1.2 percentage points of US market share over the last two months and large pickups were down about 2 percentage points, according to industry-tracker Edmunds.com.

Fuel-efficient compact cars gained 2.2 percentage points of market share in the same period.

Large SUVs and full-sized pick-up trucks account for close to 80% of North American automotive profits for Ford Motor and General Motors, Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache said in a recent research note.

“The concern, of course, is that the slowdown in these categories may represent the beginnings of a structural change, perhaps sparked by consumers’ concerns about higher oil or gasoline prices,” Lache said.

The average price American drivers pay for a gallon of regular gasoline is currently just over $2, according to the AAA motor club. The price may shoot to $2.15 a gallon this spring, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Posted by at 02:31 AM | Comments (3)

March 12, 2005

Orwell News Network

And that's the way we want you to remember it was. The Bush Administration is the worst abuser of fake news in the history of the nation, making The Daily Show look like The McNeil Leher Report. Read this New York Times article for more details.

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.

This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.

Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.

Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.

Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.

An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism.

It is also a world where all participants benefit.

I never thought I'd hear of government sponsored fake news as a kind of laundered drug-money product that the Bush Administration has to slip into the U.S. Media (Liberal Media, that is) like illegal drugs.

Why don't we just start calling it pravda?

Posted by Steven at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)

More DeLay Dirty Money

Continued evidence the "Hammer" is all about the Money. Tom DeLay's got his hands stained with yet-another bank-vault ink-bomb, this time from an Indian tribe he tricked into funding one of his many vacations ... I mean ... junkets. He took their money and went golfing in Scotland. I guess the thousands of golf courses across Houston weren't good enough anymore.

An Indian tribe and a gambling services company made donations to a Washington public policy group that covered most of the cost of a $70,000 trip to Britain by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), his wife, two aides and two lobbyists in mid-2000, two months before DeLay helped kill legislation opposed by the tribe and the company.

The sponsor of the week-long trip listed in DeLay's financial disclosures was the nonprofit National Center for Public Policy Research, but a person involved in arranging DeLay's travel said that lobbyist Jack Abramoff suggested the trip and then arranged for checks to be sent by two of his clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and eLottery Inc.

The dates on the checks coincided with the day DeLay left on the trip, May 25, 2000, according to grants documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The Choctaw and eLottery each sent a check for $25,000, according to the documents. They now say that they were unaware the money was being used to finance DeLay's travels.

But Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center, said that, when the trip was arranged, Abramoff promised he would secure financial backing. She said that even without Abramoff's efforts, the National Center would have borne the cost of the trip, which was intended to allow the group to network with conservative British politicians and included an outing to the famous St. Andrews golf course in Scotland.

How many times does DeLay get a pass when Jim Wright got the boot? These goddamned lying sacks of shit ought to be run out of Washington on expensive Limos.

Posted by Steven at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)

Trade Gap?

I see no trade gap here. More like trade Grand Canyon. Once again, America shot it's wad with overseas trading, hitting another record month, at nearly 60B$US. Way to go, team!

America's appetite for foreign imports broke all records in January, reaching $159.1 billion and contributing to a monthly trade deficit that is the second highest on record. The $58.3 billion trade deficit defied predictions that a weakened dollar and lower oil prices would narrow the United States' trade gap. Advertisement

Instead, the Commerce Department said on Friday that American consumers continued to buy foreign-made goods at an avid pace, raising the trade deficit 4.5 percent from $55.7 billion in December. January's trade figures included a 75 percent surge in Chinese textile and apparel shipments, reflecting the end to global quotas and the beginning of what some experts see as a future of China supplying as much as 70 percent of the United States textile and apparel market.

The Bush administration said on Friday that the latest trade figures should be seen as testimony to the strength of the American economy and its role as an engine of global growth.

"We view these figures as an affirmation that we're growing faster than our trading partners by as much as 2 percent, and we need them to take steps so they can grow and buy our products," Rob Nichols, the spokesman for Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, said in an interview.

And Bush, obviously, has no fucking idea how damaging this trade gap is, let alone the deficit and debt load it enhances. Could chimpanzees on LSD do worse?

Posted by Steven at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)

Diebold Delivered

"committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year", Walden O’Dell (CEO of Diebold Election Systems). Christopher Hitchens, no leftie by anyone's count, is offering his analysis of the Ohio vote, and it's pretty damning ... against Bush.

First, the county-by-county and precinct-by-precinct discrepancies. In Butler County, for example, a Democrat running for the State Supreme Court chief justice received 61,559 votes. The Kerry-Edwards ticket drew about 5,000 fewer votes, at 56,243. This contrasts rather markedly with the behavior of the Republican electorate in that county, who cast about 40,000 fewer votes for their judicial nominee than they did for Bush and Cheney. (The latter pattern, with vote totals tapering down from the top of the ticket, is by far the more general—and probable—one nationwide and statewide.)

In 11 other counties, the same Democratic judicial nominee, C. Ellen Connally, managed to outpoll the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential nominees by hundreds and sometimes thousands of votes. So maybe we have a barn-burning, charismatic future candidate on our hands, and Ms. Connally is a force to be reckoned with on a national scale. Or is it perhaps a trick of the Ohio atmosphere? There do seem to be a lot of eccentrics in the state. In Cuyahoga County, which includes the city of Cleveland, two largely black precincts on the East Side voted like this. In Precinct 4F: Kerry, 290; Bush, 21; Peroutka, 215. In Precinct 4N: Kerry, 318; Bush, 11; Badnarik, 163. Mr. Peroutka and Mr. Badnarik are, respectively, the presidential candidates of the Constitution and Libertarian Parties. In addition to this eminence, they also possess distinctive (but not particularly African-American-sounding) names. In 2000, Ralph Nader’s best year, the total vote received in Precinct 4F by all third-party candidates combined was eight.

In Montgomery County, two precincts recorded a combined undervote of almost 6,000. This is to say that that many people waited to vote but, when their turn came, had no opinion on who should be the president, voting only for lesser offices. In these two precincts alone, that number represents an undervote of 25 percent, in a county where undervoting averages out at just 2 percent. Democratic precincts had 75 percent more under- votes than Republican ones.

In Precinct lB of Gahanna, in Franklin County, a computerized voting machine recorded a total of 4,258 votes for Bush and 260 votes for Kerry. In that precinct, however, there are only 800 registered voters, of whom 638 showed up. Once the “glitch” had been identified, the president had to be content with 3,893 fewer votes than the computer had awarded him.

In Miami County, a Saddam Hussein-type turnout was recorded in the Concord Southwest and Concord South precincts, which boasted 98.5 percent and 94.27 percent turnouts, respectively, both of them registering overwhelming majorities for Bush. Miami County also managed to report 19,000 additional votes for Bush after 100 percent of the precincts had reported on Election Day.

In Mahoning County, Washington Post reporters found that many people had been victims of “vote hopping,” which is to say that voting machines highlighted a choice of one candidate after the voter had recorded a preference for another. Some specialists in election software diagnose this as a “calibration issue.”

Machines are fallible and so are humans, and shit happens, to be sure, and no doubt many Ohio voters were able to record their choices promptly and without grotesque anomalies. But what strikes my eye is this: in practically every case where lines were too long or machines too few the foul-up was in a Democratic county or precinct, and in practically every case where machines produced impossible or improbable outcomes it was the challenger who suffered and the actual or potential Democratic voters who were shortchanged, discouraged, or held up to ridicule as chronic undervoters or as sudden converts to fringe-party losers.

This might argue in itself against any conspiracy or organized rigging, since surely anyone clever enough to pre-fix a vote would make sure, just for the look of the thing, that the discrepancies and obstructions were more evenly distributed. I called all my smartest conservative friends to ask them about this. Back came their answer: Look at what happened in Warren County. On Election Night, citing unspecified concerns about terrorism and homeland security, officials “locked down” the Warren County administration building and prevented any reporters from monitoring the vote count. It was announced, using who knows what “scale,” that on a scale of 1 to 10 the terrorist threat was a 10. It was also claimed that the information came from an F.B.I. agent, even though the F.B.I. denies that.

Warren County is certainly a part of Republican territory in Ohio: it went only 28 percent for Gore last time and 28 percent for Kerry this time. On the face of it, therefore, not a county where the G.O.P would have felt the need to engage in any voter “suppression.” A point for the anti- conspiracy side, then. Yet even those exact-same voting totals have their odd aspect. In 2000, Gore stopped running television commercials in Ohio some weeks before the election. He also faced a Nader challenge. Kerry put huge resources into Ohio, did not face any Nader competition, and yet got exactly the same proportion of the Warren County votes.

Whichever way you shake it, or hold it to the light, there is something about the Ohio election that refuses to add up. The sheer number of irregularities compelled a formal recount, which was completed in late December and which came out much the same as the original one, with 176 fewer votes for George Bush. But this was a meaningless exercise in reassurance, since there is simply no means of checking, for example, how many “vote hops” the computerized machines might have performed unnoticed.

There's a whole lot more in the article, also appearing in Vanity Fair. I urge you to read it, and think about how hard they worked to steal OH by 110k votes.

Footnote

The quote by O'Dell at the top ... doesn't it strike you as a strange thing for a vendor of voting booths to be saying about his product? I've always thought he tipped his hat (as evil CEOs are wont to do because no "yes man" is brave enough to tell him not to) that Diebold's machines are hackable. The evidence is in OH, and is being withheld and/or destroyed (they're probably reloading the machines with a different binary just in case they have to hand one over to third-party examiners).

Posted by Steven at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2005

Goodbye Gonzo

Death of a Gonzo Reporter. Frank Rich's essay in The New Times lamenting the death of Gonzo journalism and the general state of malase in the Press.

TWO weeks ago Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide. Next week Dan Rather commits ritual suicide, leaving the anchor chair at CBS prematurely as penance for his toxic National Guard story. The two journalists shared little but an abiding distaste - make that hatred in Thompson's case - for the Great Satan of 20th-century American politics, Richard Nixon. The best work of both was long behind them. Yet memories of that best work - not to mention the coincidental timing of their departures - only accentuate the vacuum in that cultural category we stubbornly insist on calling News.

What's missing from News is the news. On ABC, Peter Jennings devotes two hours of prime time to playing peek-a-boo with U.F.O. fanatics, a whorish stunt crafted to deliver ratings, not information. On NBC, Brian Williams is busy as all get-out, as every promo reminds us, "Reporting America's Story." That story just happens to be the relentless branding of Brian Williams as America's anchorman - a guy just too in love with Folks Like Us to waste his time looking closely at, say, anything happening in Washington.
But even Thompson might have been shocked by what's going on now. "The death of Thompson represents the passing from the Age of Gonzo to the Age of Gannon," wrote Russell Cobb in a column in The Daily Texan at the University of Texas. As he argues, today's White House press corps is less likely to be invaded by maverick talents like a drug-addled reporter from a renegade start-up magazine than by a paid propagandist like Jeff Gannon, a fake reporter for a fake news organization (Talon News) run by a bona fide Texas Republican operative who was a delegate to the 2000 Bush convention.

Though a few remain on the case - Eric Boehlert of Salon, mediamatters.org, Joe Strupp of Editor and Publisher - the Gannon story is fast receding. In some major news venues, including ABC and CBS, it never surfaced at all. Yet even as Mr. Gannon has quit his "job" as a reporter and his "news organization" has closed up shop, the plot thickens. His own Web site - which only recently shut down with the self-martyring message "The voice goes silent" - has now restarted as a blog with Gonzo pretensions. The title alone of his first entry, "Fear and Loathing in the Press Room," would send Thompson spinning in his grave had he not asked that his remains be shot out of a cannon.

As a blogger, Mr. Gannon's new tactic is to encourage fellow right-wing bloggers to portray him as the victim of a homophobic left-wing witch hunt that destroyed his privacy. Given that it was Mr. Gannon himself who voluntarily exhibited his own private life by appearing on Web sites advertising his services as a $200-per-hour escort, that's a hard case to make. But it is a clever way to deflect attention from an actual sexual witch hunt conducted by his own fake news organization in early 2004. It was none other than Talon News that advanced the fictional story that a young woman "taped an interview with one of the major television networks" substantiating a rumor on the Drudge Report that John F. Kerry had had an extramarital affair with an intern. (Mr. Kerry had to publicly deny the story just as his campaign came out of the gate.) This is the kind of dirty trick only G. Gordon Liddy could dream up. Or maybe did. Mr. Gannon's Texan boss, Bobby Eberle, posted effusive thanks (for "their assistance, guidance and friendship") to both Mr. Liddy and Karl Rove on Talon News's sister site, GOPUSA, last Christmas.

Mr. Gannon, a self-promoting airhead, may well be a pawn of larger forces as the vainglorious Mr. Liddy once was. But to what end? That Kerry "intern" wasn't the only "news" Mr. Gannon helped stuff in the pipeline during an election year. A close reading of the transcripts of televised White House press conferences reveals that at uncannily crucial moments he was called on by the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, to stanch tough questioning on such topics as Abu Ghraib and Mr. Rove's possible involvement in the outing of the C.I.A. spy Valerie Plame. We still don't know how this Zelig, using a false name, was given a daily White House pass every day for two years. Last weekend, Jim Pinkerton, a former official in the Reagan and Bush I White Houses, said on "Fox News Watch," no less, that such a feat "takes an incredible amount of intervention from somebody high up in the White House," that it had to be "conscious" and that "some investigation should proceed and they should find that out."

Given an all-Republican government, the only investigation possible will have to come from the press. Which takes us back to 1972, the year of Thompson's fear and loathing on the campaign trail. That was no golden age for news either. As Thompson's Rolling Stone colleague, Timothy Crouse, wrote in his own chronicle of that year, "The Boys on the Bus," months of stories by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein failed to "sink in" and only 48 percent of those polled by Gallup had heard of Watergate by Election Day.

Some news organizations had simply ignored The Post's scoops "out of petty rivalry," wrote Mr. Crouse. Others did so because they "feared the administration or favored Nixon in the presidential race." Others didn't initially recognize the story's importance. (The New York Times played the Watergate break-in on page 30.) The White House's pathological secrecy and penchant for threatening to use the Federal Communications Commission as a battering ram on its broadcast critics took care of the rest. According to a superb new history of the Washington press corps, "Reporting from Washington," by Donald A. Ritchie, even Mr. Rather, then CBS's combative man in the Nixon White House, "left the Watergate story alone at first, sure that it would fade like 'a puff of talcum powder.' "

Today you can't tell the phonies without a scorecard. Besides the six "journalists" we know to have been paid by the administration or its backers, bloggers were on the campaign payrolls of both a Republican office-seeker (South Dakota's Senator John Thune) and a Democrat (Howard Dean) during last year's campaign. This week The Los Angeles Times reported that Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration, "taking a cue from President Bush's administration," had distributed fake news videos starring a former TV reporter to extol the governor's slant on a legislative proposal. Back in Washington, the Social Security Administration is refusing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests for information about its use of public relations firms - such as those that funneled taxpayers' money to the likes of Armstrong Williams. Don't expect news organizations dedicated to easy-listening news to get to the bottom of it.

Posted by Steven at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)

Wal-Mart Uses "Nuclear Option"

Mutual assured destruction, anyone? Wal-Mart Canada has closed a Quebecouis store rather than accept it's unionization. Clearly, this shows anti-Wal-Mart groups how to kill Wal-Mart: unionize your local store.

But Wal-Mart's announcement in February that it could no longer do business here because of skimpy store revenue and escalating union demands is having a much broader impact across Canada and even south of the border. The closing - the first of a Wal-Mart in Canada - is a strategic retreat for the retailer in its war with organized labor.

Since August 2004, when this store became the only unionized Wal-Mart in North America, Jonquière has become a rallying cry for retail union organizers who want to stop an erosion of membership in the grocery industry in both Canada and the United States.

At least three other Wal-Mart outlets in Quebec have received bomb threats since the Jonquière closing announcement, forcing evacuations and losses in sales. Bernard Landry, the leader of the separatist Parti Québécois and a former premier of the province, has announced that he is boycotting the chain. A Quebec television broadcaster compared Wal-Mart to Nazism, but later apologized.

What they failed to mention was that the apology was to the Nationalist Socialists. Being compared to Wal-Mart must have stung!

Posted by Steven at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2005

Default on the Social Security Trust Fund?

From What We Now Know on 3-7-2005:

Summary: rumors have it the Bush Administration is considering defaulting on the Social Security Trust Fund. This could start an avalanche of T-bill selloffs that could trigger a currency crisis, and a world recession.

In the past, SSA actuaries have conservatively used the intermediate projections, even though they have almost always proven overly cautious (the optimistic has been closer to reality, while the worst case has been hugely pessimistic). Under the intermediate scenario, the Fund is projected to be fully depleted in 2042, though last summer the Congressional Budget Office pushed that back to 2052. Many economists from both sides of the aisle consider even that to be excessively gloomy, since it's based on projected annual economic growth of 1.8% through 2080, about half the growth rate the country has averaged since the Civil War. Ramp it up and the shortfalls go away.

It would be wise at this juncture to step back for a moment, and remind ourselves that Social Security's woes are just part of a much wider and more serious dilemma. The core problem is that government has been living beyond its means for decades, ever since Lyndon B. Johnson decided to wage a war for which he was unwilling to ask the American people to pay. There is a whole generation, if not two, that believes deficit spending is the normal way of life; that, as Vice President Cheney famously put it, "deficits don't matter."

Since LBJ, the government has ballooned the federal debt from almost nothing to over $7 trillion; a virtually inconceivable amount of money, and there isn't the slightest of plans in Washington for how we're going to pay it off (if that's even possible). In fact, it continues to increase on a daily basis. This is fiscal insanity. The only sure thing is that some day, there will come a reckoning. When it does, it won't be pretty, but that's a topic for another day.

Many believe that the unfunded liabilities projected for Social Security will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. (Though there are other equally or more viable candidates, such as Medicare.) Under SSA's intermediate scenario, the shortfall is estimated to be $3.7 trillion. The Bush Administration, using an infinite time frame rather than the 75-year standard, comes up with a figure of $10 trillion. Responding to the latter number, the American Academy of Actuaries wrote to SSA's trustees that infinite projections provide "little if any useful information about the program's long-range finances and indeed are likely to mislead any [non- expert] into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated."

In other words, these are scare tactics. So, if we go with the lesser figure, what would it take to fix the system? Not much, as it turns out. As mentioned earlier, raising the cap on taxed earnings would do it. Or just adding a 1.9% surcharge to present tax rates would provide a sufficient cushion, much as was done in 1983, when surpluses were created in anticipation of the exact baby boomer problem we now face. Cutting benefits is another possibility. Under the intermediate scenario, the 2042 gap is about 30%. Scale back benefits by that much between now and then, and you get solvency.

There's no telling how it will all pan out, but one option that is being bandied about is for the Administration to default on the Treasuries held by SSA. Although the government hasn't defaulted on a bond throughout its entire history, the possibility is not as far-fetched as it might seem. Moody's Investor Services lent the idea credence when the head of its Risk Unit testified to the House Ways and Means Committee: "What we have concluded at Moody's is that almost every country will default on its pensions." Including the U.S.

Many people may think default is not such a terrible idea. After all, the government would merely be liquidating a debt that it owes itself, wouldn't it? Not exactly. For one thing, the Trust is a separate legal entity from which cash has been borrowed; default would set a dangerous precedent. And for another, those IOUs are markers for real money earned by real people, who allowed it to be taken from them in good faith and the belief that future workers would take responsibility for them. From this perspective, default would be of rather questionable morality.

Another issue is that the bonds in the Trust were bought with money raised by regressive taxes whose effect was felt more by low- and middle-income wage earners. Interest and redemption costs would be financed from general revenues, i.e. the broader income tax, which is more progressive (as are benefits). In the event of default, the government would revert to gathering revenue from its most regressive tax on present employees. For a detailed analysis of this aspect by the (liberal-leaning) Center for Economic and Policy Research, see www.cepr.net.

And then there's the ultimate horror. Default could lead to a drastic, more general loss of confidence in U.S. Treasuries, and it could spread worldwide. If the result was a universal run on bonds, we'd have an economic catastrophe worse than the Great Depression. Contemplating such an apocalyptic nightmare, we surely ought to ask whether the end could ever justify the means. If government officials are considering something as risky as default, we'd better be in a really terrible pickle. Or, to return to our original question, how critical is the crisis? Truthfully, not very. Despite all the Chicken Little talk of Social Security going "bankrupt" in 2042, the reality is far more tame.

Under the intermediate scenario, the only thing that will happen in 2042 is that the bonds will be gone, and all benefits will have to be paid out of current payroll taxes. That's hardly bankruptcy. The shortfall would be 27%, and if beneficiaries were receiving only 73% of what they'd been promised, their payments would still be above today's level, even after adjusting for inflation. Not so awful. Couple that with a knowledge of the relatively minor adjustments that would be necessary to achieve actual solvency 37 years down the road while preserving the present system, and an impartial observer might suspect that those calling for change most vigorously may have an agenda beyond--and more important to them than-- averting "disaster."

Posted by Steven at 01:36 PM | Comments (1)

Oil Prices Drop!

To a little over $53 a barrel. D'oh! E-Commerce Times ran the story here.

Posted by at 12:21 PM | Comments (1)

March 06, 2005

The Rich Are Different

For one thing, they have all the money. Ever had to pay a fine? Well, you don't if you're wealthy enough.

White-collar criminals routinely avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in court-ordered restitution by schemes such as transferring assets to relatives, a Government Accountability Office study said Thursday.

The GAO studied five unidentified federal cases in which executives and business owners found guilty of fraud were ordered to pay a total of $568 million to investors and shareholders. Only about $40 million, or 7% of what was owed, was ever collected, the study found.

The report follows a GAO study last year that said uncollected fines and restitution in federal criminal cases more than quadrupled in six years, from $6 billion in September 1996 to about $25 billion by September 2002.

The rise appeared to be driven at least in part by a 1996 law that significantly increased the amount of restitution that courts were required to order for those convicted of fraud, violent felonies or tampering with consumer products.

"Being tough on crime doesn't mean very much if we aren't serious about enforcing court-ordered fines and restitution," said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), who had asked GAO to study the issue. "We simply must do better."

Corporate perfidy knows no bounds. Except those imposed by regulations. Pity nearly all of them have been repealed.

Posted by at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

Never Forget

Never again. Read this story if you have a human soul. If the Holocaust touches your or your family directly, get a box of tissues first. If, like me, you don't have the personal aspect but still dread the worst of humanity and cherish its best, just hold on tight.

(Moved to the extension because this could be construed as spoiler content.)

This story must be read. Other media would not do it justice. I hope it never gets filmed, because some idiot would try to tack on the ending from Spartacus or In & Out. True life poetry does not need embellishment.

Posted by at 03:16 AM | Comments (0)

Win A War, Lose A War...

Maybe he can sniff about and get a line on what's happening. Good thing Preznit Shrub ordered the military to liberate Afghanistan back in 2001-02. Not a bad thing, as the Taliban needed to be crushed and al-Qaeda destroyed. But as with just about everything else, the job wasn't finished, and now Afghanistan is one of the leading producers of illicit drugs in the world. That's a fast turnaround.

More than three years after installing a pro-U.S. government, Afghanistan has been unable to contain opium poppy production and is on the verge of becoming a narcotics state, a presidential report said Friday.

The report said the area in Afghanistan devoted to poppy cultivation last year set a record of more than 510,000 acres, more than triple the figure for 2003. Opium poppy is the raw material for heroin.

The Afghan narcotics situation "represents an enormous threat to world stability," the report said.

It listed opium production at 5,445 tons, 17 times more than second-place Myanmar.

We probably won't see a new bestseller on the business books list from the opium lords, because it'd just be the same old stuff about how growth can occur when regulations don't get in the way.

Posted by at 02:57 AM | Comments (1)

The Golden Rule

Those who have the gold, make the rules. Or at least try to get them rewritten.

Down here in Texas, our Travis County DA, Ronnie Earle, has an ongoing investigation of TRMPAC -- Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, which is basically a Tom DeLay hive of well-funded GOP types. Earle has handed down several indictments already, and rumor is he may even nail DeLay later this year; we'll see. In the meantime, forces are afoot to see that this sort of thing doesn't occur again. Try to play by the rules? No! Change the rules so certain actions are no longer criminal. (One specific indictment is expenditure of corporate donated funds for actual campaigning, because by law such monies are restricted to overhead and administrative expenses.)

Let's just go to the block quote:

This week attorneys in Austin are debating whether the treasurer of Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee violated the law.

Bill Ceverha faces a civil lawsuit from Democrats who lost elections in 2002. They say the money that funded their opponents' campaigns was spent illegally.

While attorneys on both sides of the TRMPAC case dissect the state's campaign finance laws, outside parties are weighing in on the topic.

"I'm going to be lobbying on these issues, that's correct," attorney for the Texas Association of Business Andy Taylor said.

In his new vocation as lobbyist Taylor plans to urge lawmakers to reevaluate the state's campaign finance laws. He believes Texas Election Code needs clarification.

"Even the experts can't agree on what the law requires," Taylor said.

The experts Taylor's referring to are the attorneys in the TRMPAC civil trial. In that trial, Ceverha's attorneys are arguing over how corporate dollars can be spent legally in an election.

"No one should have to guess whether or not political activity is legal," Taylor said.

I guess there's no call for taking the benefit of doubt and using restraint, is there?

Taylor said he has seven donors who will pay to employ him as a lobbyist. Those donors are: Walter Mischer, Michael Stevens, Vance Miller, Fred Zeidman, Charles McMann, Louis Beecherl and Bob Perry.

Perry was the financier of the group Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.

Men can be known by the company they keep.

"Anyone who gives significant amounts of political contributions in Texas would care about making sure those contributions are legal. But it's not limited to them. They stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone in Texas who can wants to participate in the political process," Taylor said.

But the law that Taylor and his donors say needs clarification only applies to corporate contributions. Individual donations aren't in dispute.

Under current Texas law it's only illegal for corporations to give money to candidates running for office.

"That law was clarified 100 years ago when it was first written down. So, I think that clarification around the laws in this case is nonsense," Craig McDonald, Executive Director of Texans for Public Justice, said.

Clearly not one of the "experts" Taylor cites above.

Texans for Public Justice was the group that brought the original complaint against TRMPAC. That complaint led Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to open a criminal investigation of the PAC.

So far, three of TRMPAC's associates, including its executive director, John Colyandro, have been indicted on criminal charges of accepting illegal contributions and money laundering.

"Any clarity that Mr. Taylor and his seven large contributors want to bring to that law should be viewed with alarm by every Texan who is not one of Mr. Taylor's seven," Earle said in a written statement. "The law was never vague until certain large monied interests sought to evade it in order to control Texas elections. Then they said it was vague."

Sometimes I think divine smiting may be the only way to rid the planet of these people.

Posted by at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)

March 04, 2005

To The Pain

The pain, the pain! The U.S. military is using pain control research to create weapons that project pain as far as 2 km away.

The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.

"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research," says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. "Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown."

The research came to light in documents unearthed by the Sunshine Project, an organisation based in Texas and in Hamburg, Germany, that exposes biological weapons research. The papers were released under the US's Freedom of Information Act.

One document, a research contract between the Office of Naval Research and the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, is entitled "Sensory consequences of electromagnetic pulses emitted by laser induced plasmas".

It concerns so-called Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person (New Scientist print edition, 12 October 2002). The weapon, destined for use in 2007, could literally knock rioters off their feet.

Are we using a team of white-haired scientists whose gorgeous daughters are being held in dungeons (against their will) to make this shit? Will there be a pain weapon "cold war"? Makes me sick to be an engineer.

Posted by Steven at 01:22 AM | Comments (0)

March 03, 2005

Everything You Wanted To Know About DeLay (But Were Too Disgusted To Ask)

They don't call him "The Hammer" for nothing. Salon has a story about Tom DeLay that is written by the journalist who wrote Bush's Brain. A good overview of DeLay's Texas strategy and how he broke the law.

Joe Bob sez check it out.

Posted by Steven at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)

One Thousand, Five Hundred Dead

Where have all the soldiers gone? Iraq took our 1,500th soldier today.

In all the confusion, no one can find the Exit Signs near the doors.

Posted by Steven at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2005

Nice Shoot'n, NBC

How NOT to be seen. The Daily Show pointed out that, in an attempt to get the 'scoop' on the judicial assassination in Iraq yesterday, they inadvertantly named the wrong judge as the assassination target. Then they showed the man they thought was dead on the bench before Saddam Hussein, with his face unblurred.

If there was any confusion about his identity, I'm sure NBC has settled it.

The judge is probably a dead man walking at this point in the game.

Nice shoot'n, NBC.

Posted by Steven at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)

Invasion of the Pod Thumpers

They're coming to take your culture away, they're coming to take it away! The BBC is offering a terrifying insight into the mindset of a new breed of highly educated, Christian evangelical.

Energised by last year's election victory which mobilised the Christian conservative vote, the American Right has been confidently pushing a moral agenda which puts education at the heart of a battle to change US culture.

Sitting in a noisy but strangely tidy student canteen, Naomi Laine outlined her political vision.

"My intention is to impact the culture [of America]," she said.

"The people are the most important component of a society, and so that's where the battle for the minds needs to be waged."

Naomi sounds like a well-seasoned politician. But she is in fact a first year student at Patrick Henry College, America's first university established primarily for evangelical Christian home-schooled children.

Patrick Henry College is located in the small commuter town of Purcellville, Virginia.

It is only a short drive from Washington DC but just far enough away not to be influenced by the big city culture of the capital.

All the students at Patrick Henry are highly motivated, intelligent, and perform at a level to rival those in America's best known Ivy League universities.

They are also all deeply religious and committed to transforming America.

In fact all students have to sign a statement before they arrive, confirming, among other things, that they have a literal belief in the teachings of the Bible.

"We want our kids to be world changers," said Michael Farris, founder and president of Patrick Henry College.

Mr Farris, a constitutional lawyer and political activist, established the college with a very clear aim: "To prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless Biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding."

"If we are going to have our values reflected in our culture, we've got to train our kids in those values and train them for leadership," Mr Farris said. "And so this is a very concerted effort to train top leaders."

I love the irony of making people sign documents that assert their faith. So much for the actual meaning, if not value, of "faith". They don't even trust the true believers. Gotta love the "faith" the leadership has in the kids.

These creeps are just using "religion" and it's tax free status as a lever to gain political power and enforce a kind of virtual theocracy on this otherwise secular nation. I wish they'd all just move to Saudi Arabia or Iran and see what a theocracy is really like.

Posted by Steven at 11:37 PM | Comments (3)

Bush Doesn't Have Bullock To Save His Ass This Time

Or is that he lacks the bollicks? Bush has staked his Presidency on dismantling Social Security, and like his initiatives as the Texas Governor, he's failing without his Lt. Governor Bob Bullock right there behind him. You see, when he was just "Guv", Dubya was useless without the strong arm of Bullock in the state Lege. The few times Bush stepped out of Bullock's shadow, he got his ass whooped.

And, so it appears, he is getting bitch-slapped with his own Social Security reform "plan".

Sidney Blumenthal writes in Salon this week:

The coming defeat of President Bush on Social Security will be the defining moment in domestic policy and politics for his second term and for the future of the Republican Party. It will be a central, clarifying event because Bush alone chose to make this fight.

Campaigning in 2004 on the trauma of Sept. 11, he won by the smallest margin of any incumbent president in American history. The Electoral College map was little changed from the deadlock of 2000. While Bush barely took two states he had lost before (Iowa and New Mexico), he lost one to John Kerry -- New Hampshire. Bush's political advisor, Karl Rove, had forecast a fundamental realignment that would establish Republican dominance, but Bush's desperate political position required a series of tactics of character assassination against the Democratic candidate and culture war gambits on gay marriage, atmospherically organized around the fear factor of Sept. 11. The outcome was a strategic victory but not a structural one, and Bush's campaign further polarized the country.

In the chasm between his meager win and his grandiose ambition, Bush might have decided to form a government containing some moderate Republican and Democratic Cabinet members, claiming that the gravity of foreign crisis demanded national unity. But the thought never occurred to him. Instead, he bulled ahead in the hope of realizing the realignment that eluded him in the election.

Bush launched his initiative to privatize Social Security with a bang, promoting it in his State of the Union address and stumping the country at rallies. Rove has been put in charge of organizing the campaign as an extension of the 2004 effort. From the White House, Rove directs the lobbyists of K Street in Washington and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Rifle Association and the religious right. Suddenly, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have reappeared as warriors against the pro-Social Security AARP, smearing the seniors organization as anti-military and pro-gay marriage. And Tony Feather, a Republican consultant with longtime ties to Rove, has reemerged with a war chest of millions to spend through a front group called Progress for America, just as he did against Kerry.

Even the Social Security Administration has been inducted in the campaign. Five years ago, it sent out a routine annual booklet titled "The Future of Social Security": "Will Social Security be there for you? Absolutely." Now a new booklet has been mailed to tens of millions warning: "Social Security must change to meet future challenges." And it suggests that Social Security should not be regarded as a "foundation on which to build your financial future."

And yet the more the public has learned of Bush's plan, the more it has buckled. Poll after poll reveals that increased information leads to heightened resistance. Growing majorities oppose Bush's program, Bush's favorability rating has plunged to the lowest level of any president at this point in his second term, and trust in the Democrats has steadily risen.

In the face of public rejection, Bush retreats and attacks at the same time. He has announced that he is uncertain when or even if he will propose his own bill before Congress, while the White House says that the president will stage new rallies for the Social Security initiative that has yet to take any practical form.

Only Bush as president has attempted to make good on the reactionary rhetoric against Social Security since its inception. He has tried to dress up his effort as a "reform," as a "new idea," but the language, upon historical examination, turns out to be recycled from the 1936 Republican platform, the Landon and Goldwater campaigns, and words that Reagan discarded as president.

Bush's impending defeat on Social Security is no minor affair. He has made this the centerpiece of domestic policy of his second term. It is the decades-long culmination of the conservative wing's hostility against Social Security and the Democratic Party. Projecting images of Roosevelt and Kennedy cannot distract from Bush's intent to undermine the accomplishments of Democratic presidents. The repudiation of Bush on Social Security will be fundamental and profound and will shake the foundations of conservative Republicanism. Bush's agony is only beginning, if the Democrats in the Senate can maintain their discipline.

Stand your ground, Democrats! Man, I love the sound of "Bush's agony is only beginning". Looks like the "third rail" is doing it's magic after all.

Posted by Steven at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)

Bush Mind-Altering Drugs No Longer Working on Greenspan

Like, woah, dude. That's a freaking huge deficit! The New York Times reports that Alan Greenspan, who recently endorsed two Bush tax cuts, has now come to his senses and no longer can endorse deficits ueber alles.

Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, warned today that federal budget deficits are "unsustainable" and urged Congress to consider both spending cuts and tax increases as possible solutions.

In his gloomiest assessment yet about the government's budget outlook, Mr. Greenspan warned that annual shortfalls were "unlikely to improve substantially in the coming years unless major deficit-reducing actions are taken."

The Fed chairman emphasized that his strong preference was to reduce the deficit through spending cuts rather than tax increases. But he insisted that Congress needed to offset the costs of making Mr. Bush's tax cuts permanent.

"Addressing the government's own imbalances will require scrutiny of both spending and taxes," Mr. Greenspan told members of the House Budget Committee.

Though the Fed chairman has made similar pleas in the past, he spoke more urgently today and disagreed more adamantly with Republican lawmakers and President Bush who have steadfastly refused to put restrictions on new tax cuts.

"When you begin to do the arithmetic of what the rising debt level implied by the deficits tells you, and you add interest costs to that ever-rising debt, at ever-higher interest rates, the system becomes fiscally destabilizing," Mr. Greenspan said.

"Unless we do something to ameliorate it in a very significant manner, we will be in a state of stagnation."

Ok, so maybe, just maybe, Greenspan's Libertarian card is being threatened with shredding by his buds at the Cato Instutute. Or maybe Ayn Rand is communicating with him from the beyond through obscure messages on his RIM. Or maybe, just maybe, the Bush koolaid™ isn't strong enough to knock him stupid before Senate hearings.

In any case, this is starting to sound like the ole reliable Alan, who hates taxes but who hates deficits more. And he is a major player in the deficit disaster that The Staton Jones Report is convinced that Karl Rove cooked up to maintain control. He gave is Papal blessing to both Bush Tax Cuts and so is as much to blame for this cluster fuck as anyone else. His legacy is at stake here, and he's trying to salvage it.

Oh, and maybe he actually gives a damn about the future of this once great nation.

Posted by Steven at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)

Bill Gates to be K-nighted

Stupid English K-nig-its! Gates will be tapped an "honorary Knight of the Order" by QE2 herself today. Since he's not a British citizen, he'll not be "Sir Bill" (oi!). Nonetheless, the "powers-that-be" are recognizing one of their own.

Posted by Steven at 09:15 AM | Comments (1)

Supremes Face Ten Commandants (Again)

Thou Shalt Not Worship Graven Images. NPR offers a story on the latest judicial battle to remove Ten Commandments displays in government buildings.

The court battle focuses on two monuments, one in Austin, Texas. What irony. The supporters of the 1961 monument want it to stay, and are all but offering burnt offerings to it. Ironic, yes, because Texas executes more prisoners than any other state. Doesn't the monument say, "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? And while the supporters are protecting it like a totem, doesn't it also say, "Thou Shalt Not Worship Graven Images"? Now do you see the irony?

A University of Texas professor (interviewed in the NPR piece) also attacked the argument that the Ten Commandments formed the basis of our government and law. He notes that the Commandments reflect the idea that God imposes Law on Man. The Declaration of Independence states that the Law derives from the People, and in effect, overturns the medieval notion that the power of kings comes from God.

So ... if you want to worship a rock and have a King, join the GOP and support Ten Commandments idols in all the courthouses across our great kingdom! Long live King George II!

Not.

Posted by Steven at 08:33 AM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2005

Even the Endebted Rich Get To Feather Their Nests

Looks like you can take it with you, afterall. The New York Times has a story about how the rich are favored in new bankruptcy legislation that puts the screws to the middle class, but which allows the rich to hang on to most of their assets.

The bankruptcy legislation being debated by the Senate is intended to make it harder for people to walk away from their credit card and other debts. But legal specialists say the proposed law leaves open an increasingly popular loophole that lets wealthy people protect substantial assets from creditors even after filing for bankruptcy.

The loophole involves the use of so-called asset protection trusts. For years, wealthy people looking to keep their money out of the reach of domestic creditors have set up these trusts offshore. But since 1997, lawmakers in five states - Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, Rhode Island and Utah - have passed legislation exempting assets held domestically in such trusts from the federal bankruptcy code. People who want to establish trusts do not have to reside the five states; they need only set their trust up through an institution in one of them.

"If the bankruptcy legislation currently being rushed through the Senate gets enacted, debtors won't need to buy houses in Florida or Texas to keep their millions," said Elena Marty-Nelson, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., referring to generous homestead exemptions in those states. "The millionaire's loophole that is the result of these trusts needs to be closed."

Yesterday in Washington, Republicans in the Senate beat back the first in a series of Democratic amendments aimed at softening the effects of the bankruptcy bill on military personnel, and the majority leader of the House vowed to get quick approval of the bill if the Senate did not significantly alter it.

"We will grab hold of it just like we did class action if it is a good and clean bankruptcy reform bill," said Representative Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, referring to the quick action the House took last month on a measure limiting class-action lawsuits.

They are screwing you, America. When will you wake up and see this? They're piling debt upon debt, and changing the legal system so that you will have to pay it off yourself while the rich and ultra-rich feast on the flesh of your children. Do the math.

Posted by Steven at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)

Nice Shoot'n, Wead

Doug Wead, the man who taped Gov. Bush admitting to smoking pot and alluding to doing cocaine, has given the tapes to Bush's lawyer, effectively destroying them. Had he turned them over to the White House, they would have to be in the public record. Alas, it is not to be. Another 18 1/2 minute gap, no?

Posted by Steven at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)

Why Iran Is Next

From the 2-28-2005 edition of What We Now Know.

In recent weeks, the news media has been overflowing with reports on the increasing tension between the U.S. and Iran, supposedly based on the Islamic country's unwillingness to drop its nuclear programs. A clear-cut case of another tyrannical nation whose government needs to be ousted in order to make the world a safer place, it seems. But WWNK has found information that's largely been flying under the radar screen of the mainstream press... and that might paint an entirely different picture.

On February 18, Scott Ritter, ex-Marine and former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector who played a major role in Iraq, dropped a bombshell during a speech delivered to an audience in the Capitol Theater in Olympia, WA. The event's sponsor, United for Peace of Pierce County (UFPPC), a Washington state activist group that nonviolently opposes "the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy", had invited Ritter and independent war journalist Dahr Jamail to talk about the war in Iraq.

In his speech, Ritter claimed that President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005, citing an anonymous official as the source of this information who--according to Ritter--was involved in the manipulation of the election outcome in Iraq, which reduced the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from 56% to 48%. Ritter also stated that "this would soon be reported by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in a major metropolitan magazine", an allusion to New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh, believes the UFPPC.

In a January 17 article in the New Yorker, Hersh had written that "Strategists at the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military's war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran."

But why? Is Iran really such an imminent threat that it would justify invading that country, with a U.S. army already stretched to the max by its commitment in Iraq? Aside from the 'official' nuclear-threat argument, there may be other, economic, reasons that seem far more logical.

In October 2004, William Clark, award-winning writer and author of the soon-to-be published book Petrodollar Warfare--Oil, Iraq, and the Future of the Dollar (spring 2005), gave his opinion on the reasons for a pending U.S.-Iran crisis in an essay titled "The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target: The Emerging Euro-denominated International Oil Marker".

Clark blames "unspoken macroeconomic drivers" for the U.S.' determination to attack Iran, in partic