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December 14, 2005
President Has Stroke, Admits Fault in War
In a bizarre incident today, President Bush accidentally had a stroke, and admitted responsibility for the failed intelligence leading to the War in Iraq.
The President, seen on the left moments before his stroke and subsequent babbling about "responsibility", was giving a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. It's unclear which medical facility he was rushed to, or whether or not Vice President Cheney will issue a retraction.
Posted by Steven at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)
War On Xmas Hits Plano, Texas
Today the Dallas Morning News ran a headline in the Metro section about how the Plano ISD is hitting back at The O'Reilly Factor (on Faux News, where else?) for accusing it of being part of the anti-Christian crowd attacking Christmas. I found it particularly hilarious that the PISD lawyer, a known super-conservative, was attacking Bill O'Reilly for attacking the PISD. It doesn't get any better when these guys go after each other. You get to see the bare-knuckled attack first hand, without actually being on the receiving end.
The New York Times is also running an editorial on the "War on Xmas" and had this to add about the Plano dispute:
For the most part, Mr. Gibson's book is a dull recitation of run-of-the-mill examples of government officials trying to live up to the Supreme Court's decisions on the First Amendment's establishment clause precedents. Not only does he present no evidence that Christmas is in any danger. The "victims" he presents do not elicit much sympathy.Mr. Gibson takes up the cause of Sherrie Versher, the mother of a 10 1/2-year-old public school student in Plano, Texas. For her daughter Stephanie's birthday, Ms. Versher brought 24 brownies to school, to which she wanted to attach pencils that contained the message: "Jesus Loves Me This I Know Because the Bible Tells Me So." When the principal asked her not to distribute the pencils, she walked through the school building saying, "Satan is in the building."
It is hard not to take the side of the school in this case, which is trying to prevent its classroom from becoming a forum for parents to proselytize 10-year-old children without their parents' permission. But whatever the merits of the dispute, it is quite a stretch to say that the school's policy is part of a "War on Christmas."
So now mad-man Gibson is in the midst of it. Why the Christians, who by all accounts control the government, hold the majority of wealth and own much of the prime, untaxed real estate in this nation think they are under seige is just bizarre. Perhaps it's true: religion really does make you crazy.
Posted by Steven at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2005
Krauthhammer: Bush Has Bungled Saddam's Trial
I love it when the right-wing press tears Fearless Leader a new one, like Charles Krauthhammer did today over the handling of Saddam's Trial.
Why have we given him control of the stage? We all remember the picture of him pulled out of his spider hole. That should be the Saddam Hussein we put on trial. Instead, with every appearance, he dresses more regally, emerging from cowering captive to ordinary prisoner to dictator on temporary leave. Now he carries on as legitimate and imperious head of state. He plays the benign father of his country, calling the judge "son," then threatens the judge's life. Hussein shouts, defies, brandishes a Koran. The judge keeps telling him he's out of order. He disobeys with impunity, the guards not daring to intervene.What kind of message does that send to Iraqis who have been endlessly told that Hussein and his regime were finished? "The performance has heartened his followers," writes The Post's Doug Struck from Baghdad. "In Tikrit . . . a large crowd of demonstrators chanted their loyalty on Tuesday. Several marchers said they were emboldened by his courtroom bravado."
This is absurd. If anything, Hussein should be brought in wearing prison garb, perhaps in shackles, just for effect. And why was he given control of the script? He shouts, interrupts and does his Mussolini histrionics unmolested. Instead of the press being behind a glass wall, it is Hussein who should be. Better still, placed in a glass booth, like Eichmann, like some isolated specimen of deranged humanity, symbolically and physically cut off from the world of normal human values.
Both President Bush and his opponents in Congress are incessantly talking about "benchmarks" to guide any U.S. withdrawals from Iraq. But there is one benchmark that is always left unspoken: We cannot leave until Saddam Hussein is dead, executed for his crimes. No one will say it, but everyone knows it. As long as he is alive and well-dressed, every Iraqi will have to wonder what will happen to him and his family if Hussein returns. Only Hussein's death will assure them that he will not return.
Which is why the lateness of this trial is such a tragedy. And why its bungling is such a danger. Our only hope, as always with Hussein, is that he destroys himself with his arrogance and stupidity. He has stupidly walked out of his own trial. This is our opportunity. He should not be allowed back, certainly not without a glass booth. Only Saddam Hussein can save us from our own incompetence. We should let him.
I have to admit that it scares me that I agree with Krauthhammer. Saddam should not be allowed to perform the histronics he has during this 'trial', which is a joke since everyone in the West, at least, expects him to be found guilt and shot at some point. Now I wonder, is it possible he will not meet this fate? It must be awful for his victims to see him carry on like this. His definance (even onto the end) will leave painful wounds that our military presence will only fester. Bush has truly screwed the pooch on this one. If he was half the "man" he thinks he is, he'd shoot Hussein himself. On TV.
Posted by Steven at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2005
Merry Fucking Christmas
On the Randi Rhodes Show on Air America, Randi has been discussing a new ad promoting the confirmation of Alito. The ad raises the specter of supposed "attacks" on Christmas, pandering to the wingnuts who are going batty over retailers using "Happy Holidays."
I guess the fact that the White House sent out a "Holiday Card" has hit a nerve, because — according to a caller to the show &mdash White House Cheif of Staff Andrew "It's a Christmas" Card has reportedly sent out a memo to staffers dictating that all phone calls start and end with a cherry, "Merry Christmas."
Bah, humbug.
Posted by Winston Smith at 04:57 PM | Comments (1)
December 04, 2005
Rove vs. New Orleans
Leave it to the Bush White House to put politics before, oh, saving lives. Documents recently released by the State of Louisiana reveal that Bush was more concerned with his political image and a raw power grab than actually sending help to New Orleans.
Shortly after noon on Aug. 31, Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R) delivered a message that stunned aides to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D), who were frantically managing the catastrophe that began two days earlier when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.White House senior adviser Karl Rove wanted it conveyed that he understood that Blanco was requesting that President Bush federalize the evacuation of New Orleans. The governor should explore legal options to impose martial law "or as close as we can get," Vitter quoted Rove as saying, according to handwritten notes by Terry Ryder, Blanco's executive counsel.
Thus began what one aide called a "full-court press" to compel the first-term governor to yield control of her state National Guard -- a legal, political and personal campaign by White House staff that failed three days later when Blanco rejected the administration's terms, 10 minutes before Bush was to announce them in a Rose Garden news conference, the governor's aides said.
The standoff, illuminated among more than 100,000 pages of documents released Friday by Blanco in response to requests by Senate and House investigators, marks perhaps the clearest single conflict between U.S. and Louisiana officials in the bungled response to New Orleans's surrender to floodwaters and chaos.
While attention has focused on the performance of former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael D. Brown, and communications breakdowns that kept Washington from recognizing for 12 to 16 hours the scope of flooding that would drive the storm's death toll above 1,200, the clash over military control highlights government officials' lack of familiarity with the levers of emergency powers.
Blanco's top aides relied on ad hoc tutorials from the National Guard about who would be in charge and how to call in federal help. But in the inevitable confusion of fast-moving events, partisan differences and federal/state divisions prevented top leaders from cooperating.
A Blanco aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the people around Bush were trying to maneuver the governor into an unnecessary change intended to make Bush look decisive.
"It was an overwhelming natural disaster. The federal government has an agency that exists for purposes of coming to the rescue of localities in a natural disaster, and that organization did not live up to what it was designed for or promised to," the aide said. Referring to Bush aides, he said, "It was time to recover from the fiasco, and take a win wherever you could, legitimate or not."
First they drive the wedge of partisanship into every level of government, and then have the chutzpuh to say that government doesn't work, and people die.
Posted by Steven at 09:37 PM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2005
Coming to an Airport Near You: Saner Rules?
The TSA (Transportation Safety Authority) is about to drop its ban on scissors on planes. Now the long nightmare for seamstresses on domestic flights will finally be over.
I swear, these guys are such fucking idiots it amazes me they are allowed to staff the airport security booths. Cockpit doors are now (finally) blade-weapon proof, so lift the ban on blades already. Why don't they screen passengers for black belts in Karate, for crying out loud? Or make Special Ops soldiers take special flights so they won't endanger the passengers? The line was drawn in the Stupid Zone and slowly, thanks to continental, I mean, governmental drift, it's being dragged back to Reality.
Best line in the article:
Screeners will spend more time checking for explosives under guidelines which will allow for more random searches.
Yeah. Do that. Look harder for BOMBS. Sheesh.
Posted by Steven at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)
State Murders 1000th Citizen
I don't know any other way to characterize this. The United States murdered its 1000th citizen (since the 1976 ruling reinstating the death penalty). Since that ruling, 1000 (almost entirely) men have been murdered by their own government, and yet DNA evidence is starting to reveal just how many were falsely accused, convicted and killed. No other first world nation kills it's citizens as aggressively, and we're the shame of the "advanced nations" for it.
Ruben Cantu is long gone, executed by Texas authorities in 1993 after he was convicted of murdering a man during a San Antonio robbery when he was 17 years old. To the end, Cantu insisted he had been framed, and now his co-defendant and the sole surviving witness both say he was telling the truth.A state legislator called for an investigation this week as prosecutors moved to study the 20-year-old case. Opponents of the death penalty suspect that Cantu may be what they have long expected to find: an innocent person put to death. Houston law professor David Dow said the case shows that "we make mistakes in death penalty cases, too."
The nation's 1,000th execution since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 took place Friday morning at 2:15. The execution of Kenneth Boyd in North Carolina for murdering his wife and her father comes at a time of growing misgivings over the death penalty, as reflected in jury verdicts, opinion polls and the actions of courts and state legislatures.
Death sentences have declined to their lowest level in three decades, with juries sentencing 125 people to death last year, compared with an average of 290 per year in the 1990s. The number of inmates executed last year was the lowest since 1996, and the Supreme Court has twice in the past three years limited who can be punished with death.
In Virginia, which has executed more people since 1976 than any state but Texas, Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) commuted the death sentence of Robin M. Lovitt this week because the state had thrown out what may have been conclusive evidence, making this the first year since 1983 that Virginia will not have had an execution.
In Maryland, Cardinal William H. Keeler, the archbishop of Baltimore, prayed with Wesley E. Baker this week and said he would appeal to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) to commute his death sentence to life without parole. Baker is on death row for murdering teacher's aide Jane Tyson during a robbery outside a Catonsville mall.
Public opinion polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty, but that is a significant drop from the peak, in 1994, when 80 percent of respondents told Gallup pollsters they were in favor of capital punishment. When asked if they would endorse executions if the alternative sentence of life without parole were available, support fell to 50 percent.
Amid the refinement of DNA techniques and the sporadic release of inmates from death row because of uncertain guilt, a growing number of people tell pollsters they believe that innocent prisoners have been executed. Although the majority of cases over the past three decades have been upheld, legal errors and sometimes poor defense work revealed during layers of appeals have convinced many Americans that the system is imperfect.
Tell you what. I'll endorse the death penalty when there is a way to reverse the decision after the fact.
Posted by Steven at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
DeLay's Lines Illegal in Justice's Eyes
Tom DeLay's political masterpiece, the redistricting of Texas in 2002, was clearly illegal in the eyes of the Justice Dept. lawyers asked to review it. The seventy-three page memo has been under an "unusual" gag order for the last two years (this Administration has made black holes look transparent) in an obvious effort to hide the fact that the whole thing was illegal, immoral, and a raw power grab by DeLay (that worked).
Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.
"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," the memo concluded.
The memo also found that Republican lawmakers and state officials who helped craft the proposal were aware it posed a high risk of being ruled discriminatory compared with other options.
But the Texas legislature proceeded with the new map anyway because it would maximize the number of Republican federal lawmakers in the state, the memo said. The redistricting was approved in 2003, and Texas Republicans gained five seats in the U.S. House in the 2004 elections, solidifying GOP control of Congress.
J. Gerald "Gerry" Hebert, one of the lawyers representing Texas Democrats who are challenging the redistricting in court, said of the Justice Department's action: "We always felt that the process . . . wouldn't be corrupt, but it was. . . . The staff didn't see this as a close call or a mixed bag or anything like that. This should have been a very clear-cut case."
The Democrats are pursuing a case against this redistricting that will soon go to the Supreme Court. If Bush doesn't finish packing it with right-wing nut jobs, it may actually result in a ruling against the GOP and (what, again?) another round of redistricting. Here's hoping that democracy prevails.
Posted by Steven at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2005
It's World AIDS Day
A reminder that AIDS is still raging in many parts of the world, lest we forget that amongst the artificial emergencies we have here in the U.S. of A. Thanks to Comments From Left Field and Google for the reminders.
Also thanks to the Bush Administration for not declaring a "War on AIDS." This fight is too important for them to completely screw up.
Posted by Winston Smith at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)