Sen. Landrieu STANDS UP for her Constituents, shows Wimpy Democrats "how-to"! Got that, Sen. Reid?
COURAGEOUS Senator Landrieu (D-LA) SHOWS THE WAY !!
See how EASY that was, Sen. Reid...?
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Time to GET POSITIVE here at WimpyDems.blgspt.com, and note a COURAGEOUS Senator who is MAKING WAVES!
We, your humble editors, do not relish writting post after post knocking the Democratic leadership for selling issue after issue, voter after voter, American citizen after American citizen down the river (in the case of New Orleans flood victims, LITERALLY) of apathy, inertia, and submission to the Bush-Rove propaganda machine and DeLay-Abramoff-Cunningham-Halliburton-Enron-Diebold crony-corruption extortion racket.
However, if America is to have a true REPRESENTATIVE democracy, it is simply essential that we have a functioning and vocal OPPOSITION PARTY. "Opposition" party as in "providing some actual opposition," not just the current kerry/biden/lieberman/bayh/hillary/reid routine of talking opposition in mushy terms, and then ALLOWING the Republican junta to STEAM ROLL any MEANINGFUL opposition with the latest in-your-face ATROCITIES, such as torture & kangaroo courts, Hallibuton corruption and FEMA cronyism, Diebold vote fraud and conflict of interest, treasury looting tax cuts for billionaires while asking the blue-collar and white-collar working class to not only pick up the tab, but the interest on the Bush deficits as well, etc. etc. etc. ad naseum.
HOW EASY IS IT, could it be, for the MINORITY PARTY SENATORS to provide some REAL oppposition??
Well, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu provides us with a LONG OVERDUE glimpse of what the Democrat "leadership" COULD BE DOING, SHOULD have been doing all these months and years:
<< Landrieu threatens to block appointments over levees >> (CNN headline)
as in,
<< Senator Landrieu THREATENED TO BLOCK ALL of President Bush's appointments requiring Senate Confirmation, until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August. >>
Here's the full CNN headline on this riveting news:
<< LANDRIEU THREATENS to BLOCK APPOINTMENTS OVER LEVEES
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Frustrated by a lack of progress in rebuilding the state's levees, a Louisiana Democrat threatened Wednesday to block President Bush's appointments requiring Senate confirmation until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August. >>
Hey you wimpy Senate Democrats... SEE HOW EASY THAT WAS?!
Senator Landrieu's COURAGEOUS taking a stand, standing up for her constiuents, CONFRONTING the incompetent, arrogant, and CORRUPT Bush regime, garnered her FREE PRESS and media!
*** FREE PRESS and MEDIA ATTENTION, for STANDING UP for her constituents! ***
UNLIKE the wimpy Democrats, who solicit our (Democratic supporter's) funds, and then toss that money down the RAT HOLE of vague, wishy-washy, non-confrontational ad campaigns such as the generic "we pledge to reform this or that" or Kerry's awful 2004 mantra, "Time for a Change." ('Time for a change' of WHAT, Mr. Kerry.. the DIAPERS of Democratic leaders who are AFRAID to make a MEANINGFUL committment or confrontational stand, as Senator Landrieu is now doing??!)
And don't forget the DIRTY LITTLE SECRET of American politics... your senate and congressional "leaders" SPEND MORE TIME SOLICITING FUNDS for their next campaign, than they do REPRESENTING the plurality of citizen's who voted for them!
This one post can not begin to cover the dilemma of congressional leaders who (as one political commentator explained on a network news report) "wake up every morning knowing who their 10 biggest donors are, and who spends the entire day trying to keep those donors satisfied so they will contribute again when the next campaign money crunch gets tight."
It is a case of "super-representation"- people with large sums of money who involve themselves in political campaigns are FAR better represented on the issues and policies (and especially fiscal policies and tax policies), than "ordinary" citizens who only pay attention to the election process at election time, if then.
And, in defense of our OVERWORKED Represenatives and Senators, they are shouldering a significant burden of EDUCATING VOTERS, millions of whom would prefer to sit on their behinds watching sports events in stadiums, movies in theaters, and sit-coms and soap-operas at home on their sofas, to keeping themselves informed about local and national issues that affect theiir jobs, lives and families. Both as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of the time we allot from out daily lives, the vast majority of Americans are much more concerned with their home team, sports league, movies, or TV (among other forms of ENTERTAINMENT), than they are with whether or not their families have affordable HEALTH CARE.
That is a product of VOTER's APATHY. But a large part of the problem is built into the current "system" by our political leadership, a "system" that offers significant advantages to the Republican Party. Namely, the CONSOLIDATION of the media networks and press/publishing empires under fewer and fewer controlling owners, until you have a situation like CLEAR CHANNEL RADIO. Clear Channel Radio now has a MONOPOLY on the radio market throughout the US, and especially in regards to the airplay that rising music stars (and even established music stars) receive for their latest music. In the case of the Country Music female trio "The Dixie Chicks," when singer Natalie Mains and her bandmates came out VOCALLY OPPOSING President Bush's march to bomb and invade Iraq, The Dixie Chicks were BLACKLISTD from Clear Channel Radio stations, and thereby BLOCKED from their potential market of music purchasing customers. Righty propaganda has INVERTED the truth, in this case declaring that MONOPOLY CAPITALISM is somehow a "free market"!!! If you'll remember back to your elementary school history, the MONOPOLY of King George's British East India Tea Company was (along with stamp taxes and abusive royal officials), one of the major sparks of the American Revolution, leading American Patriots in Boston to dress as Indians, storm an East India Tea Company merchant ship, and TOSS THE TEA into Boston Harbor - the "Boston Tea Party" was against MONOPOLY CAPITALISM" over 200 years ago!
To continue with "THE SYSTEM's" built in disadvantage to Democratic voters and candidates, because the Democrats allowed President Reagan to dispense with the "Fairness Doctrine" equal time provisions of the FCC regulations (which required broadcasters to provide free air time to rebut any one side's paid political commercials), and because Democrats keep signing off on MEDIA CONSOLIDATION, we now have a situation where Democratic candidates, leaders, and activists MUST shell out millions of dollars to reach (via paid political ads) their own constituents, citizens and potential voters.
Worse, ALMOST EVERY DOLLAR THAT Democratic candidates SPEND on ad-campaigns, GOES to ENRICH and REWARD the corporate media owners, who in almost all cases are AGAINST the policies, issues, and fiscal priorities that Democratic candidates so often appeal to!
THAT IS, because of the barrier of modern networks and news organizations can create between leaders and citizens, Democratic candidates MUST ENRICH their potential political adversaries! The text-book example would be Howard Dean's 2004 presidential primary campaign, in which mere days after Dean commented that media consolidation and power was out of control, he was ambushed by the "Dean scream" video (which, misleadingly, made Gov. Dean's scream sound much louder than the sreams of his hundreds of supporters in the room, which were isolated by the unidirectional mike. Take on General Electric (owns NBC), Fox news (Rupert Murdoch), or any of the other media titans, and you MUST PAY FOR ADS on THEIR NETWORKS, to reach YOUR Voters. ergo, Dem candidates MUST ENRICH corporations and owners that are dead-set AGAINST the polices and goals of those Dem. candidates!
For example, GENERAL ELECTRIC corporation OWNS NBC. NBC corporation, NBC 'news', MSNBC, and CNBC, are all WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARIES of General Electric corporation! Not only will GE execs NEVER permit their NBC subsidiaries to broadcast news negative to the interest of General Electric corporation (for example, the story of GE's long history of dumping carcinoginic PCB's into the Hudson river watershed), but EVERY TIME A DEMOCRATIC or independent candidate pays NBC to broadcast a campaign advertisement, IT REWARDS THE MOTHER COMPANY, GE, whose agenda is almost entirely adverse to the ideals that the modern Democratic has fought for for 100 years... issues such as pensions; unions; worker, job, and public health safety standards (such as the PCB pollution mentioned above), corporate oversight (SEC); media consolidation (FCC); outsourcing; nuclear power and nuclear proliferation, etc. etc etc. - on all these issues and many hundreds of others, Democratic and independent candidates MUST ENRICH General Electric and other huge media corporations, to have ANY CHANCE of REACHING THEIR VOTERS via paid TV and radio ads!
AT THE VERY LEAST, we Americans should have a law that a company that profits from nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons, should NOT BE ALLOWED to own a major media organization!
NO WHERE did our founding fathers and Constitution founders imagine that MAJOR CORPORATIONS would provide a monopoly barrier and life-or-death conduit between Congressional Representatives and their voters, citizens, and constituents of the 50 states!
We apologize - this is starting to be a long winded exposition. But to simplify: ALL candidates MUST spend the MAJORITY of their time RAISING CAMPAIGN FUNDS, and under our current system which is so dependent on paid political TV ads to reach an apathetic and ill-informed voting populace, Democratic and Independent candidats MUST ENRICH THEIR corporate (which is to say, 'Republican leaning') opponents JUST TO BE HEARD above the din of daily traffic and the network media's particular reporting bias. (Again, without sounding conspiratorial, GE will never permit NBC to air or broadcast stories that negatively reflect on GE, except to mention an investigation or judgement against the company in the most cursory manner.)
BUT Democrats CAN EASILY OVERCOME this network, corporate, institutional BIAS.... SIMPLY BY GETTING OUT THERE, PROVIDING SOME LEADERSHIP, and CONFRONTING the wrongs of the system...!!!
As Senator Landrieu has shown, IT CAN BE AS EASY as making ONE STATEMENT before the cameras!
This is not rocket science; it is how the Clinton-Gore campaign won the election of 1992, despite an INCUMBENT Republican Presdident (President George H.W. Bush) (Sr.) who was not only BETTER FUNDED by corporate interests, but had been a WAR LEADING VICTOR just months before leading the 1991 Gulf War1 coalition against Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
We here at WimpyDemocrats.blogspot.com most heartily support and endorse Senator Landrieu's COURAGEOUS CONFRONTATION of President Bush's AWOL and APATHETIC (not to say, "whooly corrupt and incompetent") 'leadership' of the post-Katrina rebuilding of New Orleans. New Orleans is even more dependent on presidential leadership for hurricane recovery than Florida ever will be, because New Orleans is CRITICALLY dependent on an overall Environmental management strategy to provide levee rebuilding and wetlands management to mitigate the impact of future killer storms. These are functions that ONLY the Federal Government can provide.. the State of Louisiana has neither the money nor the authority to manage and oversee the Mississippi River and delta, which is an interstate resource and geographic feature that demands FEDERAL oversight.
So, "BRAVO! and a hearty "Well done.. KEEP IT GOING!" to Senator Landrieu, who has joined Senators Feingold, Boxer, Durbin, and Leahy in the "Support CENSURE of President Bush's illegal wiretaps and warrantless searches" COURAGEOUS Democrats column!
If MORE DEMOCRATIC SENATORS start using the senate's institutional powers - powers SPECIFICALLY VESTED IN SENATORS by the US Constitution - to OPPOSE and CONFRONT President Bush's awful agenda, incompetence, and ABUSE OF POWER, than we could hopefully stop adding to "WimpyDemocrats.Blogspot.com" and start a more positive and encouraging website.
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LANDRIEU THREATENS to BLOCK APPOINTMENTS OVER LEVEES
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/04/landrieu.appointments/index.html?section=cnn_latest
photo- Sen. Mary Landrieu: The people of Louisiana "simply cannot wait much longer."
video- Threat of a block from the bayou (1:46)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Frustrated by a lack of progress in rebuilding the state's levees, a Louisiana Democrat threatened Wednesday to block President Bush's appointments requiring Senate confirmation until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August.
Saying coastal residents "cannot wait much longer," Sen. Mary Landrieu blamed the loss of 1,200 lives in her home state "to the loss of wetlands as a protection and a lack of levees that held."
She is DEMANDING that the Bush administration develop a COMPREHENSIVE levee, FLOOD CONTROL, and COASTAL RESTORATION PROGRAM, and dole out the funds to pay for it.
"For me, this used to be a major policy issue," she said. "Now, it's an issue of life and death." (Watch Landrieu outline her demand -- 1:46)
The senator said she sent a letter to Bush on Tuesday and "urged him specifically to request of Congress $6 billion that his administration says that we need in order for our region to be safe."
If the White House fails to meet her demands, "I WILL BE COMPELLED TO USE THE POWER OF MY OFFICE as SENATOR TO HOLD ALL EXECUTIVE NOMINATIONS until we get A RESPONSE from the [....AWOL, arrogant, incompetent, and crony-corrupt Bush...] administration."
There was no immediate response from the White House.
Blocking or failing to act on executive appointments may not be the only pressure she applies, she warned. "I have other leverage, and I'm prepared to use it if I have to."
In her Tuesday letter, Landrieu writes, "Mr. President, the piecemeal approach that has marked your administration's response to providing adequate levee and flood protection for Louisiana has not worked. It needs to be replaced by a comprehensive approach that is both more effective and cost-efficient."
She added that money spent on levees and flood control would ultimately save the government money "by eliminating the need for costly post-storm recovery and rebuilding in areas that were not adequately protected. That is a major lesson learned from last year's horrifying experience."
posted by verifi | 4:57 AM | 0 comments
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LIES and the Lying Liars who tell them. As Al Franken CONFRONTS the Repub. Party, as Wimpy Senate Dems pretend "no problem here"....
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Al Franken has been calling out Republican "LIARS" since he wrote his humorous bestseller, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" in 1995. Since then, the Republicans have seized the "Super-Trifecta of politics" (gaining control of the House, Senate, White House, federal government agencies, control of the federal and most state judiciaries and US Supreme Court, AND a heavy-handed domination of the "4th estate" large ("mainstream media" press and media organizations) by INSTITUTIONALIZING their chronically lying agenda, turning issues on their head, and taking America down the Mad Hatter rabbit hole, with the dazed and dormant Democrats not being able to find a rebuttal to much of anything.
The Bush administration touts their "Clear Skies Initiative," which is nothing more nor less than a propaganda PR term to cover up the evisceration of existing environmental pollution regulations, reduced regulations and enforcement that now allows power plants to spew MORE pollution into the skies. The Democrats ALLOW the perception that "Clear Skies" must mean "Clear Skies," and can't articulate (much less publicize) an energetic response that portrays the Bush administration as LYING about this issue.
President Bush REPEATEDLY tells the world his bald-faced, in-your-face LIE that "Saddam WOULD NOT allow the weapons inspectors in", when Hans Blix's team of international inspectors WAS IN IRAQ, on the ground, doing an effective job, given virtually unlimited access to investigate ANY rumored WMD cache AT A MOMENT's NOTICE, and directed to such potential caches by any an all US intelligence urgings, including satellite surveillance, the US-British "no fly zone" enforcement which was actually an ongoing bombing campaign, and of course the weapons inspectors could act on any "tip" that either American intel or Iraqi tipsters (spies) would provide.
They Democrats COULD NOT rebut the basic Republican LIE MACHINE in 2002, (hell, they couldn't even make an issue of the STOLEN ELECTION of 2000), 2003, or 2004, even when faced with further administration ATROCITIES including the wholesale LOOTING of Iraq (including massive ammunition complexes looted under the eyes of American commanders) and the Abu Ghraib TORTURE and SADISM scandal.
But Al Franken was calling the Republican agenda an agenda of LIES since 1995, and making a good business of it. His last book was "LIES and the Lying Liars Who Tell them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," dissects the Lies of the Republican right-wing, has pictures of Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney on the cover, and went on to be another New York Times bestseller.
Here's a clip from Franken's "Lying Liars" that explains the Republican strategy of USING LIES to propagandize the public and thereby win elections:
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<< The members of the right-wing media are NOT interested in conveying the truth. That's not what they're for. They are a component of the right-wing machine that has taken over our country. They employ a TRIED and [not so] TRUE METHODOLOGY. First, the concoct an inflammatory story that serves their political goals. ("Al Gore is a liar.") They REPEAT it. ("Al Gore LIES AGAIN.") They embellish it. ("Are his lies pathological, or are they merely malicious?") Then they try to push it into the mainstream media. All too often, they succeed. ("Tall Tales: Is what we've got here a Commitment to Exaggerate?" New York Times, October 15, 2000.) Occasionally, they fail. (Despite their best efforts, the mainstream media never picked up their Clinton-as-murderer stories.) But even their failures serve their agenda, as evidence of 'LIBERAL BIAS." Win-Win. You've got to admit, it's a good racket.
They used the tactics to CRIPPLE Clinton's presidency. They used them to discredit Gore and push Bush into office. And they're using them now to silence Bush's critics. Bush is getting away with murder - just like Clinton did. See? That's how insidious the right-wing modus operandi is. Even I bought into the Clinton murder thing for a second. And that's my point. We have to be vigilant.
AND WE HAVE TO BE MORE THAN VIGILANT. WE HAVE TO FIGHT BACK. We have to EXPOSE those who BEAR FALSE WITNESS for the false witness bearers that they are. And we have to do it in a straight, plainspoken way. Let's call them what they are: liars. Lying, lying liars.
Hence the title of this book. [Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them.] >>
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0525947647/ref=sib_fs_top/104-6136860-3781563?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00P&checkSum=9XFJ55E8YwbTBcnd7y0EAWp6m%2F6Zw%2FQUPqTJVoGlIxg%3D#reader-page
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Here's a clip from Al's opening statement of Mr. Franken's recent debate with Ann Coulter (4 April 2006) that not only calls out Ann Coulter as a LIAR, but also starts the process of LISTING the enormous chain of Bush administration LIES:
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<< I think we should talk about the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress and what it has accomplished over the past five years. I'm talking, of course, about well over two trillion dollars added to the national debt, the increase in poverty in our country and the added millions of Americans, including children, without health insurance. I’m talking about the sale of our democracy to corporate interests that pollute our water and our air. I’m talking about the widening gap between the haves and the have nots in this country. And I’m talking about the war in Iraq.
I’m talking about an increasingly corrupt, secretive, and incompetent federal government that rewards cronies, a Republican majority in Congress that’s acted as a rubber stamp, that has performed virtually no oversight and which excludes the minority party from the legislative process in a way unprecedented in our recent history.
After telling a number jokes and getting the cadets on my side. I told them that we had been lied into the war in Iraq. I had just published a book entitled The Truth (with jokes), and I told the cadets that you can’t have freedom without the truth. You can have freedom without jokes, as has been proven by the Dutch and the Swiss.
I proceeded to prove that we had been LIED INTO WAR, citing EXAMPLE after EXAMPLE of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, who had been National Security Advisor in the lead-up to the war, telling the public information that THEY KNEW NOT TO BE TRUE.
At the end of the speech I received a standing ovation from the cadets. Sol Feinstone’s granddaughter told me she had gone to every lecture for the last thirty or so years, and that I received only the second standing ovation. The other was for Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam.
By the way, Ann has written that Max Cleland was lucky to have lost his legs and his arm in Vietnam. I disagree. More importantly, I know Max, and he disagrees.
I believe I received the standing ovation because the cadets knew that I was speaking from the heart, and that the information I had given them was all true. And as I said, you can’t have freedom without the truth. >>
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Ok, the occasional coarse vulgarity of Franken's "Big Fat Liar" book may have been a little off-putting, but as we now know, on issue after issue, goal after goal, campaign after campaign, the Republican agenda is built on a tidal-wave, an avalanche, a tsunami of lies. "Moral Values" of Enron executives holding "strippers and stimulants" parties as they loot and plunder stockholders, workers, pensioners, rate-payers, and taxpayers. "Restoring Honor and Dignity to the White House" as President Bush first closes the White House to citizen tourists, and then invites his cronies such as Enron fraudmeister Kenneth Lay to spend the night. "Moral Values" such as President Bush STRUMMING HIS GUITAR, at yet ANOTHER Republican photo-op campaign fundraiser, as New Orleans drowning victims float face-down over New Orlean's flooded streets. "Restoring Honor and Dignity" to America, only to have hundreds of photographs of Iraqi prisoners tortured, humiliated, sadistically stripped naked and sodomized under the aegis of Military Intel generals (General Miller was promoted from command of the US base in Guantanamo, Cuba, SPECIFICALLY to bring his "Guantanamo methods" to Iraq), as Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld order the military to run KANGAROO COURTS of low level enlisted privates and NCO's accused of "abuse," EVEN AS Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. Rumsfeld reserve the 'right' to TORTURE prisoners even to death....
There comes a point, in discussing Bush administration outrages, Republican crimes, and right-wing propaganda, that the facts and outrages pile up so much, that a reader is driven off by the sheer scale and repetition of it all.
Why are Republicans able to repeat the "Al Gore is a liar" mantra so often, and find consumers among the American voting public, yet when Mr. Bush's much more manifest, much more dangerous lies, are sitting out there in full view, within pages of official presidential transcripts posted on the White House web-site even, the public responds with a big yawn, and the Democrats go about with an air of "business as usual"?
Well, that is exactly why. Over the years the Democrats have abandoned the "Fairness doctrine" in public broadcasting, they have allowed media consolidation to CONCENTRATE the ENTIRE media ownership in the hands of 5 or 6 billion-dollar corporations, and above all, they REFUSE to CONFRONT the lies when they are there for all to see, as for example the Senate Democrats SCURRYING FOR THEIR RAT HOLES re the Feingold CENSURE bill, to censure Mr. Bush for his ILLEGAL wiretapping, spying, and searching of American citizens with NO oversight, restraint, or accountability to anyone but the president's own whims and ego.
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An Evening with Ann Coulter: Opening Statement
Al Franken's MidwestValuesPac.org
Apr 4, 02:54 PM
ch: Al’s Channel
http://midwestvaluespac.org/blog/156/an-evening-with-ann-coulter-with-full-speech
COULTER DEBATE OPENING STATEMENT –
Thank you. First of all, I know I join Ann in thanking the University of Judaism for hosting this event. We’ve had an opportunity to spend some time with President Wexler and have dinner with many folks from the University community.
And I’d like to answer the question that I actually get asked the most when I do an event for a Jewish organization. Yes, I had enough to eat.
You know, in these kinds of debate forums, someone has to go first. It’s always preferable to go second, because you can react to what’s been said, giving you something of a tactical advantage. More importantly, it pretty much spares you the chore of writing out pre-prepared remarks.
Both Ann and I said we preferred going second, but I didn’t insist on it, because I understood somebody had to go first. And being a liberal, I just wasn’t tough-minded enough to insist on a coin toss.
So, I’ll try to use my time to define the terms of the debate – if you will. “Whence Judaism?”
No. I think we should talk about the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress and what it has accomplished over the past five years. I’m talking, of course, about well over two trillion dollars added to the national debt, the increase in poverty in our country and the added millions of Americans, including children, without health insurance. I’m talking about the sale of our democracy to corporate interests that pollute our water and our air. I’m talking about the widening gap between the haves and the have nots in this country. And I’m talking about the war in Iraq.
I’m talking about an increasingly corrupt, secretive, and incompetent federal government that rewards cronies, a Republican majority in Congress that’s acted as a rubber stamp, that has performed virtually no oversight and which excludes the minority party from the legislative process in a way unprecedented in our recent history.
I also want to discuss with Ann the coarsening of dialogue in this country. I want to discuss values with Ann. Values like love, of family, of your fellow man, of country. Ann has said repeatedly that liberals hate America. I disagree.
Last year I had the honor of speaking at West Point. It was an audience not so very different from this one. Except that instead of you, the audience was made up of about twelve hundred cadets. Many of whom will be going to Iraq in the next year or so.
The occasion was the Sol Feinstone Lecture on the Meaning of Freedom endowed by philanthropist Sol Feinstone. It’s an annual event and Sol Feinstein’s granddaughter, who is about my age, attended.
After telling a number jokes and getting the cadets on my side. I told them that we had been lied into the war in Iraq. I had just published a book entitled The Truth (with jokes), and I told the cadets that you can’t have freedom without the truth. You can have freedom without jokes, as has been proven by the Dutch and the Swiss.
I proceeded to prove that we had been lied into war, citing example after example of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, who had been National Security Advisor in the lead-up to the war, telling the public information that they knew not to be true.
At the end of the speech I received a standing ovation from the cadets. Sol Feinstone’s granddaughter told me she had gone to every lecture for the last thirty or so years, and that I received only the second standing ovation. The other was for Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam.
By the way, Ann has written that Max Cleland was lucky to have lost his legs and his arm in Vietnam. I disagree. More importantly, I know Max, and he disagrees.
I believe I received the standing ovation because the cadets knew that I was speaking from the heart, and that the information I had given them was all true. And as I said, you can’t have freedom without the truth.
You can’t have good government without the truth. During the crafting and passage of the Medicare prescription drug bill, the chief actuary of Medicare was told to withhold from Congress the true cost of the bill. He’d be fired if he told the truth.
The bill costs so much, in large part, because the bill prohibits Medicare from negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies on the price of drugs. As a result, seniors now pay on average 44% more than veterans getting the same drugs through the VA which is allowed to use its size to negotiate with the drug companies. To get the bill passed, the vote was held open for three hours. Tom DeLay was later admonished by Republicans on the ethics committee for attempting to bribe, and then extort, Republican Nick Smith of Michigan to get him to change his vote. The chairman of the Commerce Committee Billy Tauzin who ushered the legislation through, soon left Congress for a two million dollar a year job as the chief lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. Obviously, a complete coincidence.
During the 2000 campaign George Bush ran for president by saying repeatedly, and I quote, “by far the vast majority of my tax cut goes to those at the bottom.” Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the president continues to ask for and sign tax cuts that go primarily to those at the top. By the way, until George W. Bush, our country had never cut taxes during a time of war.
As a result, our deficits grow and the cuts – in Medicaid, Pell Grants, food stamps, low-income housing subsidies, community block grants – are targeted at the poorest in our society.
George W. Bush famously said that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher. Frankly, I don’t get it.
I’m Jewish. Thank you. I’m not an expert on the New Testament. But I know that if you cut out all the passages where Jesus talks about helping the poor, helping the least among us, if you literally took a pair of scissors and cut out all those passages, you’d have the perfect box to smuggle Rush Limbaugh’s drugs in.
I don’t understand when the Christian right says that equal rights in marriage threatens marriage. I’ve been married 30 years, many of them happy. I don’t think that if my wife and I were walking around in Boston, where we met, if we saw two men holding hands with wedding bands… I don’t think I’d say “Hey, that looks good. Y’know, honey, you don’t like watching football on Sundays. Maybe I could marry a guy, watch football with him, and then if I wanted to have sex, I could come over and have sex with you.”
I was just talking to Newt Gingrich the other day. And I said to him, “Don’t you want for a gay couple what you had with your first wife? Don’t you want that bond that comes with the pledge of fidelity that you had with your second wife? Don’t you want what comes with that lifelong bond that you may or may not have with your third wife – I have no idea what’s going on there.”
You know, Bill O’Reilly always talks about his “traditional values” – as opposed to “the far left’s secular humanist values.” I didn’t realize phone sex was a traditional value. I didn’t think the phone had been around long enough. Maybe telegraph sex.
In her book Slander, Ann referred to Democrats and our “Marquis de Sade lifestyle.” I’ve been married for thirty years. Ann, you’re an attractive woman. And I know you support the president’s abstinence-only sex education. I want to congratulate you for saving yourself for your one true love.
When my daughter was six years old, her teacher asked all her students to write about how their parents had met. We told Thomasin that we met at a mixer freshman year of college. I saw Franni across the room, gathering up some friends to leave. I liked the way she was taking control and I thought she was beautiful. So I asked her to dance, and then got her a ginger ale, then escorted her to her dorm and asked for a date.
My daughter wrote, “My dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink, and then took her home.” Now all the facts were accurate, but what my daughter wrote was extremely misleading. Now my daughter wasn’t lying. She didn’t realize that what she wrote made her mom seem like a slut.
Ann, however, is not six years old. And she has developed her own techniques for misleading, by leaving out important facts. Let me give you an example of Ann lying by omission.
Also in her book Slander, Ann tells her readers that Al Gore had a leg up on George W. Bush when applying to their respective colleges. Harvard and Yale. Ann writes:
“Oddly, it was Bush who was routinely accused of having sailed through life on his father’s name. But the truth was the reverse. The media was manipulating the fact that – many years later – Bush’s father became president. When Bush was admitted to Yale, his father was a little-known congressman on the verge of losing his first Senate race. His father was a Yale alumnus, but so were a lot of other boys’ parents. It was Gore, not Bush, who had a famous father likely to impress college admissions committees.”
What does Ann omit? Well, that Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush was also a Yale alum and had been Senator from Connecticut, the home state of Yale University. That Prescott Bush had been a trustee of Yale. That Prescott Bush had been the first chair of Yale’s Development Board – the folks who raise the money. That Prescott Bush sat on the Yale Corporation for twelve years. That Prescott Bush, like George W. Bush’s father, George H. W, Bush, had been a member of Skull and Bones. That the first Bush to go to Yale was Bush’s great great grandfather James Bush, who graduated in 1844. That in addition to his father, grandfather, and greatgreatgrandfather, Bush was the legacy of no less than twenty-seven other relatives who preceded him at Yale, including five great great uncles. Seven great uncles. Five uncles, and a number of first cousins.
Now why did Ann leave out these somewhat relevant facts? Ann grew up in Connecticut. Ann, did you really not know that Prescott Bush had been your senator when you were born?
Ann, is it possible that when Prescott’s son George H. W. Bush became president, it totally escaped your notice that his father had represented your state in the United States Senate? Did neither of your parents mention it in passing at the dinner table? Did no one at home in Darien make any comments about the new president’s lineage?
Understand. This isn’t sloppiness. This is deliberate. For Ann’s purposes – to claim that the media that was manipulating facts here – Ann herself had to manipulate facts – in such a shameless way. This is what she does.
And she does it over and over and over again.
Let me give you another example.
On page 265 of her book Treason, Ann writes of Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist. “He blamed twenty years of relentless attacks by Muslim extremists on- I quote – ‘religious fundamentalists of any stripe.’”
This didn’t sound like Tom Friedman to me, so I found the one Friedman column that contained that phrase – “religious fundamentalists of any stripe.” It was from a December 26, 2001 column called “Naked Air,” about an airline where everyone would fly naked. “Think about it,” Friedman writes, tongue firmly planted in cheek, “If everybody flew naked, not only would you never have to worry about the passenger next to you carrying box cutters or exploding shoes, but no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would ever be caught dead flying nude.”
Let me repeat. Ann wrote of Tom Friedman, Jewish by the way, that “he blamed twenty years of relentless attacks by Muslim extremists on – I quote – ‘religious fundamentalists of any stripe.’” She bothered to put “I quote” in there for emphasis.
Friedman actually wrote “no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would ever be caught dead flying nude” in service of a conceit that illustrated our dilemma of either becoming less open as a society or learning to live with much higher risks than we’ve ever been used to before.
Friedman was not blaming 9/11 on the Lubavichers, as Ann suggests.
Now this sort of deliberate misrepresentation contributes to a coarsening of our nation’s dialogue. Ann recently told an audience:
“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee,” Coulter said. “That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”
Here’s my question. What’s the joke? Maybe it’s a prejudice from my days as a comedy writer, but I always thought the joke had to have an operative funny idea. I’ll give you an example of a joke.
Like they do every Saturday night, two elderly Jewish couples are going out to dinner. The guys are in front, the girls riding in back. Irv says to Sid, “Where should we go tonight?”
Sid says, “How about that place we went about a month ago. The Italian place with the great lasagna.”
Irv says, “I don’t remember it.”
Sid says, “The place with the great lasagna.”
Irv says, “I don’t remember. What’s the name of the place?”
Sid thinks. But can’t remember. “A flower. Gimme a flower.”
“Tulip?” Irv says.
“No, no. A different flower.”
“Magnolia?”
“No, no. A basic flower.”
“Orchid?”
“No! Basic.”
“Rose?”
That’s it! Sid turns to the back seat. “Rose. What was the name of that restaurant…?”
That’s a joke. What exactly is the joke in “We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee?” Is it the crème brulee? Is that it? Because Stevens is some kind of Francophile or elitist? Is it the rat poison? See, I would have gone with Drano. I’m really trying here, Ann. Please, when you come up, explain the joke about murdering an associate justice of the Supreme Court. One who by the way, was appointed to the Supreme Court by Gerald Ford, and who, also, by the way, won a Bronze Star serving in the Navy in World War II. What is the joke? ‘Cause I don’t get it.
Now in Ann’s defense, she doesn’t always make horribly offensive remarks or knowingly craft lies. Very often Ann is just wrong out of ignorance or pure laziness. Take this from the MSNBC Show – Saturday Final – on August 30, 2003 – MSNBC. She is talking about how well the war in Iraq is going.
COULTER: I think the rebuilding is going extremely well. Douglas MacArthur was in Japan five years after V.J. Day. There were enormous casualties in Germany after World War II. The rebuilding is actually going quite well compared to past efforts. And really, all we’re getting from Democrats is constant carping.
Ann, do you know how many combat fatalities the American military had in Germany after V-E day? Zero. You know how many in Japan after V-J day? Zero.
Ann and I have debated once before. In May of 2004, and Ann still felt the war was going amazingly well. Let me quote her from that debate:
“…. This war is going amazingly well… the casualty rate is incredibly small for the rebuilding. It is going better than can be expected. You cannot read about how well things are going against Al Sadr, where you have Iraqis protesting against Al Sadr; all these stories about how Al Sadr had (this) vast support among the Iraquis… oh no no no. They recently held a protest march saying, ‘Al Sadr, get out.’”
As you know, Ann, Moktadr al Sadr, recently picked the Shiite choice for prime minister for the new government, Mohamed al Jafaari. Sadr has thirty-two seats in the Iraqi assembly compared to Ahmed Chalabi’s zero. And remember, it was Chalabi to whom we were going to turn over the Iraqi government.
Things are not going amazingly well in Iraq. And they haven’t been going amazingly well since we allowed the looting of Baghdad. A week ago, former prime minister Ayad Allawi said that Iraq was already in a civil war. And as George Bush said in September of 2004, we should listen to Allawi because – and I quote – “he understands what’s going on there – after all, he lives there.”
The first thing this Administration needs to do in Iraq is to start acknowledging the truth and level with the American people.
I think the one lesson we can all agree on from Vietnam is that we cannot blame the troops. By and large, the vast, vast majority of our troops have performed heroically. And they deserve our gratitude and support. And that means supporting them after they’ve come home.
Two thirds of the wounded in Iraq now have brain injuries. That’s because so many of the casualties are from IED’s, and the injuries are concussive and not ballistic. Each one of those brain injuries is going to cost a million dollars over the course of that veteran’s life. And we need to fund programs for those who come back with post traumatic stress disorder – a higher percentage than in any previous war.
Now another value I believe in is love of country. For some reason it rankles Ann that I’ve done six USO tours and have had the nerve to talk about it. I do so because I want people to be aware of the work that the USO does. I want anyone here today who is a Hollywood celebrity to think about giving up a couple weeks of your life to entertain our men and women in uniform. I think it rankles Ann that I’ve talked about going on the USO tours because she can’t conceive that anyone would actually do something for anyone else. I didn’t go to Iraq to prove that Democrats are patriotic, Ann. I did my first USO tour in 1999, when Clinton was president. We went to Kosovo, a war that was vehemently and vocally opposed by many Republicans. Even so, we didn’t call them traitors. I was invited by the USO to go to Iraq because they know I do a good job and that it means a lot to the troops when anyone comes over to show them we care.
My daughter is 25. She teaches inner city kids in the Bronx. And that makes me proud. She hates when I say it, and that makes me even more proud.
My son is an engineering student. He wants to build fuel efficient cars. He’s a junior in college and got a job at Ford this summer working on a new manufacturing process for power trans. I don’t know what that means either. But he got there because he works his butt off.
But my son doesn’t feel that he got where he is because he is some kind of rugged individual. That he did it all himself. He knows that he stands on the shoulders of those who stood on the shoulders of those who stood on the shoulders of those who stood on the shoulders of those who stood on the necks of Indians.
My wife and I tried to instill certain values in our kids. But we don’t love them because they’re perfect. We love them because they’re decent, loving kids. Kids who care about others and care, by the way, about the truth.
One last thing. Speaking of the truth. A few months after my last debate with Ann, the following appeared in a New York Observer story about Ann. From the September 13, 2004 issue..
The writer asks Ann in the article:
“She debated Al Franken recently?
“’Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s not an interesting debate, because liberals can’t argue. So it’s never like point-counterpoint; all we do is hear about his fucking U.S.O. tours for three hours. Excuse my French.’”
Ann, let’s see if we can have a point-counterpoint, and an interesting debate. And by the way, Ann, I have here a DVD of that entire three hour debate – And I’ll bet you my speaking fee tonight that I spoke about my USO tours for less than a grand total of three minutes. How about it Ann? My speaking fee against your speaking fee?
___________________________________________________
WIMPY KERRY edition of Wimpy Democrats....
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
We must confess, we here at CowardlyDemocrats.blogspot.com have felt hopeless, impotent, and violated as John Kerry seized the Democratic Presidential nomination in mid-summer 2004 (by joining the Dem. 'centrist' bash-Dean mob), then immediately went on his WATER-SKIING VACATION (hello? A guy who makes a big deal of his vacation, certainly does not feel that he has much work to do...) then went on his summer of DO NOTHING campaigning (...we believe it was the Washington Post's Oliphant who drew a cartoon portraying Kerry and Edwards as Rip Van Winkles, SLEEPING through the campaign season); and then stood there like a dumb punching bag during the presidential debates as Mr. Bush, practically dripping scorn and condescension, looked into the cameras and said "My opponent is a flip-flopper."
Not only did Kerry not have the kahones to say, "I believe it is President Bush who is the flip-flopper... he once swore to get Osama bin Laden 'dead or alive,' and then in his October 2003 White House press conference the president said "I'm not that concerned about him [bin Laden] anymore.. he really doesn't concern me", but then Kerry allowed Bush to go on camera denying he ever made those comments, comments that are available for the whole world to see at the White House web site!
As if going AWOL in the summer of 2004, and going "SOFT" in the post convention campaign wasn't bad enough, Senator Kerry then practically did all he could to polish Bush's boot heels re the DIEBOLDIZATION of the Ohio (and national) voting process!
John Kerry doing NOTHING to PUT SOME HEAT on the CRIMINAL CONDUCT of Diebold corporation - FINANCIAL misconduct, restraint-of-trade misconduct, conflict-of-interest misconduct, and vote-fraud misconduct - - - is nothing short of CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE or dereliction of duty of Democratic of apresidential candidate to protect America's voting citizens on the eve of a crucial election.
The fact that Wally O'Dell, the Ohio-for-Bush campaign co-chair in 2004 was also THE CHAIRMAN OF DIEBOLD vote-machine co. was not enough SLEAZE to attract Senator Kerry's attention. (O'Dell has since resigned as Chairman of Diebold, based on financial misconduct investigations. Not only do the Kerry-Lieberman Democrats ALLOW Diebold's financial shennanigans to disappear under a rock, but they also ASSIST the Republican party, press, and media in IGNORING the vast potential for VOTE FRAUD in electronic tabulating systems that are 100 times more easily "HACKED" than state-certified gambling machines or ATM banking software.)
NOW we learn the the criminally corrupt Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, he of endless conflicts of interest and Tom DeLayesque sledgehammer brutality re the voting citizens of Ohio, had almost $10,000 of Diebold stock in his portfolio.
Under the tender "leadership" of wimpy Democrats like John Kerry, America is once again a SEGREGATED NATION: ONE standard of Justice for Democrats, from Martha Stewart to Susan McDougal to Democratic voters ROBBED of their votes; and an entirely DIFFERENT, much looser standard of "justice" for Republicans, from Ken Lay to Enron to Neil Bush to Halliburton to Diebold to Kenneth Blackwell, Katherine Harris, and other systematic Republican VOTE FIXERS.
Blackwell accidentally held shares in election-machine maker
ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Associated Press
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14256784.htm
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell revealed Monday he accidentally invested in shares of voting-machine manufacturer Diebold Inc. last year, a period when he was sued by other manufacturers over contracts that Diebold was up for.
In a required ethics filing, Blackwell, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, said his investments are directed by an accountant and financial adviser without his knowledge or help, "similar to a blind trust." He said a manager of his investments account at Credit Suisse First Boston bought 178 shares of Diebold stock at $53.67 per share in January 2005.
Blackwell said the manager did not follow instructions to avoid such investments. He said 95 shares were later sold at a loss but he still held 83 shares until discovering them and liquidating them Monday, also at a loss.
He discovered them while reviewing his 2005 investments to prepare for Monday's filing with the Ohio Ethics Commission, a form required of all statewide candidates.
"While I was unaware of this stock in my portfolio, its mere presence may be viewed as a conflict and is therefore not acceptable," Blackwell said in a letter dated Monday included in his filing.
January 2005 also was the month Blackwell ordered that counties should use optical-scan voting machines rather than more expensive touch-screen systems.
The North Canton-based company predicted it would earn less money in 2005 because of Blackwell's decision. That didn't stop Texas-based Hart Intercivic Inc. from suing, saying the order left two rivals, Diebold and Election Systems & Software, eligible for bidding.
Blackwell reversed his decision in April and announced a deal with Diebold of $2,700 per touch-screen machine.
That prompted a lawsuit from ES&S saying the decision eliminated the opportunity for counties to choose from more than one touch-screen vendor.
Blackwell has said the Diebold machines are the only electronic machines to meet federal and state standards under the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
Candidates use the annual ethics forms to disclose their debt, gifts, investments and travel. What had been a mundane political duty took on new meaning last year after Gov. Bob Taft's failure to report several golf outings led to his no contest plea to ethics violations.
Taft's failure to report golf outings and other gifts he received as governor led to his no contest plea in August, becoming the first Ohio governor to face such charges in office. He was fined the maximum $4,000.
Anticipating criticism, Blackwell quickly released a copy of comments by Judith Grady, who oversees the secretary of state's compliance with the 2002 federal voting act.
In a May 9 statement given as part of the ES&S lawsuit, Grady said Blackwell was not involved with price negotiations with Diebold.
Bob Paduchik, a spokesman for Attorney General Jim Petro, Blackwell's rival in the GOP primary, called for further investigation "considering Ken Blackwell's history with Diebold."
Democrats weren't buying Blackwell's explanation. "If he can't manage to know what's in his checkbook, why would the people of Ohio want to trust this man with the state's checkbook?" said Brian Rothenberg, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party.
Petro made several out-of-town trips at taxpayer expense totaling $5,192 last year, according to his 2005 form filed Friday. By contrast, he reported $3,546 in similar expenses last year.
All but two trips were to meetings of the National Association of Attorneys General. The other two were to Washington to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, said spokeswoman Kim Norris.
Blackwell also listed among other gifts the cost of a trip to Texas last August paid for by the Texas Restoration Project, a ministers' organization that opposes gay marriage.
Blackwell's campaign previously has acknowledged the flight aboard a plane owned by Pastor Rod Parsley, minister of a large nondenominational church in suburban Columbus.
A group of liberal ministers has filed an IRS complaint alleging that Parsley and a second conservative pastor have improperly promoted Blackwell over other candidates.
ON THE NET
Ohio Ethics Commission: http://ethics.ohio.gov/ethicshome.html
posted by verifi | 9:37 PM | 0 comments
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Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead! DeLay not to run in '06...
....NO thanks to Wimpy Senate Dems...
Hooray!
Ding-Dong, the Wicked Witch of Sugarland, Tom DeLay, is dead!
DeLay, who went from "Hot Tub Tom" in his early days to the stern, holier-than-though moralizing "Hammer" of late, has announced that he will not run in 2006, effectively ending his reign of iron-fisted leadership in the House (from whence he got the nickname, "Hammer", as in "He would smash the kneecapss of any Republicans who tried to resist the latest GOP dictate in the House...")
Unfortunately, VERY LITTLE of Tom DeLay's political demise has from any efforts of the Democratic Leadership. Well, possibly Rep. Conyers, Rep. Waxman, and other senior Democrats in the House minority-party leadership have had something to do with putting some "heat" on DeLay... after all, DeLay literally sicked HOMELAND SECURITY POLICE on Texas State Democratic legislators, who had fled Texas to a hotel in New Mexico in an effort to prevent a Texas statehouse quorum that would allow DeLay's fellow Republicans to ram through a new Texas redistricting plan only two years after the previous redistricting had been enacted. This is but only one example of DeLay's brutal, sledge-hammer tactics that flirted with and crossed the line of good taste, if not abject criminality.
What Right did Texas Republicans, under overall supervision from Tom DeLay, have to call homeland security, and FORCE Texas legislator's to attend the brutal Republican redistricting plan??
answer- NONE AT ALL. This was a clearly PARTISAN use - MISUSE - of law enforcement and Homeland Security powers.
And what did the Senate Democratic "leadership" - the most visible, the most vocal, the most powerful Democrats with the broadest national recognition - do to HIGHLIGHT DeLay's borderline CRIMINAL ABUSE of power and authority in a clearly PARTISAN fashion...
answer- Again, the Senate Democratic "leadership" went back to their Georgetown cocktail circuit, doing NEXT TO NOTHING to publicize DeLay's egregious misuse of power.
CAN ANYONE IMAGINE Democrats SICKING HOMELAND SECURITY POLICE on absent Republican state legislators, and not whipping up a FIRESTORM of Republican and media OUTRAGE ??
How about Democrats failure to comment on Clown Antonin Scalia, the "BORGIA Justice", who recently made a contemptous "f***-yourself" gesture to the press and public while he wa in a church?
WHERE is the Democratic leadership OUTRAGE at a Supreme Court Justice's unseemly behaviour?
(While a Cardinal in St. Peter's cathedral in Rome, Cardinal Borgia had aides hand him loaded rifles in his Vatican apartmen, as he shot down prisoners brought before this balcony. "The Borgia Justice", Antonin Scalia, is a confirmed proponent of the "Divine Infallibility" of the executive or "UNITARY EXECUTIVE" notion, and Scalia supports the "No lawyer, no court, no appeals" holding of war on terra prisoners on no more than the WHIMS of the executive's (president's) "infallible" judgement. Scalia, like his "no conflict of interest here" hunting buddy Vice President Dick Cheney and Cardinal Borgia before him, would probably consider shooting bound and captive prisoners to be "good sport.")
DeLay, Scalia, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Hadley, Cunningham, Abramoff, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz.. it is hard to keep up with the Republican litany of rogues and callous villains, and their agenda of abject GREED and CORRUPTION.
And even as the last vestiges of an independent US federal government continue prosecutions of DeLay, Libby, DeLay aides (aka "Abramoff conspirators") and other Republican scoundrels, we can all rest assured of one constant: The Lieberman/Kerry/Biden/Bayh/Hillary wing of the Democratic Party will CONTINUE to CEDE the "MORAL HIGH GROUND" to the pompous, morality-thumping Republican Party and their horrible "Moral Values" [NOT!} agenda...
DeLay Announces Resignation From House
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060404/ap_on_go_co/delay;_ylt=ApFdVI_e2bZzt9EbJSw8D4Gs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
WASHINGTON - Succumbing to scandal, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Tuesday he will resign from Congress in the face of a tough re-election race, closing out a career that blended unflinching conservatism with a bare-knuckled political style.
"I have no fear whatsoever about any investigation into me or my personal or professional activities," DeLay said in a statement to constituents. At the same time, he said, "I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative, personal campaign."
He said the voters of his Houston-area district "deserve a campaign about the vital national issues that they care most about ... and not a campaign focused solely as a referendum on me."
DeLay relinquished the post as House majority leader last fall after his indictment in Texas as part of an investigation into the allegedly illegal use of funds for state legislative races. He decided in January against trying to get the leadership post back as an election-year corruption scandal staggered Republicans and emboldened minority Democrats.
Last week, former DeLay aide Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to conspiring with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others to corrupt public officials, and he promised to help the broad federal investigation of bribery and lobbying fraud that already has resulted in three convictions.
Neither Rudy, Abramoff nor anyone else connected with the investigation has publicly accused DeLay of breaking the law, but Rudy confessed that he had taken actions while working in the majority leader's office that were illegal. DeLay has consistently denied any wrongdoing.....
[Upon arriving in Congress] DeLay quickly established himself as a forceful presence — earning a nickname as "The Hammer" — and he easily became majority leader when the spot opened up.
DeLay was the driving force behind President Clinton's impeachment in 1999, weeks after Republicans lost seats at the polls in a campaign in which they tried to make an issue of Clinton's personal behavior.
His trademark aggressiveness helped trigger his downfall, when he led a drive to redraw Texas' congressional district boundaries to increase the number of seats in GOP hands.
The gambit succeeded, but DeLay was soon caught up in an investigation involving the use of corporate funds in the campaigns of legislators who had participated in the redistricting.
______________________________________________________
April 4, 2006, 12:31AM
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/3769131.html
Ethics issues have swirled around Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, since he was elected House majority leader in 2002. A timeline of events:
• 1984: Elected to represent the 22nd District of Texas in the House of Representatives.
• 1994: Elected majority whip.
• July 1997: DeLay is part of a group that tries, but fails, to oust House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
• November 2002: Elected majority leader without opposition.
• September 2004: Grand jurors in Texas indict three DeLay associates — Jim Ellis, John Colyandro and Warren RoBold — in an investigation of alleged illegal corporate contributions to a political action committee DeLay founded. The investigation involved the alleged use of corporate funds to aid Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature in the 2002 elections.
• September-October 2004: The House ethics committee chastises DeLay for offering to support the House candidacy of Michigan Republican Rep. Nick Smith's son in return for the lawmaker's vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.
• January 2005: House Republicans reverse a rule passed in November 2004 that would have allowed DeLay to keep his leadership post if he were indicted.
• March 2005: Media reports spur Democrats to question DeLay's relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation. Delay has asked the House ethics committee to review allegations that Abramoff or his clients paid some of DeLay's overseas travel expenses. DeLay has denied knowing that the expenses were paid by Abramoff.
• April 2005: House Republicans scrap contro-
versial new ethics committee rules passed earlier in the year that would have made it harder to proceed with an investigation. Democrats said the rules were meant to protect DeLay.
• September 2005: DeLay is indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas political fundraising law and is forced to step aside as majority leader.
• October 2005: DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro are indicted by a second grand jury on charges of conspiring to launder money and money laundering. DeLay turns himself in and is fingerprinted and photographed. He smiles broadly in his mug shot to thwart its use by political opponents.
• November 2005: Former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon pleads guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge that stems from the government investigation of work he and his former partner, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, did for Indian tribes. The investigation continues.
• December 2005: A judge dismisses the conspiracy charge but refuses to throw out the more serious allegations of money laundering, increasing the likelihood of a criminal trial next year.
• January 2006: Abramoff pleads guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud and agrees to cooperate in an influence-peddling investigation that threatens powerful members of Congress. DeLay abandons his bid to reclaim his post as House majority leader.
• March 29, 2006: Abramoff and former business partner Adam Kidan are sentenced in Miami to nearly six years in prison but are allowed to remain free while they help a congressional corruption investigation in Washington.
• April 3, 2006: Republican officials say DeLay will resign his seat and won't seek re-election to Congress.
posted by verifi
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Monday, April 03, 2006
WIMPY Democrats ABANDON people of New Orleans... again.
WHEN will Democratic voters and minority voters DEMAND that our WIMPY Democratic leaders put down their god-damned Georgetown cocktail-circuit cocktails (and big-donor checks for 5 minutes) and STAND UP AND FIGHT for displaced New Orleans disaster victims, victims NOT of Hurricane Katrina, but of the breech of the levees TWO DAYS after hurricane Katrina departed, under clear blue skies; and of course victims of President Bush's CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE and CRIMINALLY CORRUPT reconstruction process.. with NO clear environmental rebuilding master strategy to this date!
What does is say about our COWERING, WIMPY Democratic Senate "leaders," that even as George W. Bush strums his guitar at yet ANOTHER Republican photo-op, fundraiser while New Orleans flooding victims float down New Orlean's flooded streets, the Democrats CAN'T EVEN TAKE A PAGE from Newt Gingrich's 1994 playbook, and STAND ON THE CAPITOL STEPS IN OUTRAGE, DEMANDING some action in the disaster relief??
Big Easy May Face Showdown Over Internet
By ALAN SAYRE, AP Business Writer
Mon Apr 3, 5:20 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/wireless_new_orleans;_ylt=ApyjgwPjvwLjC0r98dq1QzKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
NEW ORLEANS - A showdown may be looming over a free wireless Internet network that New Orleans set up to boost recovery after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the city.
ADVERTISEMENT
Calling the network vital to the city's economic comeback, New Orleans technology chief Greg Meffert is vowing to keep the system running as is, even if it means breaking a state law that permits its full operation only during emergencies.
He says he's ready to go to court, if necessary.
"If you can get to the Net, you can do business," Meffert said.
The system, established with $1 million in donated equipment, made its debut last fall in the wake of the hurricane disaster. It's the first free wireless Internet network owned and run by a major city.
The system uses hardware mounted on street lights. Its "mesh" technology passes the wireless signal from pole to pole rather than through Wi-Fi transmitters plugged directly into a physical network cable. That way, laptop users can connect even in areas where the wireline phone network has not been restored.
Touted at first as much for its symbolism of New Orleans' recovery as for its utility, the system's usefulness now far exceeds early projections, Meffert said. He estimates that the network gets thousands of users a day.
Hundreds of similar projects in other cities have met with stiff opposition from phone and cable TV companies, which have poured money into legislative bills aimed at blocking competition from government agencies.
In New Orleans, the network operates at 512 kilobits per second, much faster than dial-up connections but slower than high-speed services offered by private companies.
But a state law, passed two years ago in response to other attempts to establish government-owned Internet systems, dictates the network can run at 512 kbps only as long as the city remains under a state of emergency — a declaration still in place more than seven months after the storm.
Once the state of emergency is lifted — and no one has said when that might take place — state law says the bandwidth must be slowed to 128 kbps.
Meffert says the reduction will make the service virtually useless for businesses and others trying to re-establish commerce in the city.
Bills to allow New Orleans to keep the network operating full-time at 512 kbps failed during a recent special legislative session. Several similar bills are pending in the current regular session, but Meffert says city lobbyists give them little hope of passage because of opposition from the telecommunications lobby.
"We've been told in no uncertain terms those bills are going to get shot down," Meffert said.
David Grabert, a spokesman for Cox Communications Inc., a major telecommunications provider in New Orleans, said the company backs the state's Fair Competition Act, which would end the city's legal authority to continue operating the system at full speed after the state of emergency ends.
"We believe the Fair Competition Act was established to provide safeguards for private industry," Grabert said. "Efforts to repeal it do raise concerns."
BellSouth Corp. says it does not comment on pending legislation, but its regional director for southern Louisiana, Merlin Villar, denies the company's trying to shut down the city's system.
"The law does not prevent New Orleans or any other local government from providing Wi-Fi service," Villar said in a statement.
Meffert said many devastated areas of the city likely will not have private Internet service for years. He said the city is prepared for a showdown — new law or not. The system will stay up, regardless, though Meffert said he expects court challenges.
"In the end, it takes a federal judge to issue a restraining order," he said. "Until that point, if that point ever comes, we'll keep running it. It's a lifeline to these people."
posted by verifi
__________________________________
WIMPY Democrats Force Special Counsel Fitzgerald to do Heavy Lifting in Libby-Rove-Plame-gate...
Saturday, April 01, 2006
The pathetic, wimpy Democrats in the Senate can't even bring themselves to sign onto Sen. Feingold's symbolic (only) CENSURE resolution, even though there have been criminal indictments from within the White House re the Vice President's former Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was simultaneously a Senior Advisor to President Bush.
Contrast the Democrats COWERING away from the Libby indictment (which should include Karl Rove, who was also party to OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE in trying to stonewall the investigation past the November 2004 elections) and Feingold CENSURE bill... with the crescendo and relentless bleating of Republicans CALLING FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON'S IMPEACHMENT in 1998.
The FAILURE of the Democrats to DEMAND ANSWERS to the Rove-Libby scandal - the premeditated campaign by Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney to "OUT" (reveal the secret, undercover identity of) an undercover CIA spy (Valerie Plame) and her ENTIRE COVER ORGANIZATION as a means of discrediting her 'whistleblower' husband - can not be explained away by the Democrat's MINORITY status in the US Senate.
This is, simply, yet ANOTHER example of the Wimpy Democrats trying to HELP Karl Rove and the Republican Propaganda Machine put each and every scandal as "old history," water-under-the-bridge... just as Democrats made the election debacle Florida 2000 as "no issue," and the Democrats signed on to the WHITEWASH 9-11 commission.
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Libby Says Prosecutor Trying to Keep Post
By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
Friday, March 31, 2006; 7:47 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/31/AR2006033101624_pf.html
WASHINGTON -- Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is narrowing the description of his powers in an effort to counter calls for dismissal of the criminal case he brought against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, defense lawyers said Friday.
In a 24-page filing in federal court, the legal team for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said Fitzgerald and the former Justice Department official who appointed him, James Comey, are changing the broad mandate the prosecutor was handed to probe the leak in the Valerie Plame affair.
Libby is under indictment on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about how he learned of Plame's CIA identity and what he told reporters about her. Plame's CIA status was exposed on July 14, 2003, by conservative columnist Robert Novak, eight days after Plame's husband accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.
The defense attorneys say assignment of unsupervised and undirected power to Fitzgerald requires that he be relieved of his duties in the investigation and that all actions he has taken be voided.
Fitzgerald's appointment violates federal law, the defense attorneys say, because his investigation was not supervised by the attorney general. They say only Congress can approve such an arrangement.
"The government attempts to salvage the appointment by submitting two affidavits recently prepared by Mr. Comey and Mr. Fitzgerald, claiming that their previously undisclosed, subjective understanding of the appointment was narrower," Libby's lawyers wrote. "Mr. Comey now asserts that `it was my intention that the special counsel would follow substantive department policies' in exercising that authority."
"Similarly, despite the fact that as recently as August 2004 Mr. Fitzgerald characterized himself as `the functional equivalent of the attorney general in this matter,' he now insists in response to Mr. Libby's challenge that he always `understood' he had no authority to expand his jurisdiction and that he was required to follow certain substantive department policies," the court papers added.
© 2006 The Associated Press
posted by Verifi
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Wimpy Democrats cower vs Bush's THREE TIMES, IN-YOUR-FACE baldface LIE.
Joe Conason over at Salon dissects President Bush's THREE TIMES, in-your-face bald-faced lie, "Saddam Would Not Allow Weapons Inspectors into Iraq", even though Hans Blix's inspectors wereIN IRAQ, ON THE GROUND, DOING THEIR JOBs, (and doing their jobs very effectively) when they were FORCED TO DEPART IRAQ as Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld unleashed the dogs of "Shock and Awe", the undeclared-war bombing and invasion of Iraq. Article at bottom this post...
"Saddam chose to deny inspectors"
Bush repeated this bald-faced lie recently. The cowering press still lets him get away with it, but the public is no longer fooled.
By Joe Conason
Photo by Paul Morse -
President George W. Bush answers reporters' questions on March 21, 2006.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/03/31/bush_lies/
March 31, 2006 | Slowly but inexorably, as more and more information emerges, the conventional wisdom about the events leading to war in Iraq is shifting. The American public has joined the rest of the civilized world in questioning the arguments and motives of the war makers. Commentators who have habitually fashioned excuses for the White House seem to find that task increasingly burdensome and humiliating. The old lies no longer have much traction.
Yet even now, President Bush persists in blatantly falsifying the war's origins -- perhaps because, even now, he still gets away with it.
At his most recent press conference, that strange impulse to utter a ridiculous lie seemed to seize the president. It happened when he called on Hearst columnist Helen Thomas.
"I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime," said the venerable correspondent in her confrontational style. "Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war?"
Bush responded by denying that he wanted war, a pro forma assertion that nobody believes. He blathered on for a while about Sept. 11, the Taliban, al-Qaida and protecting America from terrorism.
And when Thomas reminded him that she had asked about Iraq, he said, "I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the [United Nations] Security Council; that's why it was important to pass [Resolution] 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose [emphasis added], then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it."
The official transcript notes "laughter" at that moment.
What was so funny? Were her colleagues laughing at Thomas, whose monopoly on testicular fortitude has shamed them all for so long? In the days that followed, the bully boys of the right-wing media enthusiastically abused Thomas, which was predictable enough. But have the rest of the reporters in the press room become so accustomed to presidential prevarication that they literally cannot hear a stunning falsehood that is repeated over and over again?
For the third time since the war began three years ago, Bush had falsely claimed that Saddam refused the U.N. weapons inspections mandated by the Security Council. For the third time, he had denied a reality witnessed by the entire world during the four months when those inspectors, under the direction of Hans Blix, traveled Iraq searching fruitlessly for weapons of mass destruction that, as we now know for certain, were not there.
But forget about whether the weapons were there for a moment. The inspectors definitely went to Iraq. They left only because the United States warned them to get out before the bombs started to fall on March 19, 2003. But for some reason the president of the United States keeps saying -- in public and on the record -- that the inspectors weren't there.
Keeping the facts segregated from the myriad falsehoods isn't easy with this regime, so let's review the two previous occasions when Bush made that startling claim.
The first incident was on July 14, 2003, at a White House press conference with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who diplomatically declined to contradict him. At that time, the Bush administration was reeling from the impact of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's Op-Ed essay about the Niger uranium fiasco in the New York Times, which had appeared a few days earlier.
Asked by reporters about the questionable intelligence on Iraq that had distorted his speeches and decisions, the president bristled. He clearly believed such questions impertinent and unimportant. He preferred to talk about the big picture. In his concluding remarks that afternoon, Bush said: "The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in [emphasis added]. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region. I firmly believe the decisions we made will make America more secure and the world more peaceful."
As the Washington Post noted the following day, "the president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective." That was putting it rather blandly (as I suggested here). The POTUS had denied reality, and the press corps blinked. The New York Times didn't even report his bizarre statement, and the rest of the media followed along meekly.
(Let me pause here to note how the treatment of these incidents contrasts with that notorious occasion when Bush's predecessor uttered an obvious lie as the cameras rolled. Bill Clinton's DENIAL of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky was PLAYED BACK OVER and OVER and OVER AGAIN.)
Perhaps aware that he could put over this nonsense on a LAZY and INTIMIDATED PRESS CORPS, Bush DID IT AGAIN six months later. On Jan. 27, 2004, he met briefly with reporters, accompanied by the visiting Polish president, Alexander Kwasniewski. The subject of the absent arsenal came up again because David Kay, the administration's handpicked weapons inspector, had confessed that nine months after the invasion the Iraq Survey Group had found nothing, zip, zero, and that he no longer expected they ever would.
"Don't you owe the American people an explanation?" a reporter asked. "Well, I think the Iraq Survey Group must do its work," Bush replied. "Again, I appreciate David Kay's contribution. I said in the run-up to the war against Iraq that -- first of all, I hoped the international community would take care of him. I was hoping the United Nations would enforce its resolutions, one of many. And then we went to the United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution -- 1441 -- unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in" (emphasis added).
Is it necessary to mention that this falsehood again went unnoticed in the mainstream media (although I took exception)? Historians will wonder someday how a free press permitted the world's most important official to say such things without contradiction. Meanwhile we can hope that next time, Jon Stewart will play back the tape on "The Daily Show" while bugging his eyes in disbelief. Then we will be reassured that reality still exists, even when the media and the president prefer to pretend otherwise.
About the writer
Joe Conason writes a weekly column for Salon and the New York Observer. His latest book is "The Raw Deal: How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal. "
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posted by verifi | 5:04 PM | 0 comments
March is gone.. the Democrats waste another opportunity to DEFINE corruption and outrages of Bush-GOP...
April 1, as former Senator Gary Hart has written "the joke is on us."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/the-trick-is-on-us_b_18261.html
Another month gone by, another month closer to the elections of November 2006, and the DLC-corporate Democrats and "Democratic Leadership" has ONCE AGAIN, SUCCESSFULLY BLURRED THE ISSUES, downplaying the atrocities and crimes of the Bush White House and making Bush-GOP policies look oh-so-respectable.
In this case, the Cowering Democrats used the month of March to IGNORE the Senator Feingold sponsored resolution to CENSURE President Bush for spying on American in defiance of law... In defiance of FISA law, two centuries of precedent where authorities require a SEARCH WARRANT before searching American's homes and possessions.
In short, by arrogance and executive fiat, Mr. Bush has declared SEARCH WARRANTS to be OBSOLETE: he, and his federal agents, can now search any electronic means, data-mine any communications, break into and search any citizen's homes, WIHT NO OVERSIGHT WHATSOEVER.
So what is the Democrat's RESPONSE to this imperial presidency, this monarchial, absolutist power?
- Why, they can't even sign on to Senator Feingold's gesture of a CENSURE bill, a gesture that won't ever be enacted until Democrats command a majority in the Senate, or can woo Republican senators to support the bill.
In short, by BLURRING the outrages of Bush administration assault on American rights, freedoms, and open government, the DLC Democrats are doing EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO ** LOSE ** the crucial midterm elections, just as Senate "leaders" Daschle and Lieberman did in 2002.
Oh sure, Bush is tanking in the the polls right now. But, as the election nears, the Republicans will ratchet up their "Gays, Guns and God" "morality" agenda; they will CONTROL the media discourse as Democrats allow issues like the censure bill to fall by the wayside, and even Republican INCOMPETENCE re national security will, as ever, be turned on its head, just as the Rove propaganda machine successfully portrayed George W. Bush - the President who did NOTHING to prevent 9-11, flew the OPPOSITE DIRECTION on the day of the attacks, and SHORTCHANGED his promises to better fund the first-responders of 9-11 - as a hero.
The GOP's Stake In Checking The President
Senator Russ Feingold
March 30, 2006
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/30/the_gops_stake_in_checking_the_president.php
Russ Feingold is a U.S. senator from Wisconsin.
During the Watergate hearings, then-Senator Howard Baker, a Republican, showed tremendous courage, and a deep sense of Congress’s duty to hold President Nixon accountable, when he asked that now-famous question: “What did the President know and when did he know it?” Baker was one of a handful of Republicans during the scandal who stood up to their party, and to the President. Today, as the President admits, even flaunts, his program to wiretap Americans on American soil without the warrants required by law, we need more courageous Republicans to stand up and check the President’s power grab.
When the President breaks the law, he must be held accountable, and that is why I have introduced a resolution to censure the President for his actions. Yet, as we face a President who thinks he is above the law, most Republicans are willing to cede enormous power to the executive branch. Their actions are not just short-sighted, they are a departure from one of the Republican Party’s defining goals: limiting government power.
Some Republicans are defending the President’s conduct as appropriate and arguing he should have free rein to continue his program, regardless of whether it is legal. Others seek to grant him expanded statutory powers so as to make his illegal conduct legal. But current law already allows a wiretap to be turned on immediately as long as the government goes to the court within 72 hours. The President has claimed an inherent authority to wiretap Americans on American soil without a warrant that he thinks allows him to break this law. So why would anyone think the President will comply with any new proposal? The constitutional system of separation of powers demands that we check a President who recklessly grabs for power and ignores the rule of law, not reward him—particularly when the law he breaks is designed to protect innocent Americans from intrusive government powers.
As many Republicans focus on defending the President, they are losing sight of what ceding these powers to the President now will mean for their own party down the road. Those expansive powers will rest with whoever sits in the Oval Office. Republicans who argue today that the President has the power to ignore a law passed by Congress are relinquishing authority not just to this Republican President, but to future presidents of any party. They are helping to render future members of their own party powerless to check an executive who claims expansive powers under the Constitution or a future Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution.
The Republican effort to defend the President works against the party in the long run, and it also goes against the party’s longstanding rhetoric about checking government power and strengthening individual freedoms. It’s hardly in keeping with those values to allow Americans’ communications to be monitored without a warrant, or to concentrate power in one branch of government. One of the best ways to limit government power is to ensure that each branch provides a check on the other two, but most Republicans in Congress today aren’t checking the President’s power or defending the judicial branch’s right to do so—they are giving him a blank check to ignore the rule of law.
A party that prides itself on limiting government, and supporting individual freedom and the rule of law, should think twice before it allows any President to ignore the laws that Congress passes. By supporting the President now, Republicans are making it tougher for members of their own party to challenge the power of future presidents and departing from their own values in the process. That’s a short-sighted strategy that won’t serve either party, or the nation, in the long run. What would serve the nation, and support the rule of law, is for a few courageous Republicans to follow the example set during the Watergate scandal by standing up to a President of their own party, asking tough questions, and holding the President accountable for his abuse of power.
posted by verifi
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HANG the vote-stealing thieves. And FLOG the Cowardly Democrats, for pretending not to notice...
The hypocrisy and gall know no bounds. Secretary of State Rice, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of War and Torture and Rendition and Kangaroo Courts Rumsfeld, and of course the idiot prince, President George W. Bush, all run around the country and the world, blathering on endlessly about "FREEDOM!" and "DEMOCRACY!", even as they snigger in their closed-door meeting rooms about American bodies floating down flooded New Orleans' streets ("ANOTHER excuse to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to no bid, no oversight Halliburton contracts!"), and even as they howl with delight at all the voters across America left wondering if their votes were even counted... or more precisely, if their votes for Democratic candidates weren't SWITCHED to the Bush-Cheney totals.
We can't even begin to enumerate all the shennanigans that took place in CRITICAL SWING STATE Ohio, alone, in 2004, except to mention in passing: #1. remember the Harris County (?) Elections Supervisor who TOSSED OUT the press and media from the district's late-night counting session, claiming an FBI terror alert.. an alert the FBI stated unequivocally was never made? #2. ALL the polls were trending for John Kerry in Ohio... every one, yet EVERY election discrepancy, every problem, every major disagreement between polls and returns (whether pre-election polls or exit polls), in EVERY INSTANCE the actual returns broke for the Bush votes. #3. In 2000, a large number of newspapers endorsed Texas Gov. George W. Bush. By 2004, over HALF of these papers - many of them conservative papers, run by conservative editors and conservative publishers, REFUSED to endorse President Bush for re-election. On the other hand, tens of thousands of Democratic voters were ENERGIZED to come out and vote, not because of John Kerry's "attractive personality", but because they were deeply opposed to Mr. Bush and his party's agenda. On election night, tens of thousands of voters STOOD IN LINE FOR HOURS. In most cases, in ALL cases, the long lines were in Democratic leaning precincts, either poor minority precincts or college precincts with young voters. In almost every case, Republican-voting precincts had plenty of vote machines (as one might expect in "richer", more well-funded precincts), and vastly fewer problems. When one of two vote machines alloted for a large number of voters (in a poor district) breaks down, there are longer lines at the one (or few) remaining machines. Such glitches and errors plagued Democratic-leaning precincts all through Ohio's long day of voting in 2000... and again, in EVERY vote-counting discrepancy, the votes seemed to swing for Bush, even repudiating pre-election and exit polls by large percentages to do so.
ALL THE ABOVE WAS IN Ohio, IN 2004, ALONE.
Today, over a year and a half later, the problems are WORSE- WIDELY DOCUMENTED HACKABILITY of vote machines manufactured by REPUBLICAN-owned companies, companies which REFUSE to use the security measures (and verifiable or "open source" software and computer code) that the banking and gambling industries use every day for the past decade.
IT IS AN IN-YOUR-FACE assault on the INTEGRITY of the Voting Process, and across the board, Republicans try to make the situation MORE CONFUSING, so as to cover any premeditated hacking, and the Democrats pretend not to notice.
For example, here at the Florida State statutes, click on Title IX Electors and Elections.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/
You will search long and hard for a statute dealing with machine-code inspection for "back door" (or "secret key") computer code to ALLOW vote fraud, BECAUSE SUCH A STATUTE IS * NOT * IN FLORIDA's election law!
PAGES upon PAGES upon PAGES of election law, and NOWHERE is there a provision to make sure that machines are not made HACKABLE by that staple of spy movies and computer hacking, a " back door entrance" to allow a programmer to enter the system long after it has been handed over to the end-user. Florida's government is entirely dominated by treasury-looting Republican scoundrels, from the Governor's office to the State Senate to the Statehouse to the local cities and counties to the Republican-leaning corporate news outlets. Even "liberal" news organizations such as the Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald, and Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel are accomplices to the "see no evil, hear no evil, pretend no evil exists" potential for serious and chronic VOTE FRAUD in Florida's elections.
This above rant is only a bare INTRODUCTION to the problem of VOTE FRAUD in Ohio, Florida, and across America - WHEREVER Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S voting machines are used. The Chairman of Deibold was (until he resigned in the face of financial fraud accusations) Wally O'Dell, the 2004 co-Chairman of the "Ohio for Bush" Republican campaign committee. Likewise, ES&S and Sequoia are owned by Republican officials.
These below sites are only the briefest, current introduction to the problem of AMERICAN DEMOCRACY SUBVERTED through institutionalized, chronic, unverifiable vote fraud via unverifiable election machines that are (compared to electronic gambling machines and banking software) child's play to hack.
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Minor glitch found in Allegheny County voting machines
Expert tricks county's new electronic system but calls the problem a minor one
By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06088/677611-85.stm
HARRISBURG -- After four hours of testing yesterday, a glitch was found in the voting system Allegheny County is planning to use in the May 16 primary.....
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More glitches trigger halt in testing of new county voting machines
By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
Thursday, March 30, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06089/678087-85.stm
HARRISBURG -- A state voting-machine examiner yesterday halted testing of the machine Allegheny County intends to use in the May primary, saying it was pointless to continue until a CRITICAL SOFTWARE PROBLEM is resolved.
"It's not useful to continue because [the software] clearly is not stable," said Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor.
Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based manufacturer of AVC Advantage voting machines, will have a chance to fix the software and have it retested in a week or two. Otherwise, it's UNLIKELY THE MACHINES WILL BE CERTIFIED for use in Pennsylvania. [note: this is TWO YEARS AFTER the problems in the 2004 elections!]
If they aren't, Allegheny County MUST SCRAMBLE for new ones before the May 16 primary and MIGHT LOSE a $12 million federal grant for the replacement of its lever-style machines. [note: the Republicans RIG the LAWS, to ENCOURGE ADOPTION of Republican manufactured voting machines that are PRONE TO HACKABILITY.]
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As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting Security
In Controlled Test, Results Are Manipulated in Florida System
By Zachary Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 22, 2006; A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/21/AR2006012101051_pf.html
As the Leon County supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho's job is to make sure voting is free of fraud. But the most brazen effort lately to manipulate election results in this Florida locality was carried out by Sancho himself.
Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.
Sancho's most recent demonstration was last month. Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, manipulated the "memory card" that records the votes of ballots run through an optical scanning machine.
Then, in a warehouse a few blocks from his office in downtown Tallahassee, Sancho and seven other people held a referendum. The question on the ballot:
"Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?"
Two people marked yes on their ballots, and six no. The optical scan machine read the ballots, and the data were transmitted to a final tabulator. The result? Seven yes, one no.
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Bradblog.com is doing a great job of keeping up with the tsunami of reports of INSTITUTIONALIZED VOTING FRAUD, thousands of election machines across America vulnerable to hacking, if not DESIGNED to make them EASY to switch the vote totals FROM the true winning candidate, to the losing candidate:
<< But back to the halted tests in Allegheny...and the claims by Sequoia officials that the problems found were "no big deal". Shamos doesn't see them as "no big deal" and is concerned that a malicious hacker could do precisely what he was able to do in these tests...
Dr. Shamos encountered yesterday's problem during a test for vote tampering. In an instant, he said, he was able to transform a handful of votes into thousands.
Developers quickly fixed the problem by replacing a file in the tabulation software, but that didn't alleviate Dr. Shamos' concerns. A malicious hacker could easily make the same switch, allowing votes to be changed, he said.
"What control is there over the software package if different files can be swapped in and out?" he asked. >>
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Sequoia E-Vote Systems Found 'Hackable' in PA, Testing Shut Down After Machine Failures!
'Software Clearly Unstable,' Says Testing Official Who 'Transformed Handful of Votes into Thousands...in an Instant'!
Ten-Year Old E-Voting Systems from NV Planned for First Time Use in PA This Year
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002626.htm
Meanwhile...in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County, where plans to use Diebold's hackable Electronic Voting Equipment have recently been nixed, Plan B seems to be failing too. The machines they'd hope to use instead, as made by Sequoia Voting Systems, have now been shown to be hackable as well.
Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette picked up on the story yesterday, and followed up today on the testing being run in Allegheny County by Dr. Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, on the "new" Sequoia Voting Machines. The county had hoped to use these systems -- ten-year old Sequoia "Advantage" machines as purchased from Clark County, Nevada who is moving to a different Sequoia system -- in their upcoming Primary Elections in May. That plan, now may be in grave doubt.
The testing of the machines has found so many problems -- including Shamos' findings during "tampering tests" that he was able to instantly "transform a handful of votes into thousands" -- that he has now simply shut down the entire process described as "pointless" due to all of the errors in the software.
According to today's report...
HARRISBURG -- A state voting-machine examiner yesterday halted testing of the machine Allegheny County intends to use in the May primary, saying it was pointless to continue until a critical software problem is resolved.
"It's not useful to continue because [the software] clearly is not stable," said Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor.
Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based manufacturer of AVC Advantage voting machines, will have a chance to fix the software and have it retested in a week or two. Otherwise, it's unlikely the machines will be certified for use in Pennsylvania.
As you may recall, it was machines made by Sequoia which failed so miserably across the state in Illinois just last week during the Primary Elections there. Just a handful of the many mainstream reports covering the meltdown are here, here and here.
Now pay attention...because this can be confusing...
Illinois' Cook County (Chicago) had used new Sequoia "Edge" machines in the recent primary that had been purchased by Clark County, Nevada. Since Illinois' primaries were first, and Sequoia didn't have time or inventory to fill both orders, Cook used Clark's machines for last week's contest only.
Those "Edge" machines, which failed so disastrously in Cook County, IL, are now to be shipped to Clark County, NV who is selling their own ten-year old Sequoia "Advantage" machines to Allegheny County, PA. It is those ten-year old machines which are now being tested in Allegheny and failing so horrendously.
All of which begs the questions: How well were those "Advantage" machines tested in Nevada in the last ten years? How much is Nevada now looking forward to using the new and failed "Edge" machines that they had loaned for a single use to Cook County, IL? And finally, will Clark County, NV bother to test them to find out if they too are hackable like the ones -- modified a bit by Sequoia on the way, apparently -- that they've just unloaded on Allegheny County, PA?
But back to the halted tests in Allegheny...and the claims by Sequoia officials that the problems found were "no big deal". Shamos doesn't see them as "no big deal" and is concerned that a malicious hacker could do precisely what he was able to do in these tests...
Dr. Shamos encountered yesterday's problem during a test for vote tampering. In an instant, he said, he was able to transform a handful of votes into thousands.
Developers quickly fixed the problem by replacing a file in the tabulation software, but that didn't alleviate Dr. Shamos' concerns. A malicious hacker could easily make the same switch, allowing votes to be changed, he said.
"What control is there over the software package if different files can be swapped in and out?" he asked.
As mentioned, Sequoia officials were predictably quick to dive into spin-control/crisis-management mode claiming they can simply continue to fix the software problems right on up "until just before the election." Said Larry Tonelli, Sequoia's state manager for Pennsylvania and New York.
posted by verifi
_________________________________________________________
Rove, Bush aware that they LIED to get US to attack Iraq....
(need we say it, wimpy Democrats COWER...)
Thursday, March 30, 2006
reminder: EVERY DAY that Don Rumsfeld and Karl Rove are on the job, is testament to the abject, cowering apathy of the Democratic "leadership"....
...their PREFERENCE for COMPLICITY with LIES, over STANDING UP AND CONFRONTING the crimes of Karl Rove, Don Rumsfeld, Enron, Halliburton, Diebold, etc, ad naseum...
(Well, in the "black comedy" department, it is almost amusing to reflect that entire swaths of the American public and 'intelligentsia' - (yes, that includes the incestous inside-the-beltway overpaid multi-millionaire souless talking heads) - were convinced that Iraq was AN IMMEDIATE and DIRE THREAT... based on.... aluminum tubes and Niger Yellowcake??!!)
<< The White House was largely successful in defusing the Niger controversy because there was no evidence that Bush was aware that his claims about the uranium were based on faulty intelligence. Then-CIA Director George Tenet swiftly and publicly took the blame for the entire episode, saying that he and the CIA were at fault for not warning Bush and his aides that the information might be untrue.
But Hadley and other administration officials realized that it would be much more difficult to shield Bush from criticism for his statements regarding the aluminum tubes, for several reasons.
For one, Hadley's review concluded that Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons.
For another, the president and others in the administration had cited the aluminum tubes as the most compelling evidence that Saddam was determined to build a nuclear weapon -- even more than the allegations that he was attempting to purchase uranium.
And finally, full disclosure of the internal dissent over the importance of the tubes would have almost certainly raised broader questions about the administration's conduct in the months leading up to war. >>
_______________________________________________
PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
Insulating Bush
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0330nj1.htm
Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.
As the 2004 election loomed, the White House was determined to keep the wraps on a potentially damaging memo about Iraq.
Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."
Three months after receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."
The previously undisclosed review by Hadley was part of a damage-control effort launched after former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged that Bush's claims regarding the uranium were not true. The CIA had sent Wilson to the African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate the purported procurement efforts by Iraq; he reported that they were most likely a hoax.
The White House was largely successful in defusing the Niger controversy because there was no evidence that Bush was aware that his claims about the uranium were based on faulty intelligence. Then-CIA Director George Tenet swiftly and publicly took the blame for the entire episode, saying that he and the CIA were at fault for not warning Bush and his aides that the information might be untrue.
But Hadley and other administration officials realized that it would be much more difficult to shield Bush from criticism for his statements regarding the aluminum tubes, for several reasons.
For one, Hadley's review concluded that Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons.
For another, the president and others in the administration had cited the aluminum tubes as the most compelling evidence that Saddam was determined to build a nuclear weapon -- even more than the allegations that he was attempting to purchase uranium.
And finally, full disclosure of the internal dissent over the importance of the tubes would have almost certainly raised broader questions about the administration's conduct in the months leading up to war.
posted by verifi
________________________________________________________
Wimpy Dems force Rep. McDermott to take on the Repub intimidation campaign single-handed...
posted 3-29-06
Once again the TRUE mantra of the inside-the-beltway, belly-of-the-beast, Establishment Wimpy Democrats come through:
"We will tolerate any atrocity, look the other way to any smear campaign, leave ANYONE out to twist in the wind,** AS LONG AS WE GET our multi-million dollar campaign donations."
** (from President Clinton through the "Whitewater" investigation farce, to the Clinton-Gore staffers wrongly accused in the 'White House Trashing [not] Scandal;' to Veterans DENIED the Murray Amendment's $2,7 billion in rehab funds shot down by the Republicans without a murmur of protest by the DLC Dems, etc. etc. etc ad naseum)
Here we have a clear and present case of CENSORSHIP, INTIMIDATION, and SUPPRESSION, and the Democratic "leadership"... SITS ON THE SIDELINES, forcing Jim McDermott to handle what SHOULD be a NATIONAL issue; just as the COWERING Democrats ALLOW Karl Rove to camp out in the West Wing, despite his relentless record or smears, distortions, and connections to the Libby-Rove scandal of "outing" an undercover CIA operation.
Congressman Jim McDermott on the Ropes
by Dal Lamagna
03.29.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dal-lamagna
I met Congressman Jim McDermott in 1996 when I was running for U.S. Congress in the third district of New York. I had been getting the cold shoulder from the administration but not from the Congressman. He took me under his wing and during that time, I found nothing that we disagreed about.
I've watched his career with both pride and dismay. I was proud to know him when he was involved in events that led to the resignation of Newt Gingrich. I was proud to know him when he stood up against our invasion of Iraq right from the beginning and while in Iraq with former Congressman David Bonior, told George Stephanopoulos and the world a truth we are only now coming to believe: "I think the president would mislead the American people." 1 (See the full attack story in the Weekly Standard.)
However, I've been dismayed and horrified by the suffering he has endured over the years for simply -- but valiantly -- doing his job. Cross the GOP and watch out. They turn the right-wing message machine against you. They harass you with complaints and legal suits. Anyone can file a legal suit and then you have to defend yourself.
Wasn't Congressman McDermott doing his job as co-chair of the Congressional Ethics Committee when he passed along to the New York Times an audiotape of a phone call between Newt Gingrich, then-Congressman John Boehner, and others where Gingrich clearly violated the terms of an agreement he'd made with a special investigative team of the Ethics Committee?
Apparently not, according to now-Majority Leader Boehner. Boehner, a participant in the call, said the tape was made illegally by a couple in Florida (it was). He also claimed that McDermott, who received the tape from the couple, knew it was obtained illegally and therefore had no right to disseminate its contents -- and by doing so, McDermott violated his rights and he deserves damages.
So, for the first time in the history of Congress one Congressman, Boehner, sued another, McDermott, in civil court.
Nine years and $440,000 later, Jim McDermott is still fighting this battle.
During round three, the Supreme Court, which had just ruled in favor of the defendant in a similar case called Vopper v Bartnicki, sent back McDermott's case to the original district court, annulling the district court's original decision.
It seems clear that the Supreme Court's intention in doing so was to allow the district judges to review the Bartnicki case, which in essence said that no one could be punished for disclosing the contents of an illegally intercepted conversation as long as the information in it was an issue of "public importance," and that the person disclosing the information did not "participate" in or "encourage" the interception of the phone call.
The judges didn't do that though. District Judge Hogan ruled against McDermott the second time and assessed fines and damages for Boehner and also required McDermott to pay Boehner's legal fees! McDermott appealed this decision making it round 5 of the legal fight.
Round five ended yesterday with a victory for Boehner in the Court of Appeals. The same three judges that ruled for Boehner the first time ruled the same again. This time Judge Ginsburg, the chief judge who wrote the opinion, employed what I think to be a "stolen property, found diamond" argument (more of this later). Ginsberg, with Judge Randolph, confirmed Judge Hogan ruling in the lower district court. McDermott must pay a $10,000 fine, $50,000 in punitive damages, and the legal fees of Boehner (claimed by Boehner to be $530,000)!
As horrible as this is for Congressman Jim McDermott, it is worse for our First Amendment rights. Seventeen media companies stood on the side of Jim McDermott's rights of speech in the amicus brief presented to Ginsberg and the Court of Appeals. If this case is not challenged a new precedent is set. Reporters will not be allowed to accept or report on any material passed onto them if they "knew or had 'reason to know' that it was so acquired" illegally.
Think Deep Throat or the Pentagon Papers when you consider the consequences of this precedent.
Read the whole history of this story and decide what free speech really means.
I expect and hope McDermott plans to take this back to the Supreme Court for the final round six. But meanwhile, I'm urging everyone to support McDermott by circulating this blog and by contributing to his re-election campaign. Both he and Boehner are allowed to fund this battle from campaign funds. Visit McDermott's Web site at http://www.McDermottforCongress.com and hit the donor button. If you are like me and want to contribute the most possible, $5000, make your contribution to his Legal Defense Fund directly at http://www.McDermottLegalTrust.com.
-- 1. Hayes, Stephen F. "The Baghdad Democrats." The Weekly Standard, October 14, 2002. Volume 008, Issue 05. Online at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/737zcgnk.asp.
Written in collaboration with Jennifer Hicks.
posted by verifi
Well said! Soldiers, servicemen & women in Iraq as LAMBS at the alter of Bush's ego...
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Well said! No need to add commentary to Frank Harris (III)'s op-ed, except to note that the Wimpy Democrats are COMPLICIT as they COWER from the Right-Wing attack machine, complicit in serving up the troops as sacrificial lambs to Bush's ego, the PNAC neo-con imperial war machine, and Karl Rove's shocking awful SMEAR and SLIME propaganda machine.
<< I think about the American troops who are in Iraq now; I think about those who will be there in the next three years while Bush remains in office.
``We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail," Bush said as he addressed the nation as the war began three years ago.
A lot can happen in three years. A lot of lives have changed, a lot of lives have been altered, a lot of lives have been lost.
Victory is not at hand, civil war seems a matter of interpretation, and now the administration wants to blame the news media because of the pictures they show and the news they put out.
``SHOCK AND AWE."
We've spent the last three years in shock and awe - not at our nation's prowess in waging war, but in the spin put out by those in the White House to explain where we are in this mess.
And the clock keeps ticking. And the spin keeps spinning.
From here on, every American soldier over there is a lamb placed on George W.'s altar. Every American soldier is a war offering to George W.
They are war offerings to a president stuck on pride, frozen in principle, shocked and awed beyond all shame and decency.
If our president would truly like to shock us and awe us in a good way, there is something he can do: RESIGN. >>
Shock And Awful
Frank Harris III
March 27, 2006
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-harris0327.artmar27,0,1578897.column?coll=hc-headlines-oped
From time to time over the past three years, I would come across the photo and look at the white smoke billowing up into the Baghdad night, pushed by the orange and yellow glare of exploding rockets, bombs and burning buildings.
While it's forever said that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is the three words printed in big, white, all-capped letters that makes the most enduring impression.
``SHOCK AND AWE."
Something about the words on the cover of that March 31, 2003, issue of Newsweek struck me then and strikes me now as promiscuously cavalier, as shamelessly promotional - like the advertisement for a video game, like the promo for one of those slam-down wrestling federation matches, like the nickname for some young, hot-shot prizefighter.
``Announcing, in this corner, George W. `Shock and Awe' Bush!"
``SHOCK AND AWE."
These are the words the administration approved to serve as the introduction to this war. These are the words that made the cover of Newsweek three years ago.
I saved this issue, as I do select other issues of magazines and newspapers that cover major events in the life of the nation, the world, the city or the people I know and care about.
It's a way to look back and gauge how things got to where they are, how things turned out or what the heck folks were thinking.
I saved that old magazine for the message it sends, for the moment in time it captures and reflects.
Last week, I came across it again. This time I viewed it in the context of three years of war and thousands of dead soldiers - ours and theirs - and thousands of dead civilians - mostly theirs.
Now, too, it is in the context of our distinguished president's drum-roll proclamations about the war's success as he states his intent to leave America's troops in Iraq for some future president to pull out.
Instead of the ``Hell no, we won't go!" said by another generation against another war, it's ``Hell no, they won't come home - not as long as in the White House I roam."
That's George W. ``Shock and Awe" Bush's three more years. That's the duration of his term.
It will be up to some other administration to clean up this one's mess.
I think about the American troops who are in Iraq now; I think about those who will be there in the next three years while Bush remains in office.
``We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail," Bush said as he addressed the nation as the war began three years ago.
A lot can happen in three years. A lot of lives have changed, a lot of lives have been altered, a lot of lives have been lost.
Victory is not at hand, civil war seems a matter of interpretation, and now the administration wants to blame the news media because of the pictures they show and the news they put out.
``SHOCK AND AWE."
We've spent the last three years in shock and awe - not at our nation's prowess in waging war, but in the spin put out by those in the White House to explain where we are in this mess.
And the clock keeps ticking. And the spin keeps spinning.
From here on, every American soldier over there is a lamb placed on George W.'s altar. Every American soldier is a war offering to George W.
They are war offerings to a president stuck on pride, frozen in principle, shocked and awed beyond all shame and decency.
If our president would truly like to shock us and awe us in a good way, there is something he can do: RESIGN.
And take the vice president and the rest of his men and women with him.
Frank Harris III is chairman of the journalism department at Southern Connecticut State University in
New Haven. His column appears every Monday. He can be reached at harrisf1@southernct.edu.
E-mail: harrisf1@southernct.edu
posted by verifi
________________________________________________
Wimpy Democrats- CAN'T raise heck about Incompetent Don Rumsfeld, his TORTURE, and his KANGAROO COURTS..???
As the op-eds start pilling up here at WimpyDemocrats.blogspot.com, we realize that we still haven't gotten to several blockbuster issues which the Wimpy Dems FAIL to make an issue about.
In the case of these two issues, the COWERING of the Democrat "leaders" LEAVES OUR TROOPS VULNERABLE, twisting in the winds as hostages to political fortune.... US servicemen and women left TWISTING IN THE WIND to rot, because the Democratic "leadership" would rather COWER under bush-rove-cheney-rumsfeld's propaganda BS, than STAND UP and FIGHT BACK against the bush-rove propaganda machine.
The most glaring case is Don "Dr. Strangelove" Rumsfeld. The Washington Press Whores Corpse think Mr. Rumsfeld is cute and entertaining when he starts babbling like the Mad Hatter, "There are things we know, there are things we don't know, and there are things we know that what don't know" (or however he said it, that constituted "news" in the DC press corpse's pathetic "news cycle.")
But the fact is that Mr. Rumsfeld is grossly incompetent at EVER SINGLE ASPECT of managing the Department of Defense. On 9-11 he was shuffling papers in his Pentagon office, as FOUR hijacked airliners roamed American skies, AND OUR SECRETARY OF WAR WAS CLUELESS, IGNORANT, AND UNINFORMED.
The "shuffling papers at his desk" image is not a metaphor - Secretary Rumsfeld was literally at his desk, shuffling papers, as the FOURTH and final hijacked airliner slammed into the very building that Mr. Rumsfeld had his office in, the Pentagon. And that fourth hijacked airliner slammed into the Pentagon ALMOST AN HOUR after the first hijacked flying bomb slammed into the first World Trade Center tower. Where was the US Air Force, where were the fighters which were supposed to be ON ALERT, as not one, not two, not three but FOUR hijacked airliners roamed American skies??
Answer: We don't know, because Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and the Cowering Democrats WHITEWASHED the 9-11 Commission. But we do know that on the eve of the 9-11 attacks, Mr. Rumsfeld's PREOCCUPATION was-the multibillion dollar missile defense system dubbed "Star Wars" by critics. Another example of Mr. Rumsfeld's cluselessness (besides AWOL alert fighters, and hijackers roaming America's skies unmolested) is that the "threat" that Mr. Rumsfeld was so concerned about in his "pre-9-11 mindset" was the growing military power of Communist China. Now that the US military is preoccupied with Iraq and the Middle East, the business side of the Bush administration is devoted to transferring as much wealth, jobs, and business to that same Communist China as possible, as the "Made in China" merchandise filling Walmart shelves demonstrates.
Which brings us to IRAQ.
Could ANYONE screw up the US occupation of Iraq more dramatically than the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush crew?
Anyone with AN OUNCE of awareness of that region knows that Afghanistan was mired in a brutal, ferocious civil war for an entire DECADE after the Russians (Red Army) left the nation they had invaded. That makes almost TWO decades of war and civil war, minefields, poisoned wells, hostages, torture, revenge killings, and massacres. Before Mr. Rumsfeld arrived at the DoD, the Republicans were at the forefront of claiming the Mujahadeen resistance to the Red Army which drove the Russians out of Afghanistan was a glorious victory that proved that Ronald Reagan "Won the Cold War" against the "evil empire." Yet once the Cold War was over, Rumsfeld and Cheney were at the forefront of the "slash defense spending as part of the 'Peace Dividend' - with NO "soft letdown" for town and regions that had been entirely dependent on DEFENSE SPENDING for entire decades- regions like the California aerospace-defense industry, the northeast high-tech defense region, and of course airbases, Army posts, and Navy ports that were shut down "cold turkey." Those spending cutbacks, along with the trillion-dollar taxpayer bailouts of the looted Savings and Loans industry, led to the Bush recession of 1991, and the virulent right-wing "Hate Government" rhetoric that Republicans effectively used in 1994 to win the majority in the US House of Representatives. Right-Wing talk radio played relentlessly to disaffected, resentful listeners, with the blessing of the "it's government's fault!" Republican Party, and right-wing terrorist Timmy McVeigh took those "hate government" screeds to heart, when he planned and executed his murderous bombings of the Murrah government building in Oklahoma City.
But we digress, with this little discussion of cold-hearted defense slashings, base closures, the looted S&L bailouts, and Bush1 recession, and the OKC terrorist bombing, from Rumsfeld's current incompetence running the Iraq war.
In Afghanistan the Civil War had been ongoing for years, with massacres, rapes, revenge killings, collateral damage, reprisals, and more massacres the order of the war. The Pushtun clan, the majority clan of both Pakistan and Afghanistan, was supplied by the Saudis and Pakistan ISI secret intel-police, and led by the most ferocious, militarized militia, the Taliban. The Taliban, in turn, was supported by the Arab fighters acting as enforcers and, when need be, shock troops, the Al Qiada fighters under Ossama bin Laden.
Given that mix of terror, torture, reprisal, and massacre, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney thought that turning the US military into TORTURE-BOYS in Iraq... was going to terrify any potential insurgents????
The OBVIOUS result of the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush TORTURE gulag is that it would UNITE ALL the warring Muslim factions- Pushtun and Tajik, Uzbek and Afghan, Shiite and Sunni - is hatred and spite for Americans. And how do you even factor in the HUMILIATION and DEGRADATION photos, naked Iraqi prisoners piled in mounds, forced to act out sexual acts on each other, smeared in feces, etc?
Hell, it is DISGUSTING just to write about Herr Rumsfeld's TORTURE and SADISM gulag, but all these two or three years after the Abu Ghraib torture and sadism scandal first broke, the COWERING DEMOCRATS STILL can't find their voice to criticize and DEMAND the resignation of the INCOMPETENT, ABUSIVE, and ghoulish SOB who is in charge of the US war machine?
Well, the above discussion of Mr. Rumfeld's follies, and the Democrat's cowering re demanding his resignation, is as much as we can stomach this morning. And we haven't even discussed Mr. Rumsfeld's KANGAROO COURTS for female privates, following orders, caught up in his grotesque debasement of the US flag and uniform.
We will leave it to this Buzzflash editorial to enumerate Mr. Rumsfeld's other policy FAILURES, bordering on tragedy, bordering on grotesque FARCE. American servicemen and women are not only being held HOSTAGE to Mr. Rumsfeld's FOLLY, they are also held hostage to the CLUELESS, COWERING, "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" Democrats.
Next time- how the Democrats LEAVE THE VETERANS TWISTING IN THE WIND, by REFUSING to make the MURRAY AMENDMENT (to fund $2.7 billion dollars for Veteran's care and rehab, shot down on a party-line vote by the lying Repuglicans) into a sound-bite, prime-time newscast issue. The Cowering Democrats seem to think that merely voting in the Senate for an issue, only to be steamrolled by the bush-rove-cheney Republican corruption machine, constitutes the full measure of "leadership."
___________________________________________
Don Rumsfeld, America's Biggest Flop Ever
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Mike Whitney
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/06/03/con06112.html
Donald Rumsfeld will feature prominently in the chronicle of military history. His name can be affixed to every major strategic catastrophe since the inception of the Iraq war 3 years ago. Rumsfeld now ranks among the greatest bunglers of all time. His litany of failures reads like a journeyman’s manual for military defeat, rather than a blueprint for peaceful occupation. His performance as Sec-Def makes George Armstrong Custer look like Erwin Rommel.
Under Rumsfeld’s leadership the “cakewalk” war has morphed into an “unwinnable” quagmire; sucking men and resources into its vortex at an unimaginable rate. The occupation of Iraq “should have been simple” says political analyst Noam Chomsky, but under Rumsfeld’s stewardship, it has become more difficult than the Nazi occupation of France.
Only in Bush-world would such manifest incompetence be lauded as achievement.
“You’re doin’ a heck-of-a job, Rummy.”
The decision to invade Iraq with a paltry force of 150,000 men was all Rumsfeld’s. His narrow views of a smaller, more agile military blinded him to the requirements of a massive occupation. When challenged on the topic by military professionals, like General Shinseki, Rumsfeld brusquely dispatched the decorated veteran to an early retirement.
Rumsfeld’s shortsightedness had a dramatic affect on the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground. As the looting of museums and government buildings persisted for weeks, destroying any hope to quickly establish order, Rumsfeld breezily brushed off criticism of the lawlessness saying, “Stuff happens.”
Those first weeks exposed the callous disregard for the safety and security of the Iraqi people and become the rallying cry for the nascent resistance that would later sweep through the Sunni heartland.
The lack of troop-strength made it impossible for the military to safeguard the mammoth armories and ammunition-dumps left behind by Saddam. Members of the fledgling resistance were free to remove truckloads of weaponry and bomb-making material that would later be used to kill American soldiers. The number of American casualties would be considerably lower had Rumsfeld paid attention to his generals and increased the size of the occupation army.
We know from Paul Bremer’s recent comments that Rumsfeld never anticipated the massive resistance to the American presence. He ignored the State Dept’s plans for occupation assuming that American troops would be greeted as liberators. Even when clear signs appeared of a full-throated rebellion, Rumsfeld dismissed the violence as the work of “Saddam loyalists and dead-enders.”
There was no strategy for keeping civil society running. In fact, Iraq became a laboratory for applying a neoliberal-model that was completely foreign to the native people. The results were catastrophic. Unemployment soared, subsidies were stripped away, prices skyrocketed, unions were banned, and Iraqi society went into a state of shock.
More disastrous, was Rumsfeld’s plan for de-Ba’athification. Normally, imperial powers leave as much of the existing government as possible to allow for the smooth transition from one ruling party to the next. Rather than finding common ground with members of the former regime, Rumsfeld chose to destroy every trace of Ba’ath rule forcing a restructuring of the entire political establishment from the ground up. This was an unbelievably stupid move that upset the continuity between governments.
It was equally foolish to disband the Iraqi military; sending home 450,000 fully-armed soldiers without pay or job prospects. It should have been easy to anticipate that many of these disgruntled recruits would wind up fighting against the occupation.
And, why didn’t Rumsfeld bring in military police to deal with the protests, civil disputes, routine patrols and peacekeeping duties? Instead, those tasks were assigned to trigger-happy army regulars who over-reacted in tense situations oftentimes killing innocent civilians and alienating the public. Soldiers are clearly not trained to handle these duties.
It was Rumsfeld who ordered the leveling of Falluja; a gratuitous act of homicidal vengeance which galvanized the resistance and generated a firestorm of reprisals across the Sunni triangle. For Iraqis, Falluja represents the turning point in the American occupation. Even cautious Iraqis must have seen that their predicament no longer provided any viable political options.
The details of Rumsfeld’s charnel house at Abu Ghraib provided even more fuel for the resistance. The Defense Secretary chose to jettison America’s threadbare moral authority simply to extort information from farmers and city people. Imagine the boost in recruitment for the resistance after photos of the perverted treatment of detainees appeared in the media?
Rumsfeld lashed out at the media for displaying the pictures of abused Iraqis to the public and discounted claims that the torture was authorized at the highest levels of the defense establishment. It’s clear now that the paper trail for the abuse leads straight to Rumsfeld’s office at the Pentagon.
Rumsfeld dismissed the charges as the work, “of a few bad apples.”
Abu Ghraib eliminated any prospect for mutual trust between the warring parties. Now, there’s no hope that the conflict will be resolved through political negotiation.
The current wave of sectarian violence is also Rumsfeld’s doing. It is a re-creation of the terror-campaign that swept through El Salvador during the 1980s. The Interior Ministry has adopted the “Salvador Option” -- a reference to the death squads that plagued that country throughout the Reagan era.
The up-tick in violence suggests that the military no longer sees peace and security as achievable so, instead, is pursuing a policy of widespread anarchy disguised as sectarian violence. The end-game is the balkanization of the country into small, manageable statelets that are easier to exploit for their resources.
The present situation in Iraq can only be described as nightmarish; and endless cycle of bombings, brutality and butchery all concealed behind a screen of media-generated disinformation.
Rumsfeld accepts no responsibility for Iraq’s downward-spiral or the incalculable suffering he has engendered. Instead, he points the finger at the least likely candidate for blame; the media.
“Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today’s media age, but our country has not,” Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations. “The violent extremists have established ‘media relations committees’—and have proven to be highly successful at manipulating opinion-elites. They plan to design their headline-grabbing attacks using every means of communications to intimidate and break the collective will of free people.”
The bungled occupation of Iraq has nothing to do “violent extremists” who’ve “successfully manipulated opinion-elites.” In fact, it has nothing to do with media at all. For the most part, the fault lies with one man, Donald Rumsfeld, a buck-passing narcissist who sees the world through the jaundiced lens of his own blinkered vanity.
MAJOR GENERAL PAUL EATON summarized Rumsfeld’s performance better than anyone else:
“Rumsfeld has shown himself INCOMPETENT strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else RESPONSIBLE for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq.”
Rumsfeld is a self-deluded megalomaniac who has heaped disgrace on himself and his country. It will take more than his customary glib repartee or slick excuse-making to distance himself from his ultimate legacy as America’s biggest flop.
posted by verifi | 4:32 AM | 1 comments
See how EASY that was, Sen. Reid...?
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Time to GET POSITIVE here at WimpyDems.blgspt.com, and note a COURAGEOUS Senator who is MAKING WAVES!
We, your humble editors, do not relish writting post after post knocking the Democratic leadership for selling issue after issue, voter after voter, American citizen after American citizen down the river (in the case of New Orleans flood victims, LITERALLY) of apathy, inertia, and submission to the Bush-Rove propaganda machine and DeLay-Abramoff-Cunningham-Halliburton-Enron-Diebold crony-corruption extortion racket.
However, if America is to have a true REPRESENTATIVE democracy, it is simply essential that we have a functioning and vocal OPPOSITION PARTY. "Opposition" party as in "providing some actual opposition," not just the current kerry/biden/lieberman/bayh/hillary/reid routine of talking opposition in mushy terms, and then ALLOWING the Republican junta to STEAM ROLL any MEANINGFUL opposition with the latest in-your-face ATROCITIES, such as torture & kangaroo courts, Hallibuton corruption and FEMA cronyism, Diebold vote fraud and conflict of interest, treasury looting tax cuts for billionaires while asking the blue-collar and white-collar working class to not only pick up the tab, but the interest on the Bush deficits as well, etc. etc. etc. ad naseum.
HOW EASY IS IT, could it be, for the MINORITY PARTY SENATORS to provide some REAL oppposition??
Well, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu provides us with a LONG OVERDUE glimpse of what the Democrat "leadership" COULD BE DOING, SHOULD have been doing all these months and years:
<< Landrieu threatens to block appointments over levees >> (CNN headline)
as in,
<< Senator Landrieu THREATENED TO BLOCK ALL of President Bush's appointments requiring Senate Confirmation, until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August. >>
Here's the full CNN headline on this riveting news:
<< LANDRIEU THREATENS to BLOCK APPOINTMENTS OVER LEVEES
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Frustrated by a lack of progress in rebuilding the state's levees, a Louisiana Democrat threatened Wednesday to block President Bush's appointments requiring Senate confirmation until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August. >>
Hey you wimpy Senate Democrats... SEE HOW EASY THAT WAS?!
Senator Landrieu's COURAGEOUS taking a stand, standing up for her constiuents, CONFRONTING the incompetent, arrogant, and CORRUPT Bush regime, garnered her FREE PRESS and media!
*** FREE PRESS and MEDIA ATTENTION, for STANDING UP for her constituents! ***
UNLIKE the wimpy Democrats, who solicit our (Democratic supporter's) funds, and then toss that money down the RAT HOLE of vague, wishy-washy, non-confrontational ad campaigns such as the generic "we pledge to reform this or that" or Kerry's awful 2004 mantra, "Time for a Change." ('Time for a change' of WHAT, Mr. Kerry.. the DIAPERS of Democratic leaders who are AFRAID to make a MEANINGFUL committment or confrontational stand, as Senator Landrieu is now doing??!)
And don't forget the DIRTY LITTLE SECRET of American politics... your senate and congressional "leaders" SPEND MORE TIME SOLICITING FUNDS for their next campaign, than they do REPRESENTING the plurality of citizen's who voted for them!
This one post can not begin to cover the dilemma of congressional leaders who (as one political commentator explained on a network news report) "wake up every morning knowing who their 10 biggest donors are, and who spends the entire day trying to keep those donors satisfied so they will contribute again when the next campaign money crunch gets tight."
It is a case of "super-representation"- people with large sums of money who involve themselves in political campaigns are FAR better represented on the issues and policies (and especially fiscal policies and tax policies), than "ordinary" citizens who only pay attention to the election process at election time, if then.
And, in defense of our OVERWORKED Represenatives and Senators, they are shouldering a significant burden of EDUCATING VOTERS, millions of whom would prefer to sit on their behinds watching sports events in stadiums, movies in theaters, and sit-coms and soap-operas at home on their sofas, to keeping themselves informed about local and national issues that affect theiir jobs, lives and families. Both as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of the time we allot from out daily lives, the vast majority of Americans are much more concerned with their home team, sports league, movies, or TV (among other forms of ENTERTAINMENT), than they are with whether or not their families have affordable HEALTH CARE.
That is a product of VOTER's APATHY. But a large part of the problem is built into the current "system" by our political leadership, a "system" that offers significant advantages to the Republican Party. Namely, the CONSOLIDATION of the media networks and press/publishing empires under fewer and fewer controlling owners, until you have a situation like CLEAR CHANNEL RADIO. Clear Channel Radio now has a MONOPOLY on the radio market throughout the US, and especially in regards to the airplay that rising music stars (and even established music stars) receive for their latest music. In the case of the Country Music female trio "The Dixie Chicks," when singer Natalie Mains and her bandmates came out VOCALLY OPPOSING President Bush's march to bomb and invade Iraq, The Dixie Chicks were BLACKLISTD from Clear Channel Radio stations, and thereby BLOCKED from their potential market of music purchasing customers. Righty propaganda has INVERTED the truth, in this case declaring that MONOPOLY CAPITALISM is somehow a "free market"!!! If you'll remember back to your elementary school history, the MONOPOLY of King George's British East India Tea Company was (along with stamp taxes and abusive royal officials), one of the major sparks of the American Revolution, leading American Patriots in Boston to dress as Indians, storm an East India Tea Company merchant ship, and TOSS THE TEA into Boston Harbor - the "Boston Tea Party" was against MONOPOLY CAPITALISM" over 200 years ago!
To continue with "THE SYSTEM's" built in disadvantage to Democratic voters and candidates, because the Democrats allowed President Reagan to dispense with the "Fairness Doctrine" equal time provisions of the FCC regulations (which required broadcasters to provide free air time to rebut any one side's paid political commercials), and because Democrats keep signing off on MEDIA CONSOLIDATION, we now have a situation where Democratic candidates, leaders, and activists MUST shell out millions of dollars to reach (via paid political ads) their own constituents, citizens and potential voters.
Worse, ALMOST EVERY DOLLAR THAT Democratic candidates SPEND on ad-campaigns, GOES to ENRICH and REWARD the corporate media owners, who in almost all cases are AGAINST the policies, issues, and fiscal priorities that Democratic candidates so often appeal to!
THAT IS, because of the barrier of modern networks and news organizations can create between leaders and citizens, Democratic candidates MUST ENRICH their potential political adversaries! The text-book example would be Howard Dean's 2004 presidential primary campaign, in which mere days after Dean commented that media consolidation and power was out of control, he was ambushed by the "Dean scream" video (which, misleadingly, made Gov. Dean's scream sound much louder than the sreams of his hundreds of supporters in the room, which were isolated by the unidirectional mike. Take on General Electric (owns NBC), Fox news (Rupert Murdoch), or any of the other media titans, and you MUST PAY FOR ADS on THEIR NETWORKS, to reach YOUR Voters. ergo, Dem candidates MUST ENRICH corporations and owners that are dead-set AGAINST the polices and goals of those Dem. candidates!
For example, GENERAL ELECTRIC corporation OWNS NBC. NBC corporation, NBC 'news', MSNBC, and CNBC, are all WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARIES of General Electric corporation! Not only will GE execs NEVER permit their NBC subsidiaries to broadcast news negative to the interest of General Electric corporation (for example, the story of GE's long history of dumping carcinoginic PCB's into the Hudson river watershed), but EVERY TIME A DEMOCRATIC or independent candidate pays NBC to broadcast a campaign advertisement, IT REWARDS THE MOTHER COMPANY, GE, whose agenda is almost entirely adverse to the ideals that the modern Democratic has fought for for 100 years... issues such as pensions; unions; worker, job, and public health safety standards (such as the PCB pollution mentioned above), corporate oversight (SEC); media consolidation (FCC); outsourcing; nuclear power and nuclear proliferation, etc. etc etc. - on all these issues and many hundreds of others, Democratic and independent candidates MUST ENRICH General Electric and other huge media corporations, to have ANY CHANCE of REACHING THEIR VOTERS via paid TV and radio ads!
AT THE VERY LEAST, we Americans should have a law that a company that profits from nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons, should NOT BE ALLOWED to own a major media organization!
NO WHERE did our founding fathers and Constitution founders imagine that MAJOR CORPORATIONS would provide a monopoly barrier and life-or-death conduit between Congressional Representatives and their voters, citizens, and constituents of the 50 states!
We apologize - this is starting to be a long winded exposition. But to simplify: ALL candidates MUST spend the MAJORITY of their time RAISING CAMPAIGN FUNDS, and under our current system which is so dependent on paid political TV ads to reach an apathetic and ill-informed voting populace, Democratic and Independent candidats MUST ENRICH THEIR corporate (which is to say, 'Republican leaning') opponents JUST TO BE HEARD above the din of daily traffic and the network media's particular reporting bias. (Again, without sounding conspiratorial, GE will never permit NBC to air or broadcast stories that negatively reflect on GE, except to mention an investigation or judgement against the company in the most cursory manner.)
BUT Democrats CAN EASILY OVERCOME this network, corporate, institutional BIAS.... SIMPLY BY GETTING OUT THERE, PROVIDING SOME LEADERSHIP, and CONFRONTING the wrongs of the system...!!!
As Senator Landrieu has shown, IT CAN BE AS EASY as making ONE STATEMENT before the cameras!
This is not rocket science; it is how the Clinton-Gore campaign won the election of 1992, despite an INCUMBENT Republican Presdident (President George H.W. Bush) (Sr.) who was not only BETTER FUNDED by corporate interests, but had been a WAR LEADING VICTOR just months before leading the 1991 Gulf War1 coalition against Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
We here at WimpyDemocrats.blogspot.com most heartily support and endorse Senator Landrieu's COURAGEOUS CONFRONTATION of President Bush's AWOL and APATHETIC (not to say, "whooly corrupt and incompetent") 'leadership' of the post-Katrina rebuilding of New Orleans. New Orleans is even more dependent on presidential leadership for hurricane recovery than Florida ever will be, because New Orleans is CRITICALLY dependent on an overall Environmental management strategy to provide levee rebuilding and wetlands management to mitigate the impact of future killer storms. These are functions that ONLY the Federal Government can provide.. the State of Louisiana has neither the money nor the authority to manage and oversee the Mississippi River and delta, which is an interstate resource and geographic feature that demands FEDERAL oversight.
So, "BRAVO! and a hearty "Well done.. KEEP IT GOING!" to Senator Landrieu, who has joined Senators Feingold, Boxer, Durbin, and Leahy in the "Support CENSURE of President Bush's illegal wiretaps and warrantless searches" COURAGEOUS Democrats column!
If MORE DEMOCRATIC SENATORS start using the senate's institutional powers - powers SPECIFICALLY VESTED IN SENATORS by the US Constitution - to OPPOSE and CONFRONT President Bush's awful agenda, incompetence, and ABUSE OF POWER, than we could hopefully stop adding to "WimpyDemocrats.Blogspot.com" and start a more positive and encouraging website.
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LANDRIEU THREATENS to BLOCK APPOINTMENTS OVER LEVEES
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/04/landrieu.appointments/index.html?section=cnn_latest
photo- Sen. Mary Landrieu: The people of Louisiana "simply cannot wait much longer."
video- Threat of a block from the bayou (1:46)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Frustrated by a lack of progress in rebuilding the state's levees, a Louisiana Democrat threatened Wednesday to block President Bush's appointments requiring Senate confirmation until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August.
Saying coastal residents "cannot wait much longer," Sen. Mary Landrieu blamed the loss of 1,200 lives in her home state "to the loss of wetlands as a protection and a lack of levees that held."
She is DEMANDING that the Bush administration develop a COMPREHENSIVE levee, FLOOD CONTROL, and COASTAL RESTORATION PROGRAM, and dole out the funds to pay for it.
"For me, this used to be a major policy issue," she said. "Now, it's an issue of life and death." (Watch Landrieu outline her demand -- 1:46)
The senator said she sent a letter to Bush on Tuesday and "urged him specifically to request of Congress $6 billion that his administration says that we need in order for our region to be safe."
If the White House fails to meet her demands, "I WILL BE COMPELLED TO USE THE POWER OF MY OFFICE as SENATOR TO HOLD ALL EXECUTIVE NOMINATIONS until we get A RESPONSE from the [....AWOL, arrogant, incompetent, and crony-corrupt Bush...] administration."
There was no immediate response from the White House.
Blocking or failing to act on executive appointments may not be the only pressure she applies, she warned. "I have other leverage, and I'm prepared to use it if I have to."
In her Tuesday letter, Landrieu writes, "Mr. President, the piecemeal approach that has marked your administration's response to providing adequate levee and flood protection for Louisiana has not worked. It needs to be replaced by a comprehensive approach that is both more effective and cost-efficient."
She added that money spent on levees and flood control would ultimately save the government money "by eliminating the need for costly post-storm recovery and rebuilding in areas that were not adequately protected. That is a major lesson learned from last year's horrifying experience."
posted by verifi | 4:57 AM | 0 comments
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LIES and the Lying Liars who tell them. As Al Franken CONFRONTS the Repub. Party, as Wimpy Senate Dems pretend "no problem here"....
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Al Franken has been calling out Republican "LIARS" since he wrote his humorous bestseller, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" in 1995. Since then, the Republicans have seized the "Super-Trifecta of politics" (gaining control of the House, Senate, White House, federal government agencies, control of the federal and most state judiciaries and US Supreme Court, AND a heavy-handed domination of the "4th estate" large ("mainstream media" press and media organizations) by INSTITUTIONALIZING their chronically lying agenda, turning issues on their head, and taking America down the Mad Hatter rabbit hole, with the dazed and dormant Democrats not being able to find a rebuttal to much of anything.
The Bush administration touts their "Clear Skies Initiative," which is nothing more nor less than a propaganda PR term to cover up the evisceration of existing environmental pollution regulations, reduced regulations and enforcement that now allows power plants to spew MORE pollution into the skies. The Democrats ALLOW the perception that "Clear Skies" must mean "Clear Skies," and can't articulate (much less publicize) an energetic response that portrays the Bush administration as LYING about this issue.
President Bush REPEATEDLY tells the world his bald-faced, in-your-face LIE that "Saddam WOULD NOT allow the weapons inspectors in", when Hans Blix's team of international inspectors WAS IN IRAQ, on the ground, doing an effective job, given virtually unlimited access to investigate ANY rumored WMD cache AT A MOMENT's NOTICE, and directed to such potential caches by any an all US intelligence urgings, including satellite surveillance, the US-British "no fly zone" enforcement which was actually an ongoing bombing campaign, and of course the weapons inspectors could act on any "tip" that either American intel or Iraqi tipsters (spies) would provide.
They Democrats COULD NOT rebut the basic Republican LIE MACHINE in 2002, (hell, they couldn't even make an issue of the STOLEN ELECTION of 2000), 2003, or 2004, even when faced with further administration ATROCITIES including the wholesale LOOTING of Iraq (including massive ammunition complexes looted under the eyes of American commanders) and the Abu Ghraib TORTURE and SADISM scandal.
But Al Franken was calling the Republican agenda an agenda of LIES since 1995, and making a good business of it. His last book was "LIES and the Lying Liars Who Tell them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," dissects the Lies of the Republican right-wing, has pictures of Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney on the cover, and went on to be another New York Times bestseller.
Here's a clip from Franken's "Lying Liars" that explains the Republican strategy of USING LIES to propagandize the public and thereby win elections:
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<< The members of the right-wing media are NOT interested in conveying the truth. That's not what they're for. They are a component of the right-wing machine that has taken over our country. They employ a TRIED and [not so] TRUE METHODOLOGY. First, the concoct an inflammatory story that serves their political goals. ("Al Gore is a liar.") They REPEAT it. ("Al Gore LIES AGAIN.") They embellish it. ("Are his lies pathological, or are they merely malicious?") Then they try to push it into the mainstream media. All too often, they succeed. ("Tall Tales: Is what we've got here a Commitment to Exaggerate?" New York Times, October 15, 2000.) Occasionally, they fail. (Despite their best efforts, the mainstream media never picked up their Clinton-as-murderer stories.) But even their failures serve their agenda, as evidence of 'LIBERAL BIAS." Win-Win. You've got to admit, it's a good racket.
They used the tactics to CRIPPLE Clinton's presidency. They used them to discredit Gore and push Bush into office. And they're using them now to silence Bush's critics. Bush is getting away with murder - just like Clinton did. See? That's how insidious the right-wing modus operandi is. Even I bought into the Clinton murder thing for a second. And that's my point. We have to be vigilant.
AND WE HAVE TO BE MORE THAN VIGILANT. WE HAVE TO FIGHT BACK. We have to EXPOSE those who BEAR FALSE WITNESS for the false witness bearers that they are. And we have to do it in a straight, plainspoken way. Let's call them what they are: liars. Lying, lying liars.
Hence the title of this book. [Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them.] >>
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0525947647/ref=sib_fs_top/104-6136860-3781563?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00P&checkSum=9XFJ55E8YwbTBcnd7y0EAWp6m%2F6Zw%2FQUPqTJVoGlIxg%3D#reader-page
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Here's a clip from Al's opening statement of Mr. Franken's recent debate with Ann Coulter (4 April 2006) that not only calls out Ann Coulter as a LIAR, but also starts the process of LISTING the enormous chain of Bush administration LIES:
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<< I think we should talk about the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress and what it has accomplished over the past five years. I'm talking, of course, about well over two trillion dollars added to the national debt, the increase in poverty in our country and the added millions of Americans, including children, without health insurance. I’m talking about the sale of our democracy to corporate interests that pollute our water and our air. I’m talking about the widening gap between the haves and the have nots in this country. And I’m talking about the war in Iraq.
I’m talking about an increasingly corrupt, secretive, and incompetent federal government that rewards cronies, a Republican majority in Congress that’s acted as a rubber stamp, that has performed virtually no oversight and which excludes the minority party from the legislative process in a way unprecedented in our recent history.
After telling a number jokes and getting the cadets on my side. I told them that we had been lied into the war in Iraq. I had just published a book entitled The Truth (with jokes), and I told the cadets that you can’t have freedom without the truth. You can have freedom without jokes, as has been proven by the Dutch and the Swiss.
I proceeded to prove that we had been LIED INTO WAR, citing EXAMPLE after EXAMPLE of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, who had been National Security Advisor in the lead-up to the war, telling the public information that THEY KNEW NOT TO BE TRUE.
At the end of the speech I received a standing ovation from the cadets. Sol Feinstone’s granddaughter told me she had gone to every lecture for the last thirty or so years, and that I received only the second standing ovation. The other was for Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam.
By the way, Ann has written that Max Cleland was lucky to have lost his legs and his arm in Vietnam. I disagree. More importantly, I know Max, and he disagrees.
I believe I received the standing ovation because the cadets knew that I was speaking from the heart, and that the information I had given them was all true. And as I said, you can’t have freedom without the truth. >>
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Ok, the occasional coarse vulgarity of Franken's "Big Fat Liar" book may have been a little off-putting, but as we now know, on issue after issue, goal after goal, campaign after campaign, the Republican agenda is built on a tidal-wave, an avalanche, a tsunami of lies. "Moral Values" of Enron executives holding "strippers and stimulants" parties as they loot and plunder stockholders, workers, pensioners, rate-payers, and taxpayers. "Restoring Honor and Dignity to the White House" as President Bush first closes the White House to citizen tourists, and then invites his cronies such as Enron fraudmeister Kenneth Lay to spend the night. "Moral Values" such as President Bush STRUMMING HIS GUITAR, at yet ANOTHER Republican photo-op campaign fundraiser, as New Orleans drowning victims float face-down over New Orlean's flooded streets. "Restoring Honor and Dignity" to America, only to have hundreds of photographs of Iraqi prisoners tortured, humiliated, sadistically stripped naked and sodomized under the aegis of Military Intel generals (General Miller was promoted from command of the US base in Guantanamo, Cuba, SPECIFICALLY to bring his "Guantanamo methods" to Iraq), as Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld order the military to run KANGAROO COURTS of low level enlisted privates and NCO's accused of "abuse," EVEN AS Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. Rumsfeld reserve the 'right' to TORTURE prisoners even to death....
There comes a point, in discussing Bush administration outrages, Republican crimes, and right-wing propaganda, that the facts and outrages pile up so much, that a reader is driven off by the sheer scale and repetition of it all.
Why are Republicans able to repeat the "Al Gore is a liar" mantra so often, and find consumers among the American voting public, yet when Mr. Bush's much more manifest, much more dangerous lies, are sitting out there in full view, within pages of official presidential transcripts posted on the White House web-site even, the public responds with a big yawn, and the Democrats go about with an air of "business as usual"?
Well, that is exactly why. Over the years the Democrats have abandoned the "Fairness doctrine" in public broadcasting, they have allowed media consolidation to CONCENTRATE the ENTIRE media ownership in the hands of 5 or 6 billion-dollar corporations, and above all, they REFUSE to CONFRONT the lies when they are there for all to see, as for example the Senate Democrats SCURRYING FOR THEIR RAT HOLES re the Feingold CENSURE bill, to censure Mr. Bush for his ILLEGAL wiretapping, spying, and searching of American citizens with NO oversight, restraint, or accountability to anyone but the president's own whims and ego.
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An Evening with Ann Coulter: Opening Statement
Al Franken's MidwestValuesPac.org
Apr 4, 02:54 PM
ch: Al’s Channel
http://midwestvaluespac.org/blog/156/an-evening-with-ann-coulter-with-full-speech
COULTER DEBATE OPENING STATEMENT –
Thank you. First of all, I know I join Ann in thanking the University of Judaism for hosting this event. We’ve had an opportunity to spend some time with President Wexler and have dinner with many folks from the University community.
And I’d like to answer the question that I actually get asked the most when I do an event for a Jewish organization. Yes, I had enough to eat.
You know, in these kinds of debate forums, someone has to go first. It’s always preferable to go second, because you can react to what’s been said, giving you something of a tactical advantage. More importantly, it pretty much spares you the chore of writing out pre-prepared remarks.
Both Ann and I said we preferred going second, but I didn’t insist on it, because I understood somebody had to go first. And being a liberal, I just wasn’t tough-minded enough to insist on a coin toss.
So, I’ll try to use my time to define the terms of the debate – if you will. “Whence Judaism?”
No. I think we should talk about the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress and what it has accomplished over the past five years. I’m talking, of course, about well over two trillion dollars added to the national debt, the increase in poverty in our country and the added millions of Americans, including children, without health insurance. I’m talking about the sale of our democracy to corporate interests that pollute our water and our air. I’m talking about the widening gap between the haves and the have nots in this country. And I’m talking about the war in Iraq.
I’m talking about an increasingly corrupt, secretive, and incompetent federal government that rewards cronies, a Republican majority in Congress that’s acted as a rubber stamp, that has performed virtually no oversight and which excludes the minority party from the legislative process in a way unprecedented in our recent history.
I also want to discuss with Ann the coarsening of dialogue in this country. I want to discuss values with Ann. Values like love, of family, of your fellow man, of country. Ann has said repeatedly that liberals hate America. I disagree.
Last year I had the honor of speaking at West Point. It was an audience not so very different from this one. Except that instead of you, the audience was made up of about twelve hundred cadets. Many of whom will be going to Iraq in the next year or so.
The occasion was the Sol Feinstone Lecture on the Meaning of Freedom endowed by philanthropist Sol Feinstone. It’s an annual event and Sol Feinstein’s granddaughter, who is about my age, attended.
After telling a number jokes and getting the cadets on my side. I told them that we had been lied into the war in Iraq. I had just published a book entitled The Truth (with jokes), and I told the cadets that you can’t have freedom without the truth. You can have freedom without jokes, as has been proven by the Dutch and the Swiss.
I proceeded to prove that we had been lied into war, citing example after example of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, who had been National Security Advisor in the lead-up to the war, telling the public information that they knew not to be true.
At the end of the speech I received a standing ovation from the cadets. Sol Feinstone’s granddaughter told me she had gone to every lecture for the last thirty or so years, and that I received only the second standing ovation. The other was for Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam.
By the way, Ann has written that Max Cleland was lucky to have lost his legs and his arm in Vietnam. I disagree. More importantly, I know Max, and he disagrees.
I believe I received the standing ovation because the cadets knew that I was speaking from the heart, and that the information I had given them was all true. And as I said, you can’t have freedom without the truth.
You can’t have good government without the truth. During the crafting and passage of the Medicare prescription drug bill, the chief actuary of Medicare was told to withhold from Congress the true cost of the bill. He’d be fired if he told the truth.
The bill costs so much, in large part, because the bill prohibits Medicare from negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies on the price of drugs. As a result, seniors now pay on average 44% more than veterans getting the same drugs through the VA which is allowed to use its size to negotiate with the drug companies. To get the bill passed, the vote was held open for three hours. Tom DeLay was later admonished by Republicans on the ethics committee for attempting to bribe, and then extort, Republican Nick Smith of Michigan to get him to change his vote. The chairman of the Commerce Committee Billy Tauzin who ushered the legislation through, soon left Congress for a two million dollar a year job as the chief lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. Obviously, a complete coincidence.
During the 2000 campaign George Bush ran for president by saying repeatedly, and I quote, “by far the vast majority of my tax cut goes to those at the bottom.” Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the president continues to ask for and sign tax cuts that go primarily to those at the top. By the way, until George W. Bush, our country had never cut taxes during a time of war.
As a result, our deficits grow and the cuts – in Medicaid, Pell Grants, food stamps, low-income housing subsidies, community block grants – are targeted at the poorest in our society.
George W. Bush famously said that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher. Frankly, I don’t get it.
I’m Jewish. Thank you. I’m not an expert on the New Testament. But I know that if you cut out all the passages where Jesus talks about helping the poor, helping the least among us, if you literally took a pair of scissors and cut out all those passages, you’d have the perfect box to smuggle Rush Limbaugh’s drugs in.
I don’t understand when the Christian right says that equal rights in marriage threatens marriage. I’ve been married 30 years, many of them happy. I don’t think that if my wife and I were walking around in Boston, where we met, if we saw two men holding hands with wedding bands… I don’t think I’d say “Hey, that looks good. Y’know, honey, you don’t like watching football on Sundays. Maybe I could marry a guy, watch football with him, and then if I wanted to have sex, I could come over and have sex with you.”
I was just talking to Newt Gingrich the other day. And I said to him, “Don’t you want for a gay couple what you had with your first wife? Don’t you want that bond that comes with the pledge of fidelity that you had with your second wife? Don’t you want what comes with that lifelong bond that you may or may not have with your third wife – I have no idea what’s going on there.”
You know, Bill O’Reilly always talks about his “traditional values” – as opposed to “the far left’s secular humanist values.” I didn’t realize phone sex was a traditional value. I didn’t think the phone had been around long enough. Maybe telegraph sex.
In her book Slander, Ann referred to Democrats and our “Marquis de Sade lifestyle.” I’ve been married for thirty years. Ann, you’re an attractive woman. And I know you support the president’s abstinence-only sex education. I want to congratulate you for saving yourself for your one true love.
When my daughter was six years old, her teacher asked all her students to write about how their parents had met. We told Thomasin that we met at a mixer freshman year of college. I saw Franni across the room, gathering up some friends to leave. I liked the way she was taking control and I thought she was beautiful. So I asked her to dance, and then got her a ginger ale, then escorted her to her dorm and asked for a date.
My daughter wrote, “My dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink, and then took her home.” Now all the facts were accurate, but what my daughter wrote was extremely misleading. Now my daughter wasn’t lying. She didn’t realize that what she wrote made her mom seem like a slut.
Ann, however, is not six years old. And she has developed her own techniques for misleading, by leaving out important facts. Let me give you an example of Ann lying by omission.
Also in her book Slander, Ann tells her readers that Al Gore had a leg up on George W. Bush when applying to their respective colleges. Harvard and Yale. Ann writes:
“Oddly, it was Bush who was routinely accused of having sailed through life on his father’s name. But the truth was the reverse. The media was manipulating the fact that – many years later – Bush’s father became president. When Bush was admitted to Yale, his father was a little-known congressman on the verge of losing his first Senate race. His father was a Yale alumnus, but so were a lot of other boys’ parents. It was Gore, not Bush, who had a famous father likely to impress college admissions committees.”
What does Ann omit? Well, that Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush was also a Yale alum and had been Senator from Connecticut, the home state of Yale University. That Prescott Bush had been a trustee of Yale. That Prescott Bush had been the first chair of Yale’s Development Board – the folks who raise the money. That Prescott Bush sat on the Yale Corporation for twelve years. That Prescott Bush, like George W. Bush’s father, George H. W, Bush, had been a member of Skull and Bones. That the first Bush to go to Yale was Bush’s great great grandfather James Bush, who graduated in 1844. That in addition to his father, grandfather, and greatgreatgrandfather, Bush was the legacy of no less than twenty-seven other relatives who preceded him at Yale, including five great great uncles. Seven great uncles. Five uncles, and a number of first cousins.
Now why did Ann leave out these somewhat relevant facts? Ann grew up in Connecticut. Ann, did you really not know that Prescott Bush had been your senator when you were born?
Ann, is it possible that when Prescott’s son George H. W. Bush became president, it totally escaped your notice that his father had represented your state in the United States Senate? Did neither of your parents mention it in passing at the dinner table? Did no one at home in Darien make any comments about the new president’s lineage?
Understand. This isn’t sloppiness. This is deliberate. For Ann’s purposes – to claim that the media that was manipulating facts here – Ann herself had to manipulate facts – in such a shameless way. This is what she does.
And she does it over and over and over again.
Let me give you another example.
On page 265 of her book Treason, Ann writes of Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist. “He blamed twenty years of relentless attacks by Muslim extremists on- I quote – ‘religious fundamentalists of any stripe.’”
This didn’t sound like Tom Friedman to me, so I found the one Friedman column that contained that phrase – “religious fundamentalists of any stripe.” It was from a December 26, 2001 column called “Naked Air,” about an airline where everyone would fly naked. “Think about it,” Friedman writes, tongue firmly planted in cheek, “If everybody flew naked, not only would you never have to worry about the passenger next to you carrying box cutters or exploding shoes, but no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would ever be caught dead flying nude.”
Let me repeat. Ann wrote of Tom Friedman, Jewish by the way, that “he blamed twenty years of relentless attacks by Muslim extremists on – I quote – ‘religious fundamentalists of any stripe.’” She bothered to put “I quote” in there for emphasis.
Friedman actually wrote “no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would ever be caught dead flying nude” in service of a conceit that illustrated our dilemma of either becoming less open as a society or learning to live with much higher risks than we’ve ever been used to before.
Friedman was not blaming 9/11 on the Lubavichers, as Ann suggests.
Now this sort of deliberate misrepresentation contributes to a coarsening of our nation’s dialogue. Ann recently told an audience:
“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee,” Coulter said. “That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”
Here’s my question. What’s the joke? Maybe it’s a prejudice from my days as a comedy writer, but I always thought the joke had to have an operative funny idea. I’ll give you an example of a joke.
Like they do every Saturday night, two elderly Jewish couples are going out to dinner. The guys are in front, the girls riding in back. Irv says to Sid, “Where should we go tonight?”
Sid says, “How about that place we went about a month ago. The Italian place with the great lasagna.”
Irv says, “I don’t remember it.”
Sid says, “The place with the great lasagna.”
Irv says, “I don’t remember. What’s the name of the place?”
Sid thinks. But can’t remember. “A flower. Gimme a flower.”
“Tulip?” Irv says.
“No, no. A different flower.”
“Magnolia?”
“No, no. A basic flower.”
“Orchid?”
“No! Basic.”
“Rose?”
That’s it! Sid turns to the back seat. “Rose. What was the name of that restaurant…?”
That’s a joke. What exactly is the joke in “We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee?” Is it the crème brulee? Is that it? Because Stevens is some kind of Francophile or elitist? Is it the rat poison? See, I would have gone with Drano. I’m really trying here, Ann. Please, when you come up, explain the joke about murdering an associate justice of the Supreme Court. One who by the way, was appointed to the Supreme Court by Gerald Ford, and who, also, by the way, won a Bronze Star serving in the Navy in World War II. What is the joke? ‘Cause I don’t get it.
Now in Ann’s defense, she doesn’t always make horribly offensive remarks or knowingly craft lies. Very often Ann is just wrong out of ignorance or pure laziness. Take this from the MSNBC Show – Saturday Final – on August 30, 2003 – MSNBC. She is talking about how well the war in Iraq is going.
COULTER: I think the rebuilding is going extremely well. Douglas MacArthur was in Japan five years after V.J. Day. There were enormous casualties in Germany after World War II. The rebuilding is actually going quite well compared to past efforts. And really, all we’re getting from Democrats is constant carping.
Ann, do you know how many combat fatalities the American military had in Germany after V-E day? Zero. You know how many in Japan after V-J day? Zero.
Ann and I have debated once before. In May of 2004, and Ann still felt the war was going amazingly well. Let me quote her from that debate:
“…. This war is going amazingly well… the casualty rate is incredibly small for the rebuilding. It is going better than can be expected. You cannot read about how well things are going against Al Sadr, where you have Iraqis protesting against Al Sadr; all these stories about how Al Sadr had (this) vast support among the Iraquis… oh no no no. They recently held a protest march saying, ‘Al Sadr, get out.’”
As you know, Ann, Moktadr al Sadr, recently picked the Shiite choice for prime minister for the new government, Mohamed al Jafaari. Sadr has thirty-two seats in the Iraqi assembly compared to Ahmed Chalabi’s zero. And remember, it was Chalabi to whom we were going to turn over the Iraqi government.
Things are not going amazingly well in Iraq. And they haven’t been going amazingly well since we allowed the looting of Baghdad. A week ago, former prime minister Ayad Allawi said that Iraq was already in a civil war. And as George Bush said in September of 2004, we should listen to Allawi because – and I quote – “he understands what’s going on there – after all, he lives there.”
The first thing this Administration needs to do in Iraq is to start acknowledging the truth and level with the American people.
I think the one lesson we can all agree on from Vietnam is that we cannot blame the troops. By and large, the vast, vast majority of our troops have performed heroically. And they deserve our gratitude and support. And that means supporting them after they’ve come home.
Two thirds of the wounded in Iraq now have brain injuries. That’s because so many of the casualties are from IED’s, and the injuries are concussive and not ballistic. Each one of those brain injuries is going to cost a million dollars over the course of that veteran’s life. And we need to fund programs for those who come back with post traumatic stress disorder – a higher percentage than in any previous war.
Now another value I believe in is love of country. For some reason it rankles Ann that I’ve done six USO tours and have had the nerve to talk about it. I do so because I want people to be aware of the work that the USO does. I want anyone here today who is a Hollywood celebrity to think about giving up a couple weeks of your life to entertain our men and women in uniform. I think it rankles Ann that I’ve talked about going on the USO tours because she can’t conceive that anyone would actually do something for anyone else. I didn’t go to Iraq to prove that Democrats are patriotic, Ann. I did my first USO tour in 1999, when Clinton was president. We went to Kosovo, a war that was vehemently and vocally opposed by many Republicans. Even so, we didn’t call them traitors. I was invited by the USO to go to Iraq because they know I do a good job and that it means a lot to the troops when anyone comes over to show them we care.
My daughter is 25. She teaches inner city kids in the Bronx. And that makes me proud. She hates when I say it, and that makes me even more proud.
My son is an engineering student. He wants to build fuel efficient cars. He’s a junior in college and got a job at Ford this summer working on a new manufacturing process for power trans. I don’t know what that means either. But he got there because he works his butt off.
But my son doesn’t feel that he got where he is because he is some kind of rugged individual. That he did it all himself. He knows that he stands on the shoulders of those who stood on the shoulders of those who stood on the shoulders of those who stood on the shoulders of those who stood on the necks of Indians.
My wife and I tried to instill certain values in our kids. But we don’t love them because they’re perfect. We love them because they’re decent, loving kids. Kids who care about others and care, by the way, about the truth.
One last thing. Speaking of the truth. A few months after my last debate with Ann, the following appeared in a New York Observer story about Ann. From the September 13, 2004 issue..
The writer asks Ann in the article:
“She debated Al Franken recently?
“’Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s not an interesting debate, because liberals can’t argue. So it’s never like point-counterpoint; all we do is hear about his fucking U.S.O. tours for three hours. Excuse my French.’”
Ann, let’s see if we can have a point-counterpoint, and an interesting debate. And by the way, Ann, I have here a DVD of that entire three hour debate – And I’ll bet you my speaking fee tonight that I spoke about my USO tours for less than a grand total of three minutes. How about it Ann? My speaking fee against your speaking fee?
___________________________________________________
WIMPY KERRY edition of Wimpy Democrats....
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
We must confess, we here at CowardlyDemocrats.blogspot.com have felt hopeless, impotent, and violated as John Kerry seized the Democratic Presidential nomination in mid-summer 2004 (by joining the Dem. 'centrist' bash-Dean mob), then immediately went on his WATER-SKIING VACATION (hello? A guy who makes a big deal of his vacation, certainly does not feel that he has much work to do...) then went on his summer of DO NOTHING campaigning (...we believe it was the Washington Post's Oliphant who drew a cartoon portraying Kerry and Edwards as Rip Van Winkles, SLEEPING through the campaign season); and then stood there like a dumb punching bag during the presidential debates as Mr. Bush, practically dripping scorn and condescension, looked into the cameras and said "My opponent is a flip-flopper."
Not only did Kerry not have the kahones to say, "I believe it is President Bush who is the flip-flopper... he once swore to get Osama bin Laden 'dead or alive,' and then in his October 2003 White House press conference the president said "I'm not that concerned about him [bin Laden] anymore.. he really doesn't concern me", but then Kerry allowed Bush to go on camera denying he ever made those comments, comments that are available for the whole world to see at the White House web site!
As if going AWOL in the summer of 2004, and going "SOFT" in the post convention campaign wasn't bad enough, Senator Kerry then practically did all he could to polish Bush's boot heels re the DIEBOLDIZATION of the Ohio (and national) voting process!
John Kerry doing NOTHING to PUT SOME HEAT on the CRIMINAL CONDUCT of Diebold corporation - FINANCIAL misconduct, restraint-of-trade misconduct, conflict-of-interest misconduct, and vote-fraud misconduct - - - is nothing short of CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE or dereliction of duty of Democratic of apresidential candidate to protect America's voting citizens on the eve of a crucial election.
The fact that Wally O'Dell, the Ohio-for-Bush campaign co-chair in 2004 was also THE CHAIRMAN OF DIEBOLD vote-machine co. was not enough SLEAZE to attract Senator Kerry's attention. (O'Dell has since resigned as Chairman of Diebold, based on financial misconduct investigations. Not only do the Kerry-Lieberman Democrats ALLOW Diebold's financial shennanigans to disappear under a rock, but they also ASSIST the Republican party, press, and media in IGNORING the vast potential for VOTE FRAUD in electronic tabulating systems that are 100 times more easily "HACKED" than state-certified gambling machines or ATM banking software.)
NOW we learn the the criminally corrupt Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, he of endless conflicts of interest and Tom DeLayesque sledgehammer brutality re the voting citizens of Ohio, had almost $10,000 of Diebold stock in his portfolio.
Under the tender "leadership" of wimpy Democrats like John Kerry, America is once again a SEGREGATED NATION: ONE standard of Justice for Democrats, from Martha Stewart to Susan McDougal to Democratic voters ROBBED of their votes; and an entirely DIFFERENT, much looser standard of "justice" for Republicans, from Ken Lay to Enron to Neil Bush to Halliburton to Diebold to Kenneth Blackwell, Katherine Harris, and other systematic Republican VOTE FIXERS.
Blackwell accidentally held shares in election-machine maker
ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Associated Press
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14256784.htm
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell revealed Monday he accidentally invested in shares of voting-machine manufacturer Diebold Inc. last year, a period when he was sued by other manufacturers over contracts that Diebold was up for.
In a required ethics filing, Blackwell, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, said his investments are directed by an accountant and financial adviser without his knowledge or help, "similar to a blind trust." He said a manager of his investments account at Credit Suisse First Boston bought 178 shares of Diebold stock at $53.67 per share in January 2005.
Blackwell said the manager did not follow instructions to avoid such investments. He said 95 shares were later sold at a loss but he still held 83 shares until discovering them and liquidating them Monday, also at a loss.
He discovered them while reviewing his 2005 investments to prepare for Monday's filing with the Ohio Ethics Commission, a form required of all statewide candidates.
"While I was unaware of this stock in my portfolio, its mere presence may be viewed as a conflict and is therefore not acceptable," Blackwell said in a letter dated Monday included in his filing.
January 2005 also was the month Blackwell ordered that counties should use optical-scan voting machines rather than more expensive touch-screen systems.
The North Canton-based company predicted it would earn less money in 2005 because of Blackwell's decision. That didn't stop Texas-based Hart Intercivic Inc. from suing, saying the order left two rivals, Diebold and Election Systems & Software, eligible for bidding.
Blackwell reversed his decision in April and announced a deal with Diebold of $2,700 per touch-screen machine.
That prompted a lawsuit from ES&S saying the decision eliminated the opportunity for counties to choose from more than one touch-screen vendor.
Blackwell has said the Diebold machines are the only electronic machines to meet federal and state standards under the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
Candidates use the annual ethics forms to disclose their debt, gifts, investments and travel. What had been a mundane political duty took on new meaning last year after Gov. Bob Taft's failure to report several golf outings led to his no contest plea to ethics violations.
Taft's failure to report golf outings and other gifts he received as governor led to his no contest plea in August, becoming the first Ohio governor to face such charges in office. He was fined the maximum $4,000.
Anticipating criticism, Blackwell quickly released a copy of comments by Judith Grady, who oversees the secretary of state's compliance with the 2002 federal voting act.
In a May 9 statement given as part of the ES&S lawsuit, Grady said Blackwell was not involved with price negotiations with Diebold.
Bob Paduchik, a spokesman for Attorney General Jim Petro, Blackwell's rival in the GOP primary, called for further investigation "considering Ken Blackwell's history with Diebold."
Democrats weren't buying Blackwell's explanation. "If he can't manage to know what's in his checkbook, why would the people of Ohio want to trust this man with the state's checkbook?" said Brian Rothenberg, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party.
Petro made several out-of-town trips at taxpayer expense totaling $5,192 last year, according to his 2005 form filed Friday. By contrast, he reported $3,546 in similar expenses last year.
All but two trips were to meetings of the National Association of Attorneys General. The other two were to Washington to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, said spokeswoman Kim Norris.
Blackwell also listed among other gifts the cost of a trip to Texas last August paid for by the Texas Restoration Project, a ministers' organization that opposes gay marriage.
Blackwell's campaign previously has acknowledged the flight aboard a plane owned by Pastor Rod Parsley, minister of a large nondenominational church in suburban Columbus.
A group of liberal ministers has filed an IRS complaint alleging that Parsley and a second conservative pastor have improperly promoted Blackwell over other candidates.
ON THE NET
Ohio Ethics Commission: http://ethics.ohio.gov/ethicshome.html
posted by verifi | 9:37 PM | 0 comments
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Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead! DeLay not to run in '06...
....NO thanks to Wimpy Senate Dems...
Hooray!
Ding-Dong, the Wicked Witch of Sugarland, Tom DeLay, is dead!
DeLay, who went from "Hot Tub Tom" in his early days to the stern, holier-than-though moralizing "Hammer" of late, has announced that he will not run in 2006, effectively ending his reign of iron-fisted leadership in the House (from whence he got the nickname, "Hammer", as in "He would smash the kneecapss of any Republicans who tried to resist the latest GOP dictate in the House...")
Unfortunately, VERY LITTLE of Tom DeLay's political demise has from any efforts of the Democratic Leadership. Well, possibly Rep. Conyers, Rep. Waxman, and other senior Democrats in the House minority-party leadership have had something to do with putting some "heat" on DeLay... after all, DeLay literally sicked HOMELAND SECURITY POLICE on Texas State Democratic legislators, who had fled Texas to a hotel in New Mexico in an effort to prevent a Texas statehouse quorum that would allow DeLay's fellow Republicans to ram through a new Texas redistricting plan only two years after the previous redistricting had been enacted. This is but only one example of DeLay's brutal, sledge-hammer tactics that flirted with and crossed the line of good taste, if not abject criminality.
What Right did Texas Republicans, under overall supervision from Tom DeLay, have to call homeland security, and FORCE Texas legislator's to attend the brutal Republican redistricting plan??
answer- NONE AT ALL. This was a clearly PARTISAN use - MISUSE - of law enforcement and Homeland Security powers.
And what did the Senate Democratic "leadership" - the most visible, the most vocal, the most powerful Democrats with the broadest national recognition - do to HIGHLIGHT DeLay's borderline CRIMINAL ABUSE of power and authority in a clearly PARTISAN fashion...
answer- Again, the Senate Democratic "leadership" went back to their Georgetown cocktail circuit, doing NEXT TO NOTHING to publicize DeLay's egregious misuse of power.
CAN ANYONE IMAGINE Democrats SICKING HOMELAND SECURITY POLICE on absent Republican state legislators, and not whipping up a FIRESTORM of Republican and media OUTRAGE ??
How about Democrats failure to comment on Clown Antonin Scalia, the "BORGIA Justice", who recently made a contemptous "f***-yourself" gesture to the press and public while he wa in a church?
WHERE is the Democratic leadership OUTRAGE at a Supreme Court Justice's unseemly behaviour?
(While a Cardinal in St. Peter's cathedral in Rome, Cardinal Borgia had aides hand him loaded rifles in his Vatican apartmen, as he shot down prisoners brought before this balcony. "The Borgia Justice", Antonin Scalia, is a confirmed proponent of the "Divine Infallibility" of the executive or "UNITARY EXECUTIVE" notion, and Scalia supports the "No lawyer, no court, no appeals" holding of war on terra prisoners on no more than the WHIMS of the executive's (president's) "infallible" judgement. Scalia, like his "no conflict of interest here" hunting buddy Vice President Dick Cheney and Cardinal Borgia before him, would probably consider shooting bound and captive prisoners to be "good sport.")
DeLay, Scalia, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Hadley, Cunningham, Abramoff, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz.. it is hard to keep up with the Republican litany of rogues and callous villains, and their agenda of abject GREED and CORRUPTION.
And even as the last vestiges of an independent US federal government continue prosecutions of DeLay, Libby, DeLay aides (aka "Abramoff conspirators") and other Republican scoundrels, we can all rest assured of one constant: The Lieberman/Kerry/Biden/Bayh/Hillary wing of the Democratic Party will CONTINUE to CEDE the "MORAL HIGH GROUND" to the pompous, morality-thumping Republican Party and their horrible "Moral Values" [NOT!} agenda...
DeLay Announces Resignation From House
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060404/ap_on_go_co/delay;_ylt=ApFdVI_e2bZzt9EbJSw8D4Gs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
WASHINGTON - Succumbing to scandal, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Tuesday he will resign from Congress in the face of a tough re-election race, closing out a career that blended unflinching conservatism with a bare-knuckled political style.
"I have no fear whatsoever about any investigation into me or my personal or professional activities," DeLay said in a statement to constituents. At the same time, he said, "I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative, personal campaign."
He said the voters of his Houston-area district "deserve a campaign about the vital national issues that they care most about ... and not a campaign focused solely as a referendum on me."
DeLay relinquished the post as House majority leader last fall after his indictment in Texas as part of an investigation into the allegedly illegal use of funds for state legislative races. He decided in January against trying to get the leadership post back as an election-year corruption scandal staggered Republicans and emboldened minority Democrats.
Last week, former DeLay aide Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to conspiring with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others to corrupt public officials, and he promised to help the broad federal investigation of bribery and lobbying fraud that already has resulted in three convictions.
Neither Rudy, Abramoff nor anyone else connected with the investigation has publicly accused DeLay of breaking the law, but Rudy confessed that he had taken actions while working in the majority leader's office that were illegal. DeLay has consistently denied any wrongdoing.....
[Upon arriving in Congress] DeLay quickly established himself as a forceful presence — earning a nickname as "The Hammer" — and he easily became majority leader when the spot opened up.
DeLay was the driving force behind President Clinton's impeachment in 1999, weeks after Republicans lost seats at the polls in a campaign in which they tried to make an issue of Clinton's personal behavior.
His trademark aggressiveness helped trigger his downfall, when he led a drive to redraw Texas' congressional district boundaries to increase the number of seats in GOP hands.
The gambit succeeded, but DeLay was soon caught up in an investigation involving the use of corporate funds in the campaigns of legislators who had participated in the redistricting.
______________________________________________________
April 4, 2006, 12:31AM
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/3769131.html
Ethics issues have swirled around Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, since he was elected House majority leader in 2002. A timeline of events:
• 1984: Elected to represent the 22nd District of Texas in the House of Representatives.
• 1994: Elected majority whip.
• July 1997: DeLay is part of a group that tries, but fails, to oust House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
• November 2002: Elected majority leader without opposition.
• September 2004: Grand jurors in Texas indict three DeLay associates — Jim Ellis, John Colyandro and Warren RoBold — in an investigation of alleged illegal corporate contributions to a political action committee DeLay founded. The investigation involved the alleged use of corporate funds to aid Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature in the 2002 elections.
• September-October 2004: The House ethics committee chastises DeLay for offering to support the House candidacy of Michigan Republican Rep. Nick Smith's son in return for the lawmaker's vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.
• January 2005: House Republicans reverse a rule passed in November 2004 that would have allowed DeLay to keep his leadership post if he were indicted.
• March 2005: Media reports spur Democrats to question DeLay's relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation. Delay has asked the House ethics committee to review allegations that Abramoff or his clients paid some of DeLay's overseas travel expenses. DeLay has denied knowing that the expenses were paid by Abramoff.
• April 2005: House Republicans scrap contro-
versial new ethics committee rules passed earlier in the year that would have made it harder to proceed with an investigation. Democrats said the rules were meant to protect DeLay.
• September 2005: DeLay is indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas political fundraising law and is forced to step aside as majority leader.
• October 2005: DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro are indicted by a second grand jury on charges of conspiring to launder money and money laundering. DeLay turns himself in and is fingerprinted and photographed. He smiles broadly in his mug shot to thwart its use by political opponents.
• November 2005: Former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon pleads guilty to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge that stems from the government investigation of work he and his former partner, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, did for Indian tribes. The investigation continues.
• December 2005: A judge dismisses the conspiracy charge but refuses to throw out the more serious allegations of money laundering, increasing the likelihood of a criminal trial next year.
• January 2006: Abramoff pleads guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud and agrees to cooperate in an influence-peddling investigation that threatens powerful members of Congress. DeLay abandons his bid to reclaim his post as House majority leader.
• March 29, 2006: Abramoff and former business partner Adam Kidan are sentenced in Miami to nearly six years in prison but are allowed to remain free while they help a congressional corruption investigation in Washington.
• April 3, 2006: Republican officials say DeLay will resign his seat and won't seek re-election to Congress.
posted by verifi
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Monday, April 03, 2006
WIMPY Democrats ABANDON people of New Orleans... again.
WHEN will Democratic voters and minority voters DEMAND that our WIMPY Democratic leaders put down their god-damned Georgetown cocktail-circuit cocktails (and big-donor checks for 5 minutes) and STAND UP AND FIGHT for displaced New Orleans disaster victims, victims NOT of Hurricane Katrina, but of the breech of the levees TWO DAYS after hurricane Katrina departed, under clear blue skies; and of course victims of President Bush's CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE and CRIMINALLY CORRUPT reconstruction process.. with NO clear environmental rebuilding master strategy to this date!
What does is say about our COWERING, WIMPY Democratic Senate "leaders," that even as George W. Bush strums his guitar at yet ANOTHER Republican photo-op, fundraiser while New Orleans flooding victims float down New Orlean's flooded streets, the Democrats CAN'T EVEN TAKE A PAGE from Newt Gingrich's 1994 playbook, and STAND ON THE CAPITOL STEPS IN OUTRAGE, DEMANDING some action in the disaster relief??
Big Easy May Face Showdown Over Internet
By ALAN SAYRE, AP Business Writer
Mon Apr 3, 5:20 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/wireless_new_orleans;_ylt=ApyjgwPjvwLjC0r98dq1QzKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
NEW ORLEANS - A showdown may be looming over a free wireless Internet network that New Orleans set up to boost recovery after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the city.
ADVERTISEMENT
Calling the network vital to the city's economic comeback, New Orleans technology chief Greg Meffert is vowing to keep the system running as is, even if it means breaking a state law that permits its full operation only during emergencies.
He says he's ready to go to court, if necessary.
"If you can get to the Net, you can do business," Meffert said.
The system, established with $1 million in donated equipment, made its debut last fall in the wake of the hurricane disaster. It's the first free wireless Internet network owned and run by a major city.
The system uses hardware mounted on street lights. Its "mesh" technology passes the wireless signal from pole to pole rather than through Wi-Fi transmitters plugged directly into a physical network cable. That way, laptop users can connect even in areas where the wireline phone network has not been restored.
Touted at first as much for its symbolism of New Orleans' recovery as for its utility, the system's usefulness now far exceeds early projections, Meffert said. He estimates that the network gets thousands of users a day.
Hundreds of similar projects in other cities have met with stiff opposition from phone and cable TV companies, which have poured money into legislative bills aimed at blocking competition from government agencies.
In New Orleans, the network operates at 512 kilobits per second, much faster than dial-up connections but slower than high-speed services offered by private companies.
But a state law, passed two years ago in response to other attempts to establish government-owned Internet systems, dictates the network can run at 512 kbps only as long as the city remains under a state of emergency — a declaration still in place more than seven months after the storm.
Once the state of emergency is lifted — and no one has said when that might take place — state law says the bandwidth must be slowed to 128 kbps.
Meffert says the reduction will make the service virtually useless for businesses and others trying to re-establish commerce in the city.
Bills to allow New Orleans to keep the network operating full-time at 512 kbps failed during a recent special legislative session. Several similar bills are pending in the current regular session, but Meffert says city lobbyists give them little hope of passage because of opposition from the telecommunications lobby.
"We've been told in no uncertain terms those bills are going to get shot down," Meffert said.
David Grabert, a spokesman for Cox Communications Inc., a major telecommunications provider in New Orleans, said the company backs the state's Fair Competition Act, which would end the city's legal authority to continue operating the system at full speed after the state of emergency ends.
"We believe the Fair Competition Act was established to provide safeguards for private industry," Grabert said. "Efforts to repeal it do raise concerns."
BellSouth Corp. says it does not comment on pending legislation, but its regional director for southern Louisiana, Merlin Villar, denies the company's trying to shut down the city's system.
"The law does not prevent New Orleans or any other local government from providing Wi-Fi service," Villar said in a statement.
Meffert said many devastated areas of the city likely will not have private Internet service for years. He said the city is prepared for a showdown — new law or not. The system will stay up, regardless, though Meffert said he expects court challenges.
"In the end, it takes a federal judge to issue a restraining order," he said. "Until that point, if that point ever comes, we'll keep running it. It's a lifeline to these people."
posted by verifi
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WIMPY Democrats Force Special Counsel Fitzgerald to do Heavy Lifting in Libby-Rove-Plame-gate...
Saturday, April 01, 2006
The pathetic, wimpy Democrats in the Senate can't even bring themselves to sign onto Sen. Feingold's symbolic (only) CENSURE resolution, even though there have been criminal indictments from within the White House re the Vice President's former Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was simultaneously a Senior Advisor to President Bush.
Contrast the Democrats COWERING away from the Libby indictment (which should include Karl Rove, who was also party to OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE in trying to stonewall the investigation past the November 2004 elections) and Feingold CENSURE bill... with the crescendo and relentless bleating of Republicans CALLING FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON'S IMPEACHMENT in 1998.
The FAILURE of the Democrats to DEMAND ANSWERS to the Rove-Libby scandal - the premeditated campaign by Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney to "OUT" (reveal the secret, undercover identity of) an undercover CIA spy (Valerie Plame) and her ENTIRE COVER ORGANIZATION as a means of discrediting her 'whistleblower' husband - can not be explained away by the Democrat's MINORITY status in the US Senate.
This is, simply, yet ANOTHER example of the Wimpy Democrats trying to HELP Karl Rove and the Republican Propaganda Machine put each and every scandal as "old history," water-under-the-bridge... just as Democrats made the election debacle Florida 2000 as "no issue," and the Democrats signed on to the WHITEWASH 9-11 commission.
****************************
Libby Says Prosecutor Trying to Keep Post
By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
Friday, March 31, 2006; 7:47 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/31/AR2006033101624_pf.html
WASHINGTON -- Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is narrowing the description of his powers in an effort to counter calls for dismissal of the criminal case he brought against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, defense lawyers said Friday.
In a 24-page filing in federal court, the legal team for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said Fitzgerald and the former Justice Department official who appointed him, James Comey, are changing the broad mandate the prosecutor was handed to probe the leak in the Valerie Plame affair.
Libby is under indictment on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about how he learned of Plame's CIA identity and what he told reporters about her. Plame's CIA status was exposed on July 14, 2003, by conservative columnist Robert Novak, eight days after Plame's husband accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.
The defense attorneys say assignment of unsupervised and undirected power to Fitzgerald requires that he be relieved of his duties in the investigation and that all actions he has taken be voided.
Fitzgerald's appointment violates federal law, the defense attorneys say, because his investigation was not supervised by the attorney general. They say only Congress can approve such an arrangement.
"The government attempts to salvage the appointment by submitting two affidavits recently prepared by Mr. Comey and Mr. Fitzgerald, claiming that their previously undisclosed, subjective understanding of the appointment was narrower," Libby's lawyers wrote. "Mr. Comey now asserts that `it was my intention that the special counsel would follow substantive department policies' in exercising that authority."
"Similarly, despite the fact that as recently as August 2004 Mr. Fitzgerald characterized himself as `the functional equivalent of the attorney general in this matter,' he now insists in response to Mr. Libby's challenge that he always `understood' he had no authority to expand his jurisdiction and that he was required to follow certain substantive department policies," the court papers added.
© 2006 The Associated Press
posted by Verifi
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Wimpy Democrats cower vs Bush's THREE TIMES, IN-YOUR-FACE baldface LIE.
Joe Conason over at Salon dissects President Bush's THREE TIMES, in-your-face bald-faced lie, "Saddam Would Not Allow Weapons Inspectors into Iraq", even though Hans Blix's inspectors wereIN IRAQ, ON THE GROUND, DOING THEIR JOBs, (and doing their jobs very effectively) when they were FORCED TO DEPART IRAQ as Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld unleashed the dogs of "Shock and Awe", the undeclared-war bombing and invasion of Iraq. Article at bottom this post...
"Saddam chose to deny inspectors"
Bush repeated this bald-faced lie recently. The cowering press still lets him get away with it, but the public is no longer fooled.
By Joe Conason
Photo by Paul Morse -
President George W. Bush answers reporters' questions on March 21, 2006.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/03/31/bush_lies/
March 31, 2006 | Slowly but inexorably, as more and more information emerges, the conventional wisdom about the events leading to war in Iraq is shifting. The American public has joined the rest of the civilized world in questioning the arguments and motives of the war makers. Commentators who have habitually fashioned excuses for the White House seem to find that task increasingly burdensome and humiliating. The old lies no longer have much traction.
Yet even now, President Bush persists in blatantly falsifying the war's origins -- perhaps because, even now, he still gets away with it.
At his most recent press conference, that strange impulse to utter a ridiculous lie seemed to seize the president. It happened when he called on Hearst columnist Helen Thomas.
"I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime," said the venerable correspondent in her confrontational style. "Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war?"
Bush responded by denying that he wanted war, a pro forma assertion that nobody believes. He blathered on for a while about Sept. 11, the Taliban, al-Qaida and protecting America from terrorism.
And when Thomas reminded him that she had asked about Iraq, he said, "I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the [United Nations] Security Council; that's why it was important to pass [Resolution] 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose [emphasis added], then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it."
The official transcript notes "laughter" at that moment.
What was so funny? Were her colleagues laughing at Thomas, whose monopoly on testicular fortitude has shamed them all for so long? In the days that followed, the bully boys of the right-wing media enthusiastically abused Thomas, which was predictable enough. But have the rest of the reporters in the press room become so accustomed to presidential prevarication that they literally cannot hear a stunning falsehood that is repeated over and over again?
For the third time since the war began three years ago, Bush had falsely claimed that Saddam refused the U.N. weapons inspections mandated by the Security Council. For the third time, he had denied a reality witnessed by the entire world during the four months when those inspectors, under the direction of Hans Blix, traveled Iraq searching fruitlessly for weapons of mass destruction that, as we now know for certain, were not there.
But forget about whether the weapons were there for a moment. The inspectors definitely went to Iraq. They left only because the United States warned them to get out before the bombs started to fall on March 19, 2003. But for some reason the president of the United States keeps saying -- in public and on the record -- that the inspectors weren't there.
Keeping the facts segregated from the myriad falsehoods isn't easy with this regime, so let's review the two previous occasions when Bush made that startling claim.
The first incident was on July 14, 2003, at a White House press conference with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who diplomatically declined to contradict him. At that time, the Bush administration was reeling from the impact of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's Op-Ed essay about the Niger uranium fiasco in the New York Times, which had appeared a few days earlier.
Asked by reporters about the questionable intelligence on Iraq that had distorted his speeches and decisions, the president bristled. He clearly believed such questions impertinent and unimportant. He preferred to talk about the big picture. In his concluding remarks that afternoon, Bush said: "The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in [emphasis added]. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region. I firmly believe the decisions we made will make America more secure and the world more peaceful."
As the Washington Post noted the following day, "the president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective." That was putting it rather blandly (as I suggested here). The POTUS had denied reality, and the press corps blinked. The New York Times didn't even report his bizarre statement, and the rest of the media followed along meekly.
(Let me pause here to note how the treatment of these incidents contrasts with that notorious occasion when Bush's predecessor uttered an obvious lie as the cameras rolled. Bill Clinton's DENIAL of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky was PLAYED BACK OVER and OVER and OVER AGAIN.)
Perhaps aware that he could put over this nonsense on a LAZY and INTIMIDATED PRESS CORPS, Bush DID IT AGAIN six months later. On Jan. 27, 2004, he met briefly with reporters, accompanied by the visiting Polish president, Alexander Kwasniewski. The subject of the absent arsenal came up again because David Kay, the administration's handpicked weapons inspector, had confessed that nine months after the invasion the Iraq Survey Group had found nothing, zip, zero, and that he no longer expected they ever would.
"Don't you owe the American people an explanation?" a reporter asked. "Well, I think the Iraq Survey Group must do its work," Bush replied. "Again, I appreciate David Kay's contribution. I said in the run-up to the war against Iraq that -- first of all, I hoped the international community would take care of him. I was hoping the United Nations would enforce its resolutions, one of many. And then we went to the United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution -- 1441 -- unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in" (emphasis added).
Is it necessary to mention that this falsehood again went unnoticed in the mainstream media (although I took exception)? Historians will wonder someday how a free press permitted the world's most important official to say such things without contradiction. Meanwhile we can hope that next time, Jon Stewart will play back the tape on "The Daily Show" while bugging his eyes in disbelief. Then we will be reassured that reality still exists, even when the media and the president prefer to pretend otherwise.
About the writer
Joe Conason writes a weekly column for Salon and the New York Observer. His latest book is "The Raw Deal: How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal. "
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posted by verifi | 5:04 PM | 0 comments
March is gone.. the Democrats waste another opportunity to DEFINE corruption and outrages of Bush-GOP...
April 1, as former Senator Gary Hart has written "the joke is on us."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/the-trick-is-on-us_b_18261.html
Another month gone by, another month closer to the elections of November 2006, and the DLC-corporate Democrats and "Democratic Leadership" has ONCE AGAIN, SUCCESSFULLY BLURRED THE ISSUES, downplaying the atrocities and crimes of the Bush White House and making Bush-GOP policies look oh-so-respectable.
In this case, the Cowering Democrats used the month of March to IGNORE the Senator Feingold sponsored resolution to CENSURE President Bush for spying on American in defiance of law... In defiance of FISA law, two centuries of precedent where authorities require a SEARCH WARRANT before searching American's homes and possessions.
In short, by arrogance and executive fiat, Mr. Bush has declared SEARCH WARRANTS to be OBSOLETE: he, and his federal agents, can now search any electronic means, data-mine any communications, break into and search any citizen's homes, WIHT NO OVERSIGHT WHATSOEVER.
So what is the Democrat's RESPONSE to this imperial presidency, this monarchial, absolutist power?
- Why, they can't even sign on to Senator Feingold's gesture of a CENSURE bill, a gesture that won't ever be enacted until Democrats command a majority in the Senate, or can woo Republican senators to support the bill.
In short, by BLURRING the outrages of Bush administration assault on American rights, freedoms, and open government, the DLC Democrats are doing EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO ** LOSE ** the crucial midterm elections, just as Senate "leaders" Daschle and Lieberman did in 2002.
Oh sure, Bush is tanking in the the polls right now. But, as the election nears, the Republicans will ratchet up their "Gays, Guns and God" "morality" agenda; they will CONTROL the media discourse as Democrats allow issues like the censure bill to fall by the wayside, and even Republican INCOMPETENCE re national security will, as ever, be turned on its head, just as the Rove propaganda machine successfully portrayed George W. Bush - the President who did NOTHING to prevent 9-11, flew the OPPOSITE DIRECTION on the day of the attacks, and SHORTCHANGED his promises to better fund the first-responders of 9-11 - as a hero.
The GOP's Stake In Checking The President
Senator Russ Feingold
March 30, 2006
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/30/the_gops_stake_in_checking_the_president.php
Russ Feingold is a U.S. senator from Wisconsin.
During the Watergate hearings, then-Senator Howard Baker, a Republican, showed tremendous courage, and a deep sense of Congress’s duty to hold President Nixon accountable, when he asked that now-famous question: “What did the President know and when did he know it?” Baker was one of a handful of Republicans during the scandal who stood up to their party, and to the President. Today, as the President admits, even flaunts, his program to wiretap Americans on American soil without the warrants required by law, we need more courageous Republicans to stand up and check the President’s power grab.
When the President breaks the law, he must be held accountable, and that is why I have introduced a resolution to censure the President for his actions. Yet, as we face a President who thinks he is above the law, most Republicans are willing to cede enormous power to the executive branch. Their actions are not just short-sighted, they are a departure from one of the Republican Party’s defining goals: limiting government power.
Some Republicans are defending the President’s conduct as appropriate and arguing he should have free rein to continue his program, regardless of whether it is legal. Others seek to grant him expanded statutory powers so as to make his illegal conduct legal. But current law already allows a wiretap to be turned on immediately as long as the government goes to the court within 72 hours. The President has claimed an inherent authority to wiretap Americans on American soil without a warrant that he thinks allows him to break this law. So why would anyone think the President will comply with any new proposal? The constitutional system of separation of powers demands that we check a President who recklessly grabs for power and ignores the rule of law, not reward him—particularly when the law he breaks is designed to protect innocent Americans from intrusive government powers.
As many Republicans focus on defending the President, they are losing sight of what ceding these powers to the President now will mean for their own party down the road. Those expansive powers will rest with whoever sits in the Oval Office. Republicans who argue today that the President has the power to ignore a law passed by Congress are relinquishing authority not just to this Republican President, but to future presidents of any party. They are helping to render future members of their own party powerless to check an executive who claims expansive powers under the Constitution or a future Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution.
The Republican effort to defend the President works against the party in the long run, and it also goes against the party’s longstanding rhetoric about checking government power and strengthening individual freedoms. It’s hardly in keeping with those values to allow Americans’ communications to be monitored without a warrant, or to concentrate power in one branch of government. One of the best ways to limit government power is to ensure that each branch provides a check on the other two, but most Republicans in Congress today aren’t checking the President’s power or defending the judicial branch’s right to do so—they are giving him a blank check to ignore the rule of law.
A party that prides itself on limiting government, and supporting individual freedom and the rule of law, should think twice before it allows any President to ignore the laws that Congress passes. By supporting the President now, Republicans are making it tougher for members of their own party to challenge the power of future presidents and departing from their own values in the process. That’s a short-sighted strategy that won’t serve either party, or the nation, in the long run. What would serve the nation, and support the rule of law, is for a few courageous Republicans to follow the example set during the Watergate scandal by standing up to a President of their own party, asking tough questions, and holding the President accountable for his abuse of power.
posted by verifi
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HANG the vote-stealing thieves. And FLOG the Cowardly Democrats, for pretending not to notice...
The hypocrisy and gall know no bounds. Secretary of State Rice, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of War and Torture and Rendition and Kangaroo Courts Rumsfeld, and of course the idiot prince, President George W. Bush, all run around the country and the world, blathering on endlessly about "FREEDOM!" and "DEMOCRACY!", even as they snigger in their closed-door meeting rooms about American bodies floating down flooded New Orleans' streets ("ANOTHER excuse to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to no bid, no oversight Halliburton contracts!"), and even as they howl with delight at all the voters across America left wondering if their votes were even counted... or more precisely, if their votes for Democratic candidates weren't SWITCHED to the Bush-Cheney totals.
We can't even begin to enumerate all the shennanigans that took place in CRITICAL SWING STATE Ohio, alone, in 2004, except to mention in passing: #1. remember the Harris County (?) Elections Supervisor who TOSSED OUT the press and media from the district's late-night counting session, claiming an FBI terror alert.. an alert the FBI stated unequivocally was never made? #2. ALL the polls were trending for John Kerry in Ohio... every one, yet EVERY election discrepancy, every problem, every major disagreement between polls and returns (whether pre-election polls or exit polls), in EVERY INSTANCE the actual returns broke for the Bush votes. #3. In 2000, a large number of newspapers endorsed Texas Gov. George W. Bush. By 2004, over HALF of these papers - many of them conservative papers, run by conservative editors and conservative publishers, REFUSED to endorse President Bush for re-election. On the other hand, tens of thousands of Democratic voters were ENERGIZED to come out and vote, not because of John Kerry's "attractive personality", but because they were deeply opposed to Mr. Bush and his party's agenda. On election night, tens of thousands of voters STOOD IN LINE FOR HOURS. In most cases, in ALL cases, the long lines were in Democratic leaning precincts, either poor minority precincts or college precincts with young voters. In almost every case, Republican-voting precincts had plenty of vote machines (as one might expect in "richer", more well-funded precincts), and vastly fewer problems. When one of two vote machines alloted for a large number of voters (in a poor district) breaks down, there are longer lines at the one (or few) remaining machines. Such glitches and errors plagued Democratic-leaning precincts all through Ohio's long day of voting in 2000... and again, in EVERY vote-counting discrepancy, the votes seemed to swing for Bush, even repudiating pre-election and exit polls by large percentages to do so.
ALL THE ABOVE WAS IN Ohio, IN 2004, ALONE.
Today, over a year and a half later, the problems are WORSE- WIDELY DOCUMENTED HACKABILITY of vote machines manufactured by REPUBLICAN-owned companies, companies which REFUSE to use the security measures (and verifiable or "open source" software and computer code) that the banking and gambling industries use every day for the past decade.
IT IS AN IN-YOUR-FACE assault on the INTEGRITY of the Voting Process, and across the board, Republicans try to make the situation MORE CONFUSING, so as to cover any premeditated hacking, and the Democrats pretend not to notice.
For example, here at the Florida State statutes, click on Title IX Electors and Elections.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/
You will search long and hard for a statute dealing with machine-code inspection for "back door" (or "secret key") computer code to ALLOW vote fraud, BECAUSE SUCH A STATUTE IS * NOT * IN FLORIDA's election law!
PAGES upon PAGES upon PAGES of election law, and NOWHERE is there a provision to make sure that machines are not made HACKABLE by that staple of spy movies and computer hacking, a " back door entrance" to allow a programmer to enter the system long after it has been handed over to the end-user. Florida's government is entirely dominated by treasury-looting Republican scoundrels, from the Governor's office to the State Senate to the Statehouse to the local cities and counties to the Republican-leaning corporate news outlets. Even "liberal" news organizations such as the Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald, and Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel are accomplices to the "see no evil, hear no evil, pretend no evil exists" potential for serious and chronic VOTE FRAUD in Florida's elections.
This above rant is only a bare INTRODUCTION to the problem of VOTE FRAUD in Ohio, Florida, and across America - WHEREVER Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S voting machines are used. The Chairman of Deibold was (until he resigned in the face of financial fraud accusations) Wally O'Dell, the 2004 co-Chairman of the "Ohio for Bush" Republican campaign committee. Likewise, ES&S and Sequoia are owned by Republican officials.
These below sites are only the briefest, current introduction to the problem of AMERICAN DEMOCRACY SUBVERTED through institutionalized, chronic, unverifiable vote fraud via unverifiable election machines that are (compared to electronic gambling machines and banking software) child's play to hack.
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Minor glitch found in Allegheny County voting machines
Expert tricks county's new electronic system but calls the problem a minor one
By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06088/677611-85.stm
HARRISBURG -- After four hours of testing yesterday, a glitch was found in the voting system Allegheny County is planning to use in the May 16 primary.....
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More glitches trigger halt in testing of new county voting machines
By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
Thursday, March 30, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06089/678087-85.stm
HARRISBURG -- A state voting-machine examiner yesterday halted testing of the machine Allegheny County intends to use in the May primary, saying it was pointless to continue until a CRITICAL SOFTWARE PROBLEM is resolved.
"It's not useful to continue because [the software] clearly is not stable," said Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor.
Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based manufacturer of AVC Advantage voting machines, will have a chance to fix the software and have it retested in a week or two. Otherwise, it's UNLIKELY THE MACHINES WILL BE CERTIFIED for use in Pennsylvania. [note: this is TWO YEARS AFTER the problems in the 2004 elections!]
If they aren't, Allegheny County MUST SCRAMBLE for new ones before the May 16 primary and MIGHT LOSE a $12 million federal grant for the replacement of its lever-style machines. [note: the Republicans RIG the LAWS, to ENCOURGE ADOPTION of Republican manufactured voting machines that are PRONE TO HACKABILITY.]
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As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting Security
In Controlled Test, Results Are Manipulated in Florida System
By Zachary Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 22, 2006; A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/21/AR2006012101051_pf.html
As the Leon County supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho's job is to make sure voting is free of fraud. But the most brazen effort lately to manipulate election results in this Florida locality was carried out by Sancho himself.
Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.
Sancho's most recent demonstration was last month. Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, manipulated the "memory card" that records the votes of ballots run through an optical scanning machine.
Then, in a warehouse a few blocks from his office in downtown Tallahassee, Sancho and seven other people held a referendum. The question on the ballot:
"Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?"
Two people marked yes on their ballots, and six no. The optical scan machine read the ballots, and the data were transmitted to a final tabulator. The result? Seven yes, one no.
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Bradblog.com is doing a great job of keeping up with the tsunami of reports of INSTITUTIONALIZED VOTING FRAUD, thousands of election machines across America vulnerable to hacking, if not DESIGNED to make them EASY to switch the vote totals FROM the true winning candidate, to the losing candidate:
<< But back to the halted tests in Allegheny...and the claims by Sequoia officials that the problems found were "no big deal". Shamos doesn't see them as "no big deal" and is concerned that a malicious hacker could do precisely what he was able to do in these tests...
Dr. Shamos encountered yesterday's problem during a test for vote tampering. In an instant, he said, he was able to transform a handful of votes into thousands.
Developers quickly fixed the problem by replacing a file in the tabulation software, but that didn't alleviate Dr. Shamos' concerns. A malicious hacker could easily make the same switch, allowing votes to be changed, he said.
"What control is there over the software package if different files can be swapped in and out?" he asked. >>
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Sequoia E-Vote Systems Found 'Hackable' in PA, Testing Shut Down After Machine Failures!
'Software Clearly Unstable,' Says Testing Official Who 'Transformed Handful of Votes into Thousands...in an Instant'!
Ten-Year Old E-Voting Systems from NV Planned for First Time Use in PA This Year
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002626.htm
Meanwhile...in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County, where plans to use Diebold's hackable Electronic Voting Equipment have recently been nixed, Plan B seems to be failing too. The machines they'd hope to use instead, as made by Sequoia Voting Systems, have now been shown to be hackable as well.
Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette picked up on the story yesterday, and followed up today on the testing being run in Allegheny County by Dr. Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, on the "new" Sequoia Voting Machines. The county had hoped to use these systems -- ten-year old Sequoia "Advantage" machines as purchased from Clark County, Nevada who is moving to a different Sequoia system -- in their upcoming Primary Elections in May. That plan, now may be in grave doubt.
The testing of the machines has found so many problems -- including Shamos' findings during "tampering tests" that he was able to instantly "transform a handful of votes into thousands" -- that he has now simply shut down the entire process described as "pointless" due to all of the errors in the software.
According to today's report...
HARRISBURG -- A state voting-machine examiner yesterday halted testing of the machine Allegheny County intends to use in the May primary, saying it was pointless to continue until a critical software problem is resolved.
"It's not useful to continue because [the software] clearly is not stable," said Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor.
Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based manufacturer of AVC Advantage voting machines, will have a chance to fix the software and have it retested in a week or two. Otherwise, it's unlikely the machines will be certified for use in Pennsylvania.
As you may recall, it was machines made by Sequoia which failed so miserably across the state in Illinois just last week during the Primary Elections there. Just a handful of the many mainstream reports covering the meltdown are here, here and here.
Now pay attention...because this can be confusing...
Illinois' Cook County (Chicago) had used new Sequoia "Edge" machines in the recent primary that had been purchased by Clark County, Nevada. Since Illinois' primaries were first, and Sequoia didn't have time or inventory to fill both orders, Cook used Clark's machines for last week's contest only.
Those "Edge" machines, which failed so disastrously in Cook County, IL, are now to be shipped to Clark County, NV who is selling their own ten-year old Sequoia "Advantage" machines to Allegheny County, PA. It is those ten-year old machines which are now being tested in Allegheny and failing so horrendously.
All of which begs the questions: How well were those "Advantage" machines tested in Nevada in the last ten years? How much is Nevada now looking forward to using the new and failed "Edge" machines that they had loaned for a single use to Cook County, IL? And finally, will Clark County, NV bother to test them to find out if they too are hackable like the ones -- modified a bit by Sequoia on the way, apparently -- that they've just unloaded on Allegheny County, PA?
But back to the halted tests in Allegheny...and the claims by Sequoia officials that the problems found were "no big deal". Shamos doesn't see them as "no big deal" and is concerned that a malicious hacker could do precisely what he was able to do in these tests...
Dr. Shamos encountered yesterday's problem during a test for vote tampering. In an instant, he said, he was able to transform a handful of votes into thousands.
Developers quickly fixed the problem by replacing a file in the tabulation software, but that didn't alleviate Dr. Shamos' concerns. A malicious hacker could easily make the same switch, allowing votes to be changed, he said.
"What control is there over the software package if different files can be swapped in and out?" he asked.
As mentioned, Sequoia officials were predictably quick to dive into spin-control/crisis-management mode claiming they can simply continue to fix the software problems right on up "until just before the election." Said Larry Tonelli, Sequoia's state manager for Pennsylvania and New York.
posted by verifi
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Rove, Bush aware that they LIED to get US to attack Iraq....
(need we say it, wimpy Democrats COWER...)
Thursday, March 30, 2006
reminder: EVERY DAY that Don Rumsfeld and Karl Rove are on the job, is testament to the abject, cowering apathy of the Democratic "leadership"....
...their PREFERENCE for COMPLICITY with LIES, over STANDING UP AND CONFRONTING the crimes of Karl Rove, Don Rumsfeld, Enron, Halliburton, Diebold, etc, ad naseum...
(Well, in the "black comedy" department, it is almost amusing to reflect that entire swaths of the American public and 'intelligentsia' - (yes, that includes the incestous inside-the-beltway overpaid multi-millionaire souless talking heads) - were convinced that Iraq was AN IMMEDIATE and DIRE THREAT... based on.... aluminum tubes and Niger Yellowcake??!!)
<< The White House was largely successful in defusing the Niger controversy because there was no evidence that Bush was aware that his claims about the uranium were based on faulty intelligence. Then-CIA Director George Tenet swiftly and publicly took the blame for the entire episode, saying that he and the CIA were at fault for not warning Bush and his aides that the information might be untrue.
But Hadley and other administration officials realized that it would be much more difficult to shield Bush from criticism for his statements regarding the aluminum tubes, for several reasons.
For one, Hadley's review concluded that Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons.
For another, the president and others in the administration had cited the aluminum tubes as the most compelling evidence that Saddam was determined to build a nuclear weapon -- even more than the allegations that he was attempting to purchase uranium.
And finally, full disclosure of the internal dissent over the importance of the tubes would have almost certainly raised broader questions about the administration's conduct in the months leading up to war. >>
_______________________________________________
PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
Insulating Bush
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0330nj1.htm
Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.
As the 2004 election loomed, the White House was determined to keep the wraps on a potentially damaging memo about Iraq.
Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."
Three months after receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."
The previously undisclosed review by Hadley was part of a damage-control effort launched after former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged that Bush's claims regarding the uranium were not true. The CIA had sent Wilson to the African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate the purported procurement efforts by Iraq; he reported that they were most likely a hoax.
The White House was largely successful in defusing the Niger controversy because there was no evidence that Bush was aware that his claims about the uranium were based on faulty intelligence. Then-CIA Director George Tenet swiftly and publicly took the blame for the entire episode, saying that he and the CIA were at fault for not warning Bush and his aides that the information might be untrue.
But Hadley and other administration officials realized that it would be much more difficult to shield Bush from criticism for his statements regarding the aluminum tubes, for several reasons.
For one, Hadley's review concluded that Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons.
For another, the president and others in the administration had cited the aluminum tubes as the most compelling evidence that Saddam was determined to build a nuclear weapon -- even more than the allegations that he was attempting to purchase uranium.
And finally, full disclosure of the internal dissent over the importance of the tubes would have almost certainly raised broader questions about the administration's conduct in the months leading up to war.
posted by verifi
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Wimpy Dems force Rep. McDermott to take on the Repub intimidation campaign single-handed...
posted 3-29-06
Once again the TRUE mantra of the inside-the-beltway, belly-of-the-beast, Establishment Wimpy Democrats come through:
"We will tolerate any atrocity, look the other way to any smear campaign, leave ANYONE out to twist in the wind,** AS LONG AS WE GET our multi-million dollar campaign donations."
** (from President Clinton through the "Whitewater" investigation farce, to the Clinton-Gore staffers wrongly accused in the 'White House Trashing [not] Scandal;' to Veterans DENIED the Murray Amendment's $2,7 billion in rehab funds shot down by the Republicans without a murmur of protest by the DLC Dems, etc. etc. etc ad naseum)
Here we have a clear and present case of CENSORSHIP, INTIMIDATION, and SUPPRESSION, and the Democratic "leadership"... SITS ON THE SIDELINES, forcing Jim McDermott to handle what SHOULD be a NATIONAL issue; just as the COWERING Democrats ALLOW Karl Rove to camp out in the West Wing, despite his relentless record or smears, distortions, and connections to the Libby-Rove scandal of "outing" an undercover CIA operation.
Congressman Jim McDermott on the Ropes
by Dal Lamagna
03.29.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dal-lamagna
I met Congressman Jim McDermott in 1996 when I was running for U.S. Congress in the third district of New York. I had been getting the cold shoulder from the administration but not from the Congressman. He took me under his wing and during that time, I found nothing that we disagreed about.
I've watched his career with both pride and dismay. I was proud to know him when he was involved in events that led to the resignation of Newt Gingrich. I was proud to know him when he stood up against our invasion of Iraq right from the beginning and while in Iraq with former Congressman David Bonior, told George Stephanopoulos and the world a truth we are only now coming to believe: "I think the president would mislead the American people." 1 (See the full attack story in the Weekly Standard.)
However, I've been dismayed and horrified by the suffering he has endured over the years for simply -- but valiantly -- doing his job. Cross the GOP and watch out. They turn the right-wing message machine against you. They harass you with complaints and legal suits. Anyone can file a legal suit and then you have to defend yourself.
Wasn't Congressman McDermott doing his job as co-chair of the Congressional Ethics Committee when he passed along to the New York Times an audiotape of a phone call between Newt Gingrich, then-Congressman John Boehner, and others where Gingrich clearly violated the terms of an agreement he'd made with a special investigative team of the Ethics Committee?
Apparently not, according to now-Majority Leader Boehner. Boehner, a participant in the call, said the tape was made illegally by a couple in Florida (it was). He also claimed that McDermott, who received the tape from the couple, knew it was obtained illegally and therefore had no right to disseminate its contents -- and by doing so, McDermott violated his rights and he deserves damages.
So, for the first time in the history of Congress one Congressman, Boehner, sued another, McDermott, in civil court.
Nine years and $440,000 later, Jim McDermott is still fighting this battle.
During round three, the Supreme Court, which had just ruled in favor of the defendant in a similar case called Vopper v Bartnicki, sent back McDermott's case to the original district court, annulling the district court's original decision.
It seems clear that the Supreme Court's intention in doing so was to allow the district judges to review the Bartnicki case, which in essence said that no one could be punished for disclosing the contents of an illegally intercepted conversation as long as the information in it was an issue of "public importance," and that the person disclosing the information did not "participate" in or "encourage" the interception of the phone call.
The judges didn't do that though. District Judge Hogan ruled against McDermott the second time and assessed fines and damages for Boehner and also required McDermott to pay Boehner's legal fees! McDermott appealed this decision making it round 5 of the legal fight.
Round five ended yesterday with a victory for Boehner in the Court of Appeals. The same three judges that ruled for Boehner the first time ruled the same again. This time Judge Ginsburg, the chief judge who wrote the opinion, employed what I think to be a "stolen property, found diamond" argument (more of this later). Ginsberg, with Judge Randolph, confirmed Judge Hogan ruling in the lower district court. McDermott must pay a $10,000 fine, $50,000 in punitive damages, and the legal fees of Boehner (claimed by Boehner to be $530,000)!
As horrible as this is for Congressman Jim McDermott, it is worse for our First Amendment rights. Seventeen media companies stood on the side of Jim McDermott's rights of speech in the amicus brief presented to Ginsberg and the Court of Appeals. If this case is not challenged a new precedent is set. Reporters will not be allowed to accept or report on any material passed onto them if they "knew or had 'reason to know' that it was so acquired" illegally.
Think Deep Throat or the Pentagon Papers when you consider the consequences of this precedent.
Read the whole history of this story and decide what free speech really means.
I expect and hope McDermott plans to take this back to the Supreme Court for the final round six. But meanwhile, I'm urging everyone to support McDermott by circulating this blog and by contributing to his re-election campaign. Both he and Boehner are allowed to fund this battle from campaign funds. Visit McDermott's Web site at http://www.McDermottforCongress.com and hit the donor button. If you are like me and want to contribute the most possible, $5000, make your contribution to his Legal Defense Fund directly at http://www.McDermottLegalTrust.com.
-- 1. Hayes, Stephen F. "The Baghdad Democrats." The Weekly Standard, October 14, 2002. Volume 008, Issue 05. Online at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/737zcgnk.asp.
Written in collaboration with Jennifer Hicks.
posted by verifi
Well said! Soldiers, servicemen & women in Iraq as LAMBS at the alter of Bush's ego...
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Well said! No need to add commentary to Frank Harris (III)'s op-ed, except to note that the Wimpy Democrats are COMPLICIT as they COWER from the Right-Wing attack machine, complicit in serving up the troops as sacrificial lambs to Bush's ego, the PNAC neo-con imperial war machine, and Karl Rove's shocking awful SMEAR and SLIME propaganda machine.
<< I think about the American troops who are in Iraq now; I think about those who will be there in the next three years while Bush remains in office.
``We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail," Bush said as he addressed the nation as the war began three years ago.
A lot can happen in three years. A lot of lives have changed, a lot of lives have been altered, a lot of lives have been lost.
Victory is not at hand, civil war seems a matter of interpretation, and now the administration wants to blame the news media because of the pictures they show and the news they put out.
``SHOCK AND AWE."
We've spent the last three years in shock and awe - not at our nation's prowess in waging war, but in the spin put out by those in the White House to explain where we are in this mess.
And the clock keeps ticking. And the spin keeps spinning.
From here on, every American soldier over there is a lamb placed on George W.'s altar. Every American soldier is a war offering to George W.
They are war offerings to a president stuck on pride, frozen in principle, shocked and awed beyond all shame and decency.
If our president would truly like to shock us and awe us in a good way, there is something he can do: RESIGN. >>
Shock And Awful
Frank Harris III
March 27, 2006
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-harris0327.artmar27,0,1578897.column?coll=hc-headlines-oped
From time to time over the past three years, I would come across the photo and look at the white smoke billowing up into the Baghdad night, pushed by the orange and yellow glare of exploding rockets, bombs and burning buildings.
While it's forever said that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is the three words printed in big, white, all-capped letters that makes the most enduring impression.
``SHOCK AND AWE."
Something about the words on the cover of that March 31, 2003, issue of Newsweek struck me then and strikes me now as promiscuously cavalier, as shamelessly promotional - like the advertisement for a video game, like the promo for one of those slam-down wrestling federation matches, like the nickname for some young, hot-shot prizefighter.
``Announcing, in this corner, George W. `Shock and Awe' Bush!"
``SHOCK AND AWE."
These are the words the administration approved to serve as the introduction to this war. These are the words that made the cover of Newsweek three years ago.
I saved this issue, as I do select other issues of magazines and newspapers that cover major events in the life of the nation, the world, the city or the people I know and care about.
It's a way to look back and gauge how things got to where they are, how things turned out or what the heck folks were thinking.
I saved that old magazine for the message it sends, for the moment in time it captures and reflects.
Last week, I came across it again. This time I viewed it in the context of three years of war and thousands of dead soldiers - ours and theirs - and thousands of dead civilians - mostly theirs.
Now, too, it is in the context of our distinguished president's drum-roll proclamations about the war's success as he states his intent to leave America's troops in Iraq for some future president to pull out.
Instead of the ``Hell no, we won't go!" said by another generation against another war, it's ``Hell no, they won't come home - not as long as in the White House I roam."
That's George W. ``Shock and Awe" Bush's three more years. That's the duration of his term.
It will be up to some other administration to clean up this one's mess.
I think about the American troops who are in Iraq now; I think about those who will be there in the next three years while Bush remains in office.
``We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail," Bush said as he addressed the nation as the war began three years ago.
A lot can happen in three years. A lot of lives have changed, a lot of lives have been altered, a lot of lives have been lost.
Victory is not at hand, civil war seems a matter of interpretation, and now the administration wants to blame the news media because of the pictures they show and the news they put out.
``SHOCK AND AWE."
We've spent the last three years in shock and awe - not at our nation's prowess in waging war, but in the spin put out by those in the White House to explain where we are in this mess.
And the clock keeps ticking. And the spin keeps spinning.
From here on, every American soldier over there is a lamb placed on George W.'s altar. Every American soldier is a war offering to George W.
They are war offerings to a president stuck on pride, frozen in principle, shocked and awed beyond all shame and decency.
If our president would truly like to shock us and awe us in a good way, there is something he can do: RESIGN.
And take the vice president and the rest of his men and women with him.
Frank Harris III is chairman of the journalism department at Southern Connecticut State University in
New Haven. His column appears every Monday. He can be reached at harrisf1@southernct.edu.
E-mail: harrisf1@southernct.edu
posted by verifi
________________________________________________
Wimpy Democrats- CAN'T raise heck about Incompetent Don Rumsfeld, his TORTURE, and his KANGAROO COURTS..???
As the op-eds start pilling up here at WimpyDemocrats.blogspot.com, we realize that we still haven't gotten to several blockbuster issues which the Wimpy Dems FAIL to make an issue about.
In the case of these two issues, the COWERING of the Democrat "leaders" LEAVES OUR TROOPS VULNERABLE, twisting in the winds as hostages to political fortune.... US servicemen and women left TWISTING IN THE WIND to rot, because the Democratic "leadership" would rather COWER under bush-rove-cheney-rumsfeld's propaganda BS, than STAND UP and FIGHT BACK against the bush-rove propaganda machine.
The most glaring case is Don "Dr. Strangelove" Rumsfeld. The Washington Press Whores Corpse think Mr. Rumsfeld is cute and entertaining when he starts babbling like the Mad Hatter, "There are things we know, there are things we don't know, and there are things we know that what don't know" (or however he said it, that constituted "news" in the DC press corpse's pathetic "news cycle.")
But the fact is that Mr. Rumsfeld is grossly incompetent at EVER SINGLE ASPECT of managing the Department of Defense. On 9-11 he was shuffling papers in his Pentagon office, as FOUR hijacked airliners roamed American skies, AND OUR SECRETARY OF WAR WAS CLUELESS, IGNORANT, AND UNINFORMED.
The "shuffling papers at his desk" image is not a metaphor - Secretary Rumsfeld was literally at his desk, shuffling papers, as the FOURTH and final hijacked airliner slammed into the very building that Mr. Rumsfeld had his office in, the Pentagon. And that fourth hijacked airliner slammed into the Pentagon ALMOST AN HOUR after the first hijacked flying bomb slammed into the first World Trade Center tower. Where was the US Air Force, where were the fighters which were supposed to be ON ALERT, as not one, not two, not three but FOUR hijacked airliners roamed American skies??
Answer: We don't know, because Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and the Cowering Democrats WHITEWASHED the 9-11 Commission. But we do know that on the eve of the 9-11 attacks, Mr. Rumsfeld's PREOCCUPATION was-the multibillion dollar missile defense system dubbed "Star Wars" by critics. Another example of Mr. Rumsfeld's cluselessness (besides AWOL alert fighters, and hijackers roaming America's skies unmolested) is that the "threat" that Mr. Rumsfeld was so concerned about in his "pre-9-11 mindset" was the growing military power of Communist China. Now that the US military is preoccupied with Iraq and the Middle East, the business side of the Bush administration is devoted to transferring as much wealth, jobs, and business to that same Communist China as possible, as the "Made in China" merchandise filling Walmart shelves demonstrates.
Which brings us to IRAQ.
Could ANYONE screw up the US occupation of Iraq more dramatically than the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush crew?
Anyone with AN OUNCE of awareness of that region knows that Afghanistan was mired in a brutal, ferocious civil war for an entire DECADE after the Russians (Red Army) left the nation they had invaded. That makes almost TWO decades of war and civil war, minefields, poisoned wells, hostages, torture, revenge killings, and massacres. Before Mr. Rumsfeld arrived at the DoD, the Republicans were at the forefront of claiming the Mujahadeen resistance to the Red Army which drove the Russians out of Afghanistan was a glorious victory that proved that Ronald Reagan "Won the Cold War" against the "evil empire." Yet once the Cold War was over, Rumsfeld and Cheney were at the forefront of the "slash defense spending as part of the 'Peace Dividend' - with NO "soft letdown" for town and regions that had been entirely dependent on DEFENSE SPENDING for entire decades- regions like the California aerospace-defense industry, the northeast high-tech defense region, and of course airbases, Army posts, and Navy ports that were shut down "cold turkey." Those spending cutbacks, along with the trillion-dollar taxpayer bailouts of the looted Savings and Loans industry, led to the Bush recession of 1991, and the virulent right-wing "Hate Government" rhetoric that Republicans effectively used in 1994 to win the majority in the US House of Representatives. Right-Wing talk radio played relentlessly to disaffected, resentful listeners, with the blessing of the "it's government's fault!" Republican Party, and right-wing terrorist Timmy McVeigh took those "hate government" screeds to heart, when he planned and executed his murderous bombings of the Murrah government building in Oklahoma City.
But we digress, with this little discussion of cold-hearted defense slashings, base closures, the looted S&L bailouts, and Bush1 recession, and the OKC terrorist bombing, from Rumsfeld's current incompetence running the Iraq war.
In Afghanistan the Civil War had been ongoing for years, with massacres, rapes, revenge killings, collateral damage, reprisals, and more massacres the order of the war. The Pushtun clan, the majority clan of both Pakistan and Afghanistan, was supplied by the Saudis and Pakistan ISI secret intel-police, and led by the most ferocious, militarized militia, the Taliban. The Taliban, in turn, was supported by the Arab fighters acting as enforcers and, when need be, shock troops, the Al Qiada fighters under Ossama bin Laden.
Given that mix of terror, torture, reprisal, and massacre, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney thought that turning the US military into TORTURE-BOYS in Iraq... was going to terrify any potential insurgents????
The OBVIOUS result of the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush TORTURE gulag is that it would UNITE ALL the warring Muslim factions- Pushtun and Tajik, Uzbek and Afghan, Shiite and Sunni - is hatred and spite for Americans. And how do you even factor in the HUMILIATION and DEGRADATION photos, naked Iraqi prisoners piled in mounds, forced to act out sexual acts on each other, smeared in feces, etc?
Hell, it is DISGUSTING just to write about Herr Rumsfeld's TORTURE and SADISM gulag, but all these two or three years after the Abu Ghraib torture and sadism scandal first broke, the COWERING DEMOCRATS STILL can't find their voice to criticize and DEMAND the resignation of the INCOMPETENT, ABUSIVE, and ghoulish SOB who is in charge of the US war machine?
Well, the above discussion of Mr. Rumfeld's follies, and the Democrat's cowering re demanding his resignation, is as much as we can stomach this morning. And we haven't even discussed Mr. Rumsfeld's KANGAROO COURTS for female privates, following orders, caught up in his grotesque debasement of the US flag and uniform.
We will leave it to this Buzzflash editorial to enumerate Mr. Rumsfeld's other policy FAILURES, bordering on tragedy, bordering on grotesque FARCE. American servicemen and women are not only being held HOSTAGE to Mr. Rumsfeld's FOLLY, they are also held hostage to the CLUELESS, COWERING, "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" Democrats.
Next time- how the Democrats LEAVE THE VETERANS TWISTING IN THE WIND, by REFUSING to make the MURRAY AMENDMENT (to fund $2.7 billion dollars for Veteran's care and rehab, shot down on a party-line vote by the lying Repuglicans) into a sound-bite, prime-time newscast issue. The Cowering Democrats seem to think that merely voting in the Senate for an issue, only to be steamrolled by the bush-rove-cheney Republican corruption machine, constitutes the full measure of "leadership."
___________________________________________
Don Rumsfeld, America's Biggest Flop Ever
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Mike Whitney
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/06/03/con06112.html
Donald Rumsfeld will feature prominently in the chronicle of military history. His name can be affixed to every major strategic catastrophe since the inception of the Iraq war 3 years ago. Rumsfeld now ranks among the greatest bunglers of all time. His litany of failures reads like a journeyman’s manual for military defeat, rather than a blueprint for peaceful occupation. His performance as Sec-Def makes George Armstrong Custer look like Erwin Rommel.
Under Rumsfeld’s leadership the “cakewalk” war has morphed into an “unwinnable” quagmire; sucking men and resources into its vortex at an unimaginable rate. The occupation of Iraq “should have been simple” says political analyst Noam Chomsky, but under Rumsfeld’s stewardship, it has become more difficult than the Nazi occupation of France.
Only in Bush-world would such manifest incompetence be lauded as achievement.
“You’re doin’ a heck-of-a job, Rummy.”
The decision to invade Iraq with a paltry force of 150,000 men was all Rumsfeld’s. His narrow views of a smaller, more agile military blinded him to the requirements of a massive occupation. When challenged on the topic by military professionals, like General Shinseki, Rumsfeld brusquely dispatched the decorated veteran to an early retirement.
Rumsfeld’s shortsightedness had a dramatic affect on the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground. As the looting of museums and government buildings persisted for weeks, destroying any hope to quickly establish order, Rumsfeld breezily brushed off criticism of the lawlessness saying, “Stuff happens.”
Those first weeks exposed the callous disregard for the safety and security of the Iraqi people and become the rallying cry for the nascent resistance that would later sweep through the Sunni heartland.
The lack of troop-strength made it impossible for the military to safeguard the mammoth armories and ammunition-dumps left behind by Saddam. Members of the fledgling resistance were free to remove truckloads of weaponry and bomb-making material that would later be used to kill American soldiers. The number of American casualties would be considerably lower had Rumsfeld paid attention to his generals and increased the size of the occupation army.
We know from Paul Bremer’s recent comments that Rumsfeld never anticipated the massive resistance to the American presence. He ignored the State Dept’s plans for occupation assuming that American troops would be greeted as liberators. Even when clear signs appeared of a full-throated rebellion, Rumsfeld dismissed the violence as the work of “Saddam loyalists and dead-enders.”
There was no strategy for keeping civil society running. In fact, Iraq became a laboratory for applying a neoliberal-model that was completely foreign to the native people. The results were catastrophic. Unemployment soared, subsidies were stripped away, prices skyrocketed, unions were banned, and Iraqi society went into a state of shock.
More disastrous, was Rumsfeld’s plan for de-Ba’athification. Normally, imperial powers leave as much of the existing government as possible to allow for the smooth transition from one ruling party to the next. Rather than finding common ground with members of the former regime, Rumsfeld chose to destroy every trace of Ba’ath rule forcing a restructuring of the entire political establishment from the ground up. This was an unbelievably stupid move that upset the continuity between governments.
It was equally foolish to disband the Iraqi military; sending home 450,000 fully-armed soldiers without pay or job prospects. It should have been easy to anticipate that many of these disgruntled recruits would wind up fighting against the occupation.
And, why didn’t Rumsfeld bring in military police to deal with the protests, civil disputes, routine patrols and peacekeeping duties? Instead, those tasks were assigned to trigger-happy army regulars who over-reacted in tense situations oftentimes killing innocent civilians and alienating the public. Soldiers are clearly not trained to handle these duties.
It was Rumsfeld who ordered the leveling of Falluja; a gratuitous act of homicidal vengeance which galvanized the resistance and generated a firestorm of reprisals across the Sunni triangle. For Iraqis, Falluja represents the turning point in the American occupation. Even cautious Iraqis must have seen that their predicament no longer provided any viable political options.
The details of Rumsfeld’s charnel house at Abu Ghraib provided even more fuel for the resistance. The Defense Secretary chose to jettison America’s threadbare moral authority simply to extort information from farmers and city people. Imagine the boost in recruitment for the resistance after photos of the perverted treatment of detainees appeared in the media?
Rumsfeld lashed out at the media for displaying the pictures of abused Iraqis to the public and discounted claims that the torture was authorized at the highest levels of the defense establishment. It’s clear now that the paper trail for the abuse leads straight to Rumsfeld’s office at the Pentagon.
Rumsfeld dismissed the charges as the work, “of a few bad apples.”
Abu Ghraib eliminated any prospect for mutual trust between the warring parties. Now, there’s no hope that the conflict will be resolved through political negotiation.
The current wave of sectarian violence is also Rumsfeld’s doing. It is a re-creation of the terror-campaign that swept through El Salvador during the 1980s. The Interior Ministry has adopted the “Salvador Option” -- a reference to the death squads that plagued that country throughout the Reagan era.
The up-tick in violence suggests that the military no longer sees peace and security as achievable so, instead, is pursuing a policy of widespread anarchy disguised as sectarian violence. The end-game is the balkanization of the country into small, manageable statelets that are easier to exploit for their resources.
The present situation in Iraq can only be described as nightmarish; and endless cycle of bombings, brutality and butchery all concealed behind a screen of media-generated disinformation.
Rumsfeld accepts no responsibility for Iraq’s downward-spiral or the incalculable suffering he has engendered. Instead, he points the finger at the least likely candidate for blame; the media.
“Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today’s media age, but our country has not,” Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations. “The violent extremists have established ‘media relations committees’—and have proven to be highly successful at manipulating opinion-elites. They plan to design their headline-grabbing attacks using every means of communications to intimidate and break the collective will of free people.”
The bungled occupation of Iraq has nothing to do “violent extremists” who’ve “successfully manipulated opinion-elites.” In fact, it has nothing to do with media at all. For the most part, the fault lies with one man, Donald Rumsfeld, a buck-passing narcissist who sees the world through the jaundiced lens of his own blinkered vanity.
MAJOR GENERAL PAUL EATON summarized Rumsfeld’s performance better than anyone else:
“Rumsfeld has shown himself INCOMPETENT strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else RESPONSIBLE for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq.”
Rumsfeld is a self-deluded megalomaniac who has heaped disgrace on himself and his country. It will take more than his customary glib repartee or slick excuse-making to distance himself from his ultimate legacy as America’s biggest flop.
posted by verifi | 4:32 AM | 1 comments
posted by verifi at 9:15 AM
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