A Time for Heresy

Bill Moyers always has something of great importance to say and this article was no exception. You know, I am very afraid for this country and where it is going. I don't think this will be a very nice place for my 5 grandchildren to grow up. The promise of America is being removed by theocrats and corporatists.

Bill Moyers noted:

We are witnessing a marked turn of events for a nation whose DNA contains the inherent promise of an equal opportunity at “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” We were not supposed to be a country where the winners take all. The great progressive struggles in our history were waged to make sure ordinary citizens, and not just the rich, share in the benefits of a free society. Today, however, the majority of Americans may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a good education for every child, and clean air and water, but there’s no government “of, by, and for the people” to deliver on those aspirations. America is no longer working for all Americans.

How did this happen? By design. For a quarter of a century now a ferocious campaign has been conducted to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual, cultural, and religious frameworks that sustained America’s social contract. The corporate, political, and religious right converged in a movement that for a long time only they understood because they are its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries.

Their economic strategy was to cut workforces and wages, scour the globe for even cheaper labor, and relieve investors of any responsibility for the cost of society. On the weekend before President Bush’s second inauguration, The New York Times described how his first round of tax cuts had already brought our tax code closer to a system under which income on wealth would not be taxed at all and public expenditures would be raised exclusively from salaries and wages.

Their political strategy was to neutralize the independent media, create their own propaganda machine with a partisan press, and flood their coffers with rivers of money from those who stand to benefit from the transfer of public resources to elite control. Along the way they would burden the nation with structural deficits that will last until our children’s children are ready to retire, systematically stripping government of its capacity, over time, to do little more than wage war and reward privilege.

link

The Planet of Unreality by Eugene Robinson

Excellent article about Darth Vader, the VP:

Here is self-delusion: Dick Cheney went on "Face the Nation" a few hours later and said he disagreed with Allawi -- who, by the way, is a tad closer to the action than the quail-hunting veep. There's no civil war, Cheney insisted. Move along, nothing to see here, pay no attention to those suicide bombings and death-squad murders. As an aside, Cheney insisted that his earlier forays into the Twilight Zone -- U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators, the insurgency is in its "last throes" -- were "basically accurate and reflect reality."

Maybe on his home planet.

full story

Wounded Lives

This article underscores the fact that our Veterans and their families are the only ones sacrificing in Bush's war. Those of us who have no dog in this fight get off scott-free, while our government cuts funding for Veterans healthcare.

Sunday, March 19, 2006 THE OREGONIAN
by: JULIE SULLIVAN

After three years of war, many who served in Iraq are returning home to face a different kind of battle. And the casualties this time are American families.

The Fourth of July had fizzled into a tense fifth at the tidy two-story Hillsboro home. Outside, water shimmered blue in the backyard pool and bicycles lay on the lawn. Inside, William R. Stout Jr.stepped toward his wife.

"Give me the gun," he demanded.

Thirteen-year-old Samantha Stout pushed between her parents. Sam was petite for her age, but her voice was strong. "Dad," she said, "stop it!"

the entire article here

Imagine life without contraception

In her new book, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex (Basic Books), Cristina Page boldly declares that the pro-choice movement is "doing a better job at what the public understands to be the pro-life agenda than the pro-lifers are": that is, not only dramatically reducing the number of abortions in the United States, but also putting forth (and achieving) a truly pro-family, pro-child vision of life in America Referring to the book's relatively slim profile (it weighs in at just 236 pages), Page described it as "in many ways a breezy tour through frightening truths," but How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America is tenaciously researched and extensively documented (40 of those pages are endnotes). Digging deep into the evidence, Page unveils the hidden anti-contraception agenda of the pro-life movement and outlines how how close we are to losing not only the constitutional right to abortion provided by Roe but also our rights to safe, accessible contraception.

Rachel Fudge: You describe your book as an attempt to seek out common ground between the pro-choice and the pro-life movements. What did you find?

Cristina Page: What I tried to do in this book is to say, Let's put on the table that [abortion] is something we don't want to have happen at the frequency that it is, or even at all. Those are the terms with which we'll discuss this. And when that happens, you begin to realize that [the pro-life side] is not interested in that. The greatest irony is that reducing abortion has become problematic for them, and it's because their aim is not pure.

Their aim is not about reducing abortion - it includes restricting people's access to contraception, it includes transforming our sex lives, it includes transforming our families. That's the goal, and [restricting abortion] is just one vehicle toward that end.

The above is from: Did the Pro-Choice Movement Save America? By Rachel Fudge found on AlterNet.org.

Progressivegrannie's comments:
Life without access to contraception. What would it be like? Having lots of babies, no career, nothing but diapers, wet baby kisses, and lots of hugs, but without a sense of self. Mommy is a great job, but it is not everything. Often it brings depression, sadness, feeling overwhelmed, and lack of money, power, and a voice in society. It means that men are in charge of EVERYTHING because women are too busy rearing children to do anything else. The old saw, barefoot and pregnant, means just that.

Read "A Handmaids Tale" by Margaret Atwood. Here is the Sparksnotes plot overview:

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are assigned to bear children for elite couples that have trouble conceiving. Offred serves the Commander and his wife, Serena Joy, a former gospel singer and advocate for “traditional values.” Offred is not the narrator’s real name—Handmaid names consist of the word “of” followed by the name of the Handmaid’s Commander. Every month, when Offred is at the right point in her menstrual cycle, she must have impersonal, wordless sex with the Commander while Serena sits behind her, holding her hands. Offred’s freedom, like the freedom of all women, is completely restricted. She can leave the house only on shopping trips, the door to her room cannot be completely shut, and the Eyes, Gilead’s secret police force, watch her every public move.

Think is sounds scary? Think about the current political climate and how right wingers want to stop contraception and abortion. Your choices, eliminated. You will be Offred soon enough.

We're baaacck!

We are back from rainy Kaua'i. What a beautiful mostly undeveloped place it is! Rain just enforced a bit of relaxation on our part, something we are unaccustomed to, but needed. We saw beautiful sights, even in the rain. Our thoughts are with the folks in Kaua'i who are enduring the flash flooding and the dam break.

As we get ready for a vacation in Kauai....

I have been thinking about how the Bush administration continually lies and spins the truth about everything. Good is bad, evil is good, fear mongering, and other Orwellian things.
If we can't believe Bush and Co. about most everything, how can we believe them about 9-11?
Just wondering. What if they lied about that too? What it that is a collossal lie as well?
Too mind boggling!
I think I will just go off to Kauai and let my mind rest and relax. Even liberals and progressives need R&R. So dear friends, I will think about you, but not too much, as I lounge on a lanai in Kauai, indulging in indolent tropical breezes, mai tais and gorgeous sunsets.
Aloha!

George's booty call

For commentary, just use your imagination, Dubya is sure using his.

Lou Dobbs, you da man!

Watch Lou Dobbs slaps Tori Clark

Dobbs slaps Tori Clark and more. Enjoy the video. It is just amazing to know that the Prez decided the passage of the Patriot Act was such a done deal.
But of course, more Americans know members of the Simpsons cast than they know about their rights under the constitution.
It reminds of what I heard from a student from Poland, while I was in D.C. last year...she said that of course our government keeps the people stupid so they won't know when their rights are being violated. This from someone from a former communist country. Hmmmmm. Can we learn something from that?

Al-Qaeda Infiltrated UAE Governement

BREAKING: Al-Qaeda Infiltrated UAE Government, According To 2002 Letter
New evidence has emerged that key agencies of the United Arab Emirates may have been infiltrated by al-Qaeda. In May or June of 2002, al Qaeda officials wrote a letter to the UAE government claiming the emirates were “well aware” of the infiltration.

The letter, translated by the United States Government, is publicly available on the website of the West Point Combating Terrorism Center. The intro:

The key sentence:



link

Filibuster for Independence

In 1836 the founders of Texas declared and won their independence from dictatorship and entered the community of nations.

In our day the people of Texas must again win their independence from the modern dictatorship of corruption, cronyism, and corporate government.

We have a Constitution to save!
Please join Democratic Attorney General Candidate
DAVID VAN OS
in honoring the
170th Anniversary of the Texas Declaration of Independence
by conducting a

24-hour Filibuster for Independence at the seat of Texas government on the State Capitol grounds.

Commencing 6:00pm Friday March 3
THRU
continued until 6:00pm Saturday March 4

The Filibuster for Independence will be conducted on the South Steps or Grounds of the State Capitol Building, 11th Street at Congress Avenue, Austin

The Capitol Building and Grounds belong to the People, and public discourse on issues of public concern is their highest and greatest use.

Other local & statewide candidates have been invited to speak. The public is invited to attend, observe, and listen. Representatives of the press are welcome to attend.

Hospitality Suite to be held during the 24-Hour Filibuster at the

David Van Os Campaign Headquarters
1101 Music Lane Suite 304, Austin Texas

512-326-1970

(South Congress @ Academy, behind Doc's Restaurant)

Walkable (under 2 miles) else a Dillo Bus ride (free) or short Bus Route 1 (50¢) away.

At office/hospitality suite we will have refreshments, shower, resting place, use of internet for blogging the event, telephone use for getting friends to come out and join us.

Volunteer for this Event
WE ARE GOING TO MAKE HISTORY: BE A PART OF IT!

We need volunteers to hang flyers, blog the event, pick up garbage, hand out flyers, maintain the hospitality office, and more.

THIS WEEKEND

We will be holding a flyer-hanging party. Details, exact time/place to come.

Contact Austin Campaign crew at 512-326-1970

Ask for Sonia, Debbie or Robin

Email: justice@vanosfortexasag.com

You may also reach Debbie Russell at debmocracy@yahoo.com : 512-326-1970

FOR ALL MAJOR PRESS AND MEDIA RELATIONS

PLEASE CONTACT PERRY DORRELL AT (713) 594-4714
pdorrell@sbcglobal.net

OR

CONTACT RACHEL BARRIOS-VAN OS AT 210-225-1955 (OFFICE)

210-332-7080 CELL and or
by email: rachel@vanosfortexasag.com

Missed the peace march to do the "grannie thing"

Ice skating while holding up little Miss NaNa. We switched off holding up NaNa's brother, Xavier (age 6), but he is such a girl magnet that most of the time he had 2 little girls holding his hands! Much to his mother's amusement and chagrin (thinking about what he will be like as a teenager). 3 hours of skating was fun, but we found out what muscles we had not used in a long time. One other comment...if you have your own skates, they are a must as the rental skates are terrible. Next stop, roller skating! But Blake and I will definitely be at the next peace march.

Important news for elections

Check these items out:

precinct training

Precinct Convention Training

You will need this information when attending your precinct caucus on March 7th at 7:10 pm. It will only take a few minutes, and you can submit resolutions to the Texas Democratic Party at that time.

Cheney was drunk and could be guilty of a felony..

Cheney will get off the felony charges because the Sheriff of Kenedy County agreed to wait until the next day to send deputies to talk to those involved. Good old boy network in Texas at work. Here is the scoop:

"Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Dick Cheney when he shot Texas lawyer Harry Whittington on a hunting outing two weeks ago say Cheney was "clearly inebriated" at the time of the shooting.

Agents observed several members of the hunting party, including the Vice President, consuming alcohol before and during the hunting expedition, the report notes, and Cheney exhibited "visible signs" of impairment, including slurred speech and erratic actions.

According to those who have talked with the agents and others present at the outing, Cheney was drunk when he gunned down his friend and the day-and-a-half delay in allowing Texas law enforcement officials on the ranch where the shooting occurred gave all members of the hunting party time to sober up.

We talked with a number of administration officials who are privy to inside information on the Vice President's shooting "accident" and all admit Secret Service agents and others say they saw Cheney consume far more than the "one beer' he claimed he drank at lunch earlier that day.

"This was a South Texas hunt," says one White House aide. "Of course there was drinking. There's always drinking. Lots of it.

...Oh this sounds SO Texas heh? Sigh.We let drivers and hunters drink and drive or shoot, no big deal. And...if you are a big wig the Sheriff will get you off. for more

And in a second story today, Doug Thompson noted

"It wasn't a story we went looking for. A friend who works in the Bush administration tipped us on the report late last week and I started making phone calls. By late Tuesday, I had all I needed to go with the story: three sources that said a Secret Service Agent filed a report claiming Cheney had consumed several drinks and "appeared inebriated" while hunting on the Armstrong Ranch on February 11.

Mr. Thompson noted that the bizarre antics of the Bush administration provided far more interesting fodder for stories than anything his imagination could possibly conjure up.

Good news Texans!

If the November general election for governor were being held today and Chris Bell were the Democratic nominee, for whom would you vote?
Rick Perry: 36%
Chris Bell: 19%
Carole Strayhorn: 16%
Kinky Friedman: 10%

Early voting starts tomorrow

You can vote early up to March 3rd. So, stop by the Kendall County Courthouse on your way to work, or after work (up to 6 pm) and cast your vote in the Democratic primary.
Need more informatio before you vote? League of Women Voters Guide

Close Guantanamo! NOW !

Here is a letter regarding Guantanamo from Faithful America that you can sign. Please consider it.

Their website notes the following (below) and has a copy of the letter that will be sent:
New photos of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq and a blistering United Nations Report calling on the U.S. to shut down the Guantanamo Prison in Cuba have once again reminded us that this chapter in our nation’s history is a moral disgrace and must end.

Today the National Council of Churches’ General Secretary, the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, sent a letter to Secretary of State Conoleezza Rice urging compliance with the United Nations recommendations. Edgar also renewed a request to allow an interfaith delegation to Guantanamo to monitor the physical, mental, and spiritual condition of the detainees.

Two really funny things to see

The end of the world

Cheney plays Folsom

Rick Bolanos for 23rd Congressional District

From Rick Bolanos:

We just returned from Washington DC, where Vietnam Veteran Rick Bolanos was very warmly received and applauded. Rick’s message, along with that of other Vietnam and Iraqi War veterans, candidates to The US Congress, at a gathering sponsored by VETPAC was carried live and then re-run several times around the world by C-SPAN. Most of the candidates highlighted their decision to run as being motivated by the need to correct the current wave of political corruption which has turned our great country into the laughing stock among every other nation world-wide.

As a Vietnam veteran and as a concerned and disgusted American citizen, I ask for your support in helping bring forth desperately-needed change for the better in the 23rd Congressional Districts. Rick and his three brothers valiantly answered our country’s call to arms and all four fought in Vietnam at the same time for their and our country. Now Rick is once again answering our troubled country’s call, to fight the-enemy-from-within which through greed and corruption is tearing at the very fabric of our Democracy. He will fight to restore dignity, honesty, transparency and accountability to our government, which so many brave soldiers have sacrificed their lives for. We need to immediately stop the exportation of American jobs so that American workers can continue to properly provide for their families; Bolanos is the right person for the job. He and other veteran candidates have shown their willingness and ability to lay their lives on the line for our freedom. In my book, he is a proven leader who has earned our trust, and our vote.

Our working families, including school teachers, police officers and firemen, farmers, small business owners, construction workers and so many others are desperately in need of affordable health insurance and medication. As an educator Rick Bolanos understands the frustration of our teachers in trying to comply with federally-directed but un-funded mandates, such as the “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND” disaster. Adequate funding for much-needed health care for our senior citizens and our children needs to be restored. The ridiculous and reckless budget cuts which adversely affect the education of our children, the health care of our combat troops and our veterans, being rubber-stamped by present congressmen must be reversed. Funding for our brave combat troops and for our veterans must be mandatory and not discretionary. How dare we send our brave troops (your son or daughter, mother, father or neighbor) into combat, without adequate life-saving protective gear or weaponry? This grave mistake would not be made by any leader with military experience, or by someone with even minimal concern for the lives of our American soldiers.

Bush's Social Security Sleight of Hand

By Allan Sloan
Wednesday, February 8, 2006; D02

If you read enough numbers, you never know what you'll find. Take President Bush and private Social Security accounts.

Last year, even though Bush talked endlessly about the supposed joys of private accounts, he never proposed a specific plan to Congress and never put privatization costs in the budget. But this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday.

His plan would let people set up private accounts starting in 2010 and would divert more than $700 billion of Social Security tax revenues to pay for them over the first seven years.

If this comes as a surprise to you, have no fear. You're not alone. Bush didn't pitch private Social Security accounts in his State of the Union message last week.

First, he drew a mocking standing ovation from Democrats by saying that "Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security," even though, as I said, he'd never submitted specific legislation.

Then he seemed to be kicking the Social Security problem a few years down the road in typical Washington fashion when he asked Congress "to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," adding that the commission would be bipartisan "and offer bipartisan solutions."

But anyone who thought that Bush would wait for bipartisanship to deal with Social Security was wrong. Instead, he stuck his own privatization proposals into his proposed budget.

"The Democrats were laughing all the way to the funeral of Social Security modernization," White House spokesman Trent Duffy told me in an interview Tuesday, but "the president still cares deeply about this. " Duffy asserted that Bush would have been remiss not to include in the budget the cost of something that he feels so strongly about, and he seemed surprised at my surprise that Social Security privatization had been written into the budget without any advance fanfare.

Duffy said privatization costs were included in the midyear budget update that the Office of Management and Budget released last July 30, so it was logical for them to be in the 2007 budget proposals. But I sure didn't see this coming -- and I wonder how many people outside of the White House did.

Nevertheless, it's here. Unlike Bush's generalized privatization talk of last year, we're now talking detailed numbers. On page 321 of the budget proposal, you see the privatization costs: $24.182 billion in fiscal 2010, $57.429 billion in fiscal 2011 and another $630.533 billion for the five years after that, for a seven-year total of $712.144 billion.

In the first year of private accounts, people would be allowed to divert up to 4 percent of their wages covered by Social Security into what Bush called "voluntary private accounts." The maximum contribution to such accounts would start at $1,100 annually and rise by $100 a year through 2016.

It's not clear how big a reduction in the basic benefit Social Security recipients would have to take in return for being able to set up these accounts, or precisely how the accounts would work.

Bush also wants to change the way Social Security benefits are calculated for most people by adopting so-called progressive indexing. Lower-income people would continue to have their Social Security benefits tied to wages, but the benefits paid to higher-paid people would be tied to inflation.

Wages have typically risen 1.1 percent a year more than inflation, so over time, that disparity would give lower-paid and higher-paid people essentially the same benefit. However, higher-paid workers would be paying substantially more into the system than lower-paid people would.

This means that although progressive indexing is an attractive idea from a social-justice point of view, it would reduce Social Security's political support by making it seem more like welfare than an earned benefit.

Bush is right, of course, when he says in his budget proposal that Social Security in its current form is unsustainable. But there are plenty of ways to fix it besides offering private accounts as a substitute for part of the basic benefit.

Bush's 2001 Social Security commission had members of both parties, but they had to agree in advance to support private accounts. Their report, which had some interesting ideas, went essentially nowhere.

What remains to be seen is whether this time around Bush follows through on forming a bipartisan commission and whether he can get credible Democrats to join it. Dropping numbers onto your opponents is a great way to stick your finger in their eye. But will it get the Social Security job done? That, my friends, is a whole other story.

Sloan is Newsweek's Wall Street editor. His e-mail issloan@panix.com.


Progressivegrannie's comment: Can you believe this B.S.? When will our fellow citizens wake up? Arrrggghhhh! ! !

Sedition? Sedition??? You must be kidding?

Senator Bingaman wants probe into VA 'sedition' investigation of nurse, and I for one am glad he has asked for this probe. As a nurse and a former VA nurse to boot, I am totally apalled that the VA even called her disagreement with Bush's policies "sedition." She has the right to express her opinion, period. Of course now we know that even T-shirts with opinions on them can get you arrested. Bring it on boys, I am NOT scared.

February 8, 2006

(AP) - Sen. Jeff Bingaman asked Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson
for a thorough inquiry of his agency's investigation into whether a VA
nurse's letter criticizing the Bush administration amounted to "sedition."

The agency's human resources office ultimately cleared her of any
wrongdoing, but Senator Bingaman, D-N.M., said Tuesday he was concerned that
the VA investigated Laura Berg of Albuquerque in the first place.

Merely opposing government policies and expressing a desire to change course
"does not provide reason to believe that a person is involved in illegal
subversive activity," he said.

Senator Bingaman said such investigations raise "a very real possibility of
chilling legitimate political speech."

"In a democracy, expressing disagreement with the government's actions does
not amount to sedition or insurrection," he wrote. "It is, and must remain,
protected speech. Although it may be permissible to implement restrictions
regarding a government employee's political activities during work hours or
on government premises, such employees do not surrender their right to
freedom of speech when they enlist in government service."

Senator Bingaman said he wants the matter investigated so VA officials will
have guidance about handling similar situations in the future.

Laura Berg, a clinical nurse specialist, wrote a letter in September to a
weekly Albuquerque newspaper criticizing how the Bush administration
mishandled Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. She urged people to "act
forcefully" to remove an administration she said played games of "vicious
deceit."

She signed the letter as a private citizen, and the VA had no reason to
suspect she used government resources to write it, according to the American
Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, which last week asked the government to
apologize to Berg for seizing her computer and investigating her.

VA human resources chief Mel Hooker had said in a Nov. 9 letter that his
agency was obligated to investigate "any act which potentially represents
sedition," the ACLU said. Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

Here is a portion of what Ms. Berg wrote:
I am furious with the tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence of this government. The Katrina tragedy in the U.S. shows that the emperor has no clothes!...The public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder....

Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown, and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence....This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil. . . . We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit. Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times.

We Deaniacs knew it all along!

Economic Policy Institute

Bush Administration policies and the deficit

In federal budgeting, what is said and what is done can be very different. Past talk of spending cuts by Republicans has not panned out. A comparison of Bush policies, judging by performance to date, suggests that a Howard Dean Administration would be doing much better with regard to control of deficit spending.

Polling data suggest that much of the electorate favors a winding down of the U.S. mission in Iraq, the continuance of domestic spending programs, and better control of deficits. Some popular commentary holds these goals to be mutually exclusive. The chart below compares two illustrative fiscal scenarios, one based on the current policies of President George W. Bush, and the other based on a fictitious Howard Dean Administration. (All estimates were prepared by staff of the Congressional Budget Office.)

chart to be loaded asap

The Bush deficit scenario, shown by the red bars, is based on the following assumptions: military operations in Iraq continue; the tax cuts enacted since 2001 are made permanent; certain long-standing tax preferences (known as “tax extenders”) are reauthorized; the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is cut back so that it does not cover as many new taxpayers; and non-defense discretionary spending continues to grow at no less than the rate of growth of gross domestic product (GDP). During Bush’s years in office, the annual growth rate of non-defense outlays has averaged close to that of GDP, though for the past three years the administration has proposed and Congress has enacted somewhat smaller increases.

The result in the Bush scenario is an unsustainable trend of rising deficits, relative to the GDP, reaching 3.7% in 10 years.

Howard Dean criticized the Bush tax cuts and the decision to invade Iraq. He also indicated support for domestic spending growth. For the Dean scenario in this analysis, we assume that the tax cuts passed since 2001 will be allowed to expire, but that Dean would face the same costs for an AMT fix, the tax extenders, and increased domestic spending. We also assume savings from a phase-down of military operations in Iraq. The result, shown in the blue bars, is a much-improved deficit path, culminating in a sustainable level of 1.8% of GDP.

It should be noted that, in the scenario where tax cuts are allowed to expire, the reduced deficit does begin to rise in the latter part of the period. This reflects the imminent retirement of the baby boomers in the form of rising health care costs. Tax increases and cuts in military spending will not solve the long-run problem of unsustainable increases in health care spending.

Given the unsustainable nature of our current fiscal imbalances, and the potential for severe disruption if the dollar runs into trouble in world financial markets, the question of the Howard Dean alternative might be said to boil down to a matter of “when,” not “if.”

link

The president, the stripper and the attorney general

The extraordinary legal defence of George Bush's domestic spying reads like a blend of Kafka, Le Carré and Mel Brooks.

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday February 9, 2006
Guardian

In 1996, Governor George W Bush received a summons to serve on a jury, which would have required his admission that 20 years earlier he had been arrested for drunk driving. Already planning his presidential campaign, he did not want this information made public. His lawyer made the novel argument to the judge that Bush should not have to serve because "he would not, as governor, be able to pardon the defendant in the future". (The defendant was a stripper accused of drunk driving.) The judge agreed, and it was not until the closing days of the 2000 campaign that Bush's record surfaced. On Monday, the same lawyer, Alberto Gonzales - now attorney general - appeared before the senate judiciary committee to defend "the client", as he called the president.
Gonzales was the sole witness called to explain Bush's warrantless domestic spying, in obvious violation of the foreign intelligence surveillance act (Fisa) and circumvention of the special court created to administer it. The scene at the Senate was acted as though scripted partly by Kafka, partly by Mel Brooks, and partly by John le Carré. After not being sworn in, the absence of oath-taking having been insisted upon by the Republicans, Gonzales offered legal reasoning even more imaginative than that he used to get Bush off jury duty: a melange of mendacity, absurdity and mystery.

The attorney general argued that Fisa did and did not apply; that the administration was operating within it, while flouting it; and that it didn't matter. The president's "inherent" power, after all, allowed him to do whatever he wanted. It was all, Gonzales said, "totally consistent". His explanation, observed Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the judiciary committee, "defies logic and plain English".

Congress, Gonzales elaborated, had no proper constitutional role, but in any case had already approved the president's secret programme by voting for the authorisation of the use of military force in Afghanistan - even if members didn't know it; or even, when informed years later that they had approved the secret programme, objected that they hadn't known that that was what they were doing.

The legislation that was ignored, Gonzales declared, shouldn't be amended to bring this domestic spying under the law because the secret programme was already legal, or might be legal; and anyway it doesn't matter if Congress says it's legal. The all-powerful president should be trusted, but when Bush states wrongly that he goes to court for warrants, it's all right that he doesn't know what he is talking about. "As you know," said Gonzales, "the president is not a lawyer."

Who was or wasn't being spied on couldn't and wouldn't be explained. When Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, asked whether the programme could be used to "influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies or media", Gonzales replied: "Those are very, very difficult questions, and for me to answer those questions sort of off the cuff, I think would not be responsible." When Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware, asked for assurances that only al-Qaida or suspected terrorists were subjected to surveillance, Gonzales answered: "Sir, I can't give you absolute assurance."

Nor would he say what the programme really was. "I am not comfortable going down the road of saying yes or no as to what the president has or has not authorised," Gonzales said. "I'm not going to respond to that. I'm not going to answer."

Gonzales's ultimate argument was an appeal to history. George Washington, he pointed out in a display of erudition, "intercepted British mail", footnoting a 1997 CIA report on the subject. In the civil war, the telegraph was wiretapped. And during both the first and second world wars, communications were intercepted. Gonzales's ahistoricism about technology aside (George Washington had no cell phones to tap, no computers to hack), Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt could not have broken a law that did not exist.

Through his convoluted testimony, the attorney general represented "the client" as a useful factotum again. But in his tour of history, he neglected the disclosure by the Associated Press on February 3 of about 200 pages of documents from the White House of President Gerald Ford. These papers highlighted the objections made by Ford's secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and his chief of staff, Dick Cheney, to getting court warrants for domestic surveillance. It was partly to thwart such unaccountable executive power that Congress enacted Fisa in 1978.

Once again Cheney, the power behind the throne, has found a way to relieve the frustrations of the past. But he is fulfilling more than the curdled dreams of the Nixon and Ford era. The Bush presidency is straining to realise a pre-Washington ideal - unconstitutional monarchy.

· Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is the author of The Clinton Wars. Email: sidney_blumenthal@yahoo.com

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Katrina survivors march on Washington DC

Hundreds of New Orleans evacuees from Hurricane Katrina have marched on the US capital Washington, demanding more aid for displaced families. "We are here so our voices can be heard, so our lives and our levees can be rebuilt, so we can go home," march organiser Dorothy Stukes said.

The Katrina Survivors Association said progress in rebuilding after the hurricane was unacceptably slow. A further rally, attended by Senate Democrats is planned for Thursday.

The march on Wednesday was attended by at least 300 evacuees currently living in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Georgia, the organisers said. We've lost everything but our minds, said survivor Leonard Dowden. Many were frustrated by what they saw as a government failure to listen to them. "Where is the money? That's the thing I want to know," survivor Leonard Dowden told Reuters news agency. "We've lost everything but our minds." The marchers later attended a Democrats' hearing on Capitol Hill about the housing crisis in New Orleans. Ms Stukes said the survivors planned to give federal officials a list of demands and that they wanted answers in 30 days "or we are going to return". BBC

Bush squirms as policies denounced at King funeral

The standing ovation was Clinton's. Carter and Bush the elder also well recieved. Current President Bush, not so much. Watch it in re-runs on C-span, It's worth it.

The Independent
By Andrew Gumbel
Published: 08 February 2006
President George Bush led a crowd of 10,000 mourners at yesterday's funeral for Coretta Scott King, one of the icons of the civil rights movement, only to squirm in his seat as one speaker after another invoked Mrs King's spirit to lambast his administration on everything from the Iraq war to the response to last year's Hurricane Katrina.

The lavish occasion, bringing together civil rights veterans, three former presidents, more than a dozen senators, musicians and poets at a megachurch in the suburbs of Atlanta, was both a tribute to the woman who carried on the campaigning legacy of her assassinated husband, Martin Luther King Jr, for almost 40 years and also an opportunity to invoke some of the Kings' passionately outspoken rhetoric.

President Bush called Mrs King, who died 10 days ago at the age of 78, "one of the most admired Americans of our time".

Her nearest and dearest pointedly did not return the compliment. "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there," said Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr King more than 40 years ago, "but Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here."

The Rev Lowery issued a searing indictment of the Bush administration's economic priorities. "For war billions more," he said, "but no more for the poor."

Far better received than President Bush was Bill Clinton, who won an enthusiastic ovation as he described how Mrs King might easily have given up the civil rights struggle after her husband's assassination in 1968. Instead, he said, she asked herself "What am I going to do with the rest of my life?"

SAAPAC meeting on Feb. 4th

We attended the SAAPAC meeting and met up with Rick Bolanos(pictured). Rick is running against Bonilla. In addition, there was a presentation by Charlie Jackson on his trip to Iraq as a member of the Christian Peacemaking Team.
John Courage and San Antonians running for office also spoke.

Other news at the meeting: There will be poll watcher training on Feb. 11 at Collins Gardens Library from 1 to 3 pm. Email progressive grannie for directions.

SAAPAC movie night is 2/19 at Bethany Congregational Church 500 Pilgrim at Panda. It's usually quite a fun gathering of folks.

Don't forget to attend your precinct conventions on March 7th! Early voting beings very soon, get out and vote.

The Texas members of the Band of Brothers!

Band of Brothers to Gather in Washington on Feb. 8
In response to the Swift-Boat attack on Rep. Murtha, Band of Brothers 2006, along with VETPAC, has organized an event to take place on February 8, 2006. This will be the largest event of its kind in recent history. Not since 1946 have so many veterans come together as candidates for one political party. We already have commitments from over half of our candidates to come to Washington D.C., rally around Rep. Murtha, and lay the groundwork for a populist reform movement that will oust the integrity-challenged GOP leadership in our Congress. We will release more details about the upcoming event in the days to come and hope that many of you will be able to attend.


Look who is going from Texas!

TX-21: John Courage
John Courage’s name embodies what Texans in District 21 are looking for in their next congressman - the courage to insist that their mainstream values, and not just Tom DeLay’s, be represented in Washington; the courage to stand with ordinary Texas families and small businesses against the corporate special interests; the courage to rekindle that faith they once had in government to be a force for positive change in their daily lives.


TX-23: Rick Bolanos
Rick and his three brothers all served in Viet Nam at the same time, the only four brothers to do so. LBJ recognized them for their service as did the Texas Legislature in the recent session. Active in both Democratic and veterans affairs, Rick is a strong candidate to take on former news talking head and DeLay rubberstamp Henry Bonilla.

Rick is obviously strong on Veterans issues, but that is only the start of his concerns with the direction of this country today.

Camp Casey Flashback

I was standing next to this guy at the time. Wasn't this week 2? He was so totally freaked out. He started out by saying, they are flying low to scare us because they know it will bother us, alot. And the helicopters flew lower and lower...drowning out Cindy Sheehan and Ray McGovern....and the Vietnam Vets, the guys who found water for us on the first day in Crawford when the police would not let us go back to our cars....they suffered....when the Secret Service drove by close to my feet and said, "Someone could get hurt." Our Vietnam Vets and our Iraq and Afghanistan Vets deserve much better than they are getting.

Camp Casey Flashback
By Peter Dudar
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 03 February 2006

The Texas heat was blistering in a Crawford roadside ditch at "Camp Casey." 800 people had just arrived from all over America to support Cindy Sheehan, mother of fallen Iraq War hero Casey Sheehan, who died saving his buddies. During the President's five-week vacation in time of war, he could not find the time to meet with Cindy, who waited daily down in the ditch for a month.

The 100-degree heat was just beginning to loosen its vice-grip on Prairie Chapel Road, a few miles from the Commander in Chief's plantation. At about 5:00 p.m., one of our Veterans For Peace, a Medic, was responding to comments coming from the pro-war supporters across the street when, suddenly, a Secret Service helicopter circled down to only 90 feet above us. For the next hour, this honored Medic experienced a "flashback" triggered by the whirling chopper blades. It took four strong Vets to hold and calm him.

The Medic couldn't see us, although his eyes were open. He looked past us as if he were watching a horror movie in his mind. He felt he was back in the war, disconnected from us in a journey into the Twilight Zone. In his mind, he had returned to a helicopter with a Red Cross emblem and a name his buddies had painted on the chopper, "WHY?" The Medic's mouth foamed, his head tossed wildly. He wept and moaned:

"How can they shout and yell out lies with such venom? The Liars never go to war! Oh, how is it that the Liars never go? They're accusing me of being 'Un-Patriotic?!' 'Un-American?!' But they weren't in war! I saw the death, man, I saw the killing!! The Liars convince us to have a war but they never go to war! Man, I can see the dead soldiers all around me! I can see them! They're here with us!"

His eyes widened, as he looked right through us in great pain and sorrow.

"We tried to save our young men's lives ... we flew in for them but again and again we lost them. Oh, but the ones sending them to war never see the dying, man. I was there, and the people across the street in support of the war are calling me a 'Traitor?!' The Liars never go! I can feel all the pain of our dying soldiers ..."

His head was tossing to and fro. His mouth foamed even more. Then, a Veteran urgently tried to calm him as four of us held the Medic's hands and shoulders and supplied ice and water.

The Veteran must have had experience with this before. He kept calmly telling the people crowding around to "give him some room, give him breathing room, and let's keep the ice coming ..." The Medic continued: "The Liars are the most dangerous! Where were they when I saw the suicides? There were so many young guys that just couldn't take what they'd seen and done, man. Where were the Liars when I walked into my buddy's tent and he had a gun to his head, man, a rifle. This huge gun. He held it right here like this between his eyes and before I could say anything ... he pulled the trigger!!"

"Some sound, man! I'll never forget that sound ... like a cannon. Oh, it blew out the whole back of his head!" Full of sorrow, the Medic gestured with his shaking hands to show how much of his friend's head was missing - all behind the ears ... gone.

"I saw his brains go flying ... I was covered with blood, man, his brains were on my hands!!" The Medic wiped his hands nervously. "Oh, who are these people across the street who cheer for war and never see it, never smell it?!"

The Medic's eyes would roll up occasionally. The Veteran gently, fervently, wiped the Medic's face, clearing away the foam from his mouth. The Veteran kept the ice moving quickly around the top and sides of the Medic's head, neck, and chest, saying, "Stay with us now, c'mon man, c'mon now, we're here for you bro, look at me, open your eyes, stay with us, we need you, man."

The Veteran kept circling the ice around the Medic's face. A number of times, the Veteran almost burst into tears over the condition of this Medic breaking down. Somehow, the Veteran held back. The Medic began crying,

"I wish my Mama were here!! I wish my Mama were here! Oh Mama, why can't I see you? Where are you? Mama!!" We got goose bumps.

The Veteran drew a very serious expression of concern like, "Uh, oh. Now we're in deep," and he quickly stepped up the dispersion of the ice pack around the Medic's face, chest, and shoulders, trickling more ice water on his head. The Medic's mind was on the precipice between life and death. Many soldiers cry "Mama!" before they die. But this could be a "mental death" from which the mind of the Medic didn't return. Working in field medicine, how often had the Medic heard these cries for "Mama?" The Veteran urgently said,

"Let it out bro! Come on, we're here for you; let it all out, man, it's okay. Dude, we're all here with you!"

The Medic kept swinging his head back and forth. The attending Veteran knew he had to try to engage the Medic's mind (although his own eyes were brimming with tears). He held the Medic's hand and said, "Bro, you've got 3 or 4 Purple Hearts, man, and a Silver Star. Hey bro, maybe if you shared some of your medals with ALL those guys across the street, you'd still have two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star left!"

The Medic sobbed, "Oh man, do you know I've been through 25 therapists? 25 therapists, Man! Oh, when's it gonna end? Where's Mama? I can see all of the dead soldiers around me! The dead soldiers are here with us."

The Veteran held the Medic's face in his hands and looked deep into his eyes,

You gave your all to save your men, you did EVERYTHING you could and beyond, man ... you were there for them! You were in the Battle Zone for your boys, and we're here for you now ... stay with us, you've got a lot more to do HERE before you go, bro ... stay with us and tell us all about it, let it all out.
The Medic slowly opened his eyes filled with tears and looked at the Veteran.

"You're a 'southern boy' aren't ya? You're so kind to me!" He cried, "Thank you, man!" He looked all around, "You're all too kind to me, I thank you all for being here."

The Medic's mind, like a journey through time, had slowly returned to him from the flashback. He continued with calm recollection,

"We had a young soldier who'd been hit by a bullet in the stomach. He was a young black soldier, and I'll never forget him. Never. He was hanging onto life when we began to Medi-Vac him out. We had to wait for him to stabilize before we could transport him. Finally, we got flying. We were in the air en route to the field hospital when his condition took a turn for the worse. The hospital was too far, so we quickly flew back to try and stabilize him. But on the way back ... we lost him. He died in the chopper. 19, he was just 19 years old. I'll never forget him ... I'll never forget him ..."

The whole episode had been triggered by the sound of a low flying helicopter ...

Revealed: Bush and Blair discussed using American Spyplane in UN colours to lure Saddam into war.

link to video

14 ways of looking at fascism

Umberto Eco wrote this in 1995. "These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotims or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it." link

Freedom of speech is a myth under Bush

Bush spoke of spreading freedom and democracy around the world in his SOTU speech last night. Funny that while he was discussing freedom, Cindy Sheehan was arrested because of her T-shirt. I understand that a supreme court ruling in 1971 regarded message t-shirts as free speech.
So, in one evening Bush violated the 1st and 4th amendments. To refresh your memories (from The Constitution Explained website):
1st Amendment protects the people's right to practice religion, to speak freely, to assemble (meet), to address the government and of the press to publish. The 4th amendment protects people from the government improperly taking property, papers or people, without a valid warrant based on probable cause (good reason).
I am very, very angry about the direction our country is headed in....to hell in a handbasket!

Cindy arrested due to her T-shirt. Big Brother and the Thought Police are ready to get you...

Gold Star Families for Peace alert.

GSFP co-founder Cindy Sheehan was arrested last night at the state of the union address. She was invited to attend by Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey. . She was escorted into the chambers by a representative of Congresswoman Barbara Lees office. Cindy had no intention of disrupting the speech. Partly out of respect for Lynn Woolsey . It was released by someone from the capital that Cindy unfurled a banner and was disruptive.

The truth is Cindy was wearing a t-shirt the VFP had made to commemorate the grime milestone of the death of the 2000th soldier in Iraq. The shirt says 2245 dead how many more. Cindy had been wearing this shirt all day and wore it to the SOTU. I was told by a congressional staffer that as far as they were aware there was no dress code guidelines for the guests who sit in the gallery. Cindy was in the gallery.

She was seated at 8:30 pm. It was hot in the building so Cindy unzipped her sweater to remove it. Before she even had it off a capital police officer began shouting “protestor” and hustled her out of the chambers. They were very rough and rude with her. She was given a citation for demonstrating inside the capital building…..after being detained for 3 ½ hours.

This has got to stop. How many of your civil liberties are you willing to give up?

No one with a dissenting viewpoint is allowed anywhere near where King George speaks.

Ordinances have been put in place in the county around King Georges ranch that effectively hinder protestors from exorcizing their right to free speech and to petition our government officials.

You can’t wear a message t-shirt inside the capital which in effect is another infringement on our 1st amendment guarantee to freedom of speech .

King Georges henchmen are spying on American citizens under the guise of battling terrorism.

Show your support for Cindy and daily wear the number of Service members killed in Iraq on your shirts

Show your support for Cindy and daily wear the number of Service members killed in Iraq on your shirts or blouses. Even you just jot it on masking tape and stick it to your top. We need to show the administration and those Americans with their heads in the sand this horrific number.

UNTIL WE RISE UP AND SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH THIS WILL ONLY GET WORSE

In Peace,

Dede

Call the democrats that betrayed us! Today!

The Alito Betrayal
By Bob Fertik
Created 2006-01-30 17:18
We, the voters who elect Democrats in every election, were utterly and completely betrayed today by 18 Democratic Senators that we elected, all of whom can be reached at 888-355-3588 or 888-818-6641:

Akaka (HI), Baucus (MT), Bingaman (NM), Byrd (WV), Cantwell (WA), Carper (DE), Dorgan (ND), Inouye (HI), Johnson (SD), Kohl (WI), Landrieu (LA), Lieberman (CT), Lincoln (AR), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Rockefeller (WV), Salazar (CO)

There was no reason for this betrayal. We only needed 40 39 of the 45 Democrats to sustain a filibuster. We could have won even if 5 6 Democrats who were flat-out stupid enough to believe Alito's lies (like Robert Byrd and Kent Conrad) had voted against the filibuster. (1)

Every Democratic Senator knew what was at stake - both in the rulings Justice [sic] Alito will make for the rest of his life, and in the anger - even rage - that will greet their decision to betray us.

So why did these Democrats decide to stab us all in the back?

For one simple reason: because we let them.

Democratic candidates - at every level - take us, the Democratic base, completely for granted.

They ask us for money and we give it to them - with no strings attached. They ask us for votes and we give it to them - with no strings attached.

They are not accountable because we don't hold them accountable.

That must change - and with your help, I will make sure that it does change.

In the coming weeks, I will offer a plan for holding elected Democrats accountable. The plan will be based on some core principles:

We have a right to be furious at the 18 Democrats who betrayed us - and we have a right to share our fury with those Democrats (888-355-3588 or 888-818-6641), as well as the DSCC (202-224-2447) and DNC (202-863-8000).
The Democratic Party belongs to the people who vote for Democrats, not to the elected officials, party bureaucrats, and rich consultants whose power and wealth comes entirely from us.
We, the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party, represent the majority of all Americans on every issue Americans care about, and we will win majorities in every state (almost!) if we fight as hard as Republicans do for our issues
We must find politically strategic ways to channel our anger towards constructive goals, rather than the obvious destructive ones (like electing even more Republicans to accelerate the rise of Fascism in America).
I'll say a lot more in the days and weeks to come - stay tuned!

(1) The official Roll Call shows only 53 of 55 Republicans voted (Ensign and Hagel were absent) so Frist needed 7 Democrats to reach 60 and end the filibuster.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source URL:
http://www.democrats.com/alito-betrayal

Wake up America! Bush is not our king!

Madness of King George

Led by White House propaganda czar Karl Rove, the Bush Administration has launched an aggressive campaign claiming that the President's authorization of massive ongoing electronic surveillance of American citizens is the only appropriate response to "a ruthless enemy." Rove added that criticism of the President's policy comes from those who don't understand "the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment."

The Founding Fathers anticipated debates such as the one stemming from George W. Bush's illegal spying. Well acquainted with the excesses of mad monarchs named George and the excuses for tyranny peddled by their partisans, Benjamin Franklin warned, "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." James Madison understood how seductive the claims of national security could be, pointing out that wartime is "the true nurse of executive aggrandizement."

Contemporary experts as diverse as Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and one of the foremost scholars of the conflict between the demands of national security and the Constitution, and Bruce Fein, a key player in Ronald Reagan's Justice Department, have identified the Bush Administration's wiretapping as a dangerous assault on our basic freedoms. Turley says, "What the President ordered in this case was a crime." Fein adds that Bush is claiming "more power than King George III had at the time of the Revolution, in asserting the theory that anything the President thinks is helpful to fighting the war against terrorism he can do." Link-The Nation

State Of Presidential Credibility 2006

watch this and weep for our nation

King George speaks

Good Lord this man is a piece of work! This is as bad as their renaming/reframing from domestic spying to terro rist spying or whatever BS they came up with. Arrggghhh!
Sally

From CNN.com:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush suggested Thursday he might offer resistance if Congress moves to change the law relating to his controversial program of warrantless surveillance for terrorist threats and said: "There's no doubt in my mind it is legal."
Asked if he would support efforts in Congress to give him express authorit y to continue the program, Bush cited what he said was the extreme delicacy of the operation.
"But it's important for people to understand that this program is so sensitive and so important that if information gets out to how we run it or how we operate it, it'll help the enemy," he said. "Why tell the enemy what we're doing?"
"We'll listen to ideas. But I want to make sure that people understand that if the attempt to write law makes this program -- is likely to expose the nature of the program, I'll resist it," he said.
Bush told a White House news conference that the domestic spying program "is designed to protect civil liberties" and declared that "it's necessary."

Call and voice your opinion

Here is a l list of the phone numbers for the members of the Judiciary committee:
(some have answering machines and you can leave a message)

Leahy: 202-224-4242
Kennedy: 202-224-4543
Biden: 202-224-5042
Kohl: 202-224-5653
Feinstein: 202-224-3841
Feingold: 202-224-5323
Schumer: 202-224-6542
Durbin: 202-224-2152

And Byrd: 202-224-3954

CALL THEM ! !

Love that William Rivers Pitt!

Democrats: Get Up and Walk Out
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Sunday 22 January 2006

MEMO
To: Congressional Democrats
From: William Rivers Pitt
RE: A bold maneuver
- - - -

I have a wild and crazy idea.

George W. Bush's delivery of the State of the Union address will take place on Tuesday, January 31, a little more than a week from now. It is my strong belief that every single Democrat present in the House chamber for the speech should, at a predetermined moment, stand up and walk out. No yelling. No heated words. Every Democrat should simply stand silently and leave.

Crazy, I know. Crazy, and possibly the best idea ever put before a body of Democrats since the New Deal.

Understand this, congressional Democrats, and understand it well: you are not dealing merely with a body of political opponents in the GOP. You are dealing with a group of people that want you exterminated politically. The days of walking the halls of the Rayburn Building, sharing a bourbon with a colleague from the other side of the aisle, and hammering out a compromise are as dead as Julius Caesar. Collegiality is out. Mutual respect is out. They want you gone for good. Erased. Destroyed.

And you have been far too polite about this.

Buzzflash editorial...Demos asleep at the wheel again

The Power of One

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

Of all the bullying insults to democracy, George W. Bush, a man who has shown utter contempt for the rule of law and civilized governance, is about to pack the Supreme Court with a majority who will grant him the powers of a king.

The Democrats in the Senate, as we predicted in multiple editorials, will not filibuster Samuel Alito, short of some miraculous epiphany and spinal transplant.

(See "Sam Alito and the End of Constitutional Checks and Balances: The Senate Dems are About to Hang Themselves," which includes links to most of the pertinent BuzzFlash commentaries.)

Those chronically timid and cautious Democratic Senators who find comfort in passivity and enabling the dismantling of our Democracy should take note that times have changed.

The revolution to restore the gift of the American Revolution -- our Constitution -- is moving from a simmer to a boil, by the power of one exponentially multiplied into an army of patriots.

Check it out a buzzflash.com

Rarely is the sequel to a movie released so early

Gore's response to administration criticism of his speech

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement by former Vice President Al Gore:

"The Administration's response to my speech illustrates perfectly the need for a special counsel to review the legality of the NSA wiretapping program. The Attorney General is making a political defense of the President without even addressing the substantive legal questions that have so troubled millions of Americans in both political parties.

"There are two problems with the Attorney General's effort to focus attention on the past instead of the present Administration's behavior. First, as others have thoroughly documented, his charges are factually wrong. Both before and after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended in 1995, the Clinton/Gore Administration complied fully and completely with the terms of the law.

"Second, the Attorney General's attempt to cite a previous administration's activity as precedent for theirs -- even though factually wrong -- ironically demonstrates another reason why we must be so vigilant about their brazen disregard for the law. If unchecked, their behavior would serve as a precedent to encourage future presidents to claim these same powers, which many legal experts in both parties believe are clearly illegal.

"The issue, simply put, is that for more than four years, the executive branch has been wiretapping many thousands of American citizens without warrants in direct contradiction of American law. It is clearly wrong and disrespectful to the American people to allow a close political associate of the president to be in charge of reviewing serious charges against him.

"The country needs a full and independent investigation into the facts and legality of the present Administration's program."

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Video synopsis of Al Gore's speech

Can be found here

Army Orders Soldiers to Shed Dragon Skin or Lose SGLI Death Benefits

By Nathaniel R. Helms

Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.

The soldiers asked for anonymity because they are concerned they will face retaliation for going public with the Army's apparently new directive. At the sources' requests DefenseWatch has also agreed not to reveal the unit at which the incident occured for operational security reasons.

On Saturday morning a soldier affected by the order reported to DefenseWatch that the directive specified that "all" commercially available body armor was prohibited. The soldier said the order came down Friday morning from Headquarters, United States Special Operations Command (HQ, USSOCOM), located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. It arrived unexpectedly while his unit was preparing to deploy on combat operations. The soldier said the order was deeply disturbiing to many of the men who had used their own money to purchase Dragon Skin because it will affect both their mobility and ballistic protection.

"We have to be able to move. It (Dragon Skin) is heavy, but it is made so we have mobility and the best ballistic protection out there. This is crazy. And they are threatening us with our benefits if we don't comply." he said.

The soldier reiterated Friday's reports that any soldier who refused to comply with the order and was subsequently killed in action "could" be denied the $400,000 death benefit provided by their SGLI life insurance policy as well as face disciplinary action.

As of this report Saturday morning the Army has not yet responded to a DefenseWatch inquiry.

Recently Dragon Skin became an item of contention between proponents of the Interceptor OTV body armor generally issued to all service members deploying in combat theaters and its growing legion of critics. Critics of the Interceptor OTV system say it is ineffective and inferior to Dragon Skin, as well as several other commercially available body armor systems on the market. Last week DefenseWatch released a secret Marine Corps report that determined that 80% of the 401 Marines killed in Iraq between April 2004 and June 2005 might have been saved if the Interceptor OTV body armor they were wearing was more effective. The Army has declined to comment on the report because doing so could aid the enemy, an Army spokesman has repeatedly said.

A U.S. Army spokesman was not available for comment at the time DW's original report (Friday - 1700 CST) was published. DefenseWatch continues to seek a response from the Army and will post one as soon as it becomes available. Yesterday the DoD released a news story through the Armed Forces News Service that quoted Maj. Gen. Steven Speaks, the Army's director of force development, who countered critical media reports by denying that the U.S. military is behind the curve in providing appropriate force protection gear for troops deployed to Iraq and elsewhere in the global war against terrorism. The New York Tiimes and Washington Post led the bandwagon of mainstream media that capitalized on DefenseWatch's release of the Marine Corps study. Both newspapers released the forensic information the Army and Marines are unwilling to discuss.

"Those headlines entirely miss the point," Speaks said.

The effort to improve body armor "has been a programmatic effort in the case of the Army that has gone on with great intensity for the last five months," he noted.

Speaks' assessment contradicts earlier Army, Marine and DoD statements that indicated as late as last week that the Army was certain there was nothing wrong with Interceptor OTV body armor and that it was and remains the "best body armor in the world."

One of the soldiers who lost his coveted Dragon Skin is a veteran operator. He reported that his commander expressed deep regret upon issuing his orders directing him to leave his Dragon Skin body armor behind. The commander reportedly told his subordinates that he "had no choice because the orders came from very high up" and had to be enforced, the soldier said. Another soldier's story was corroborated by his mother, who helped defray the $6,000 cost of buying the Dragon Skin, she said.

The mother of the soldier, who hails from the Providence, Rhode Island area, said she helped pay for the Dragon Skin as a Christmas present because her son told her it was "so much better" than the Interceptor OTV they expected to be issued when arriving in country for a combat tour.

"He didn't want to use that other stuff," she said. "He told me that if anything happened to him I am supposed to raise hell."

At the time the orders were issued the two soldiers had already loaded their Dragon Skin body armor onto the pallets being used to air freight their gear into the operational theater, the soldiers said. They subsequently removed it pursuant to their orders.

Currently nine U.S. generals stationed in Afghanistan are reportedly wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin body armor, according to company spokesman Paul Chopra. Chopra, a retired Army chief warrant officer and 20+-year pilot in the famed 160th "Nightstalkers" Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), said his company was merely told the generals wanted to "evaluate" the body armor in a combat environment. Chopra said he did not know the names of the general officers wearing the Dragon Skin.

Last year the DoD, under severe pressure from Congress, authorized a one-time $1,000 reimbursement to soldiers who had purchased civilian equipment to supplement either inadequate or unavailable equipment they needed for combat operations. At the time there was no restriction on what the soldiers could buy as long as it was specifically intended to offer personal protection or further their mission capabilities while in theater.

Nathaniel R. Helms is the editor of DefenseWatch Magazine. He can be reached at natshouse1@chater.net. Please send all inquiries and comments to dwfeedback@yahoo.com .

Al Gore speaks out

In a riveting and passionate speech, Al Gore spoke out against the Bush regime. Granted, the Repubs are spinning this mightly but it's like that Iowa farmer's invention that spins the water out of manure, the manure is still left behind. They can spin all they want, but some of us know that fascism is growing in DC, and what Bush wants is to be king. The unitary presidency idea sure allows him to believe, wrongly of course, that the law does not apply to him.

To quote a portion of Al Gore's speech:
"As we begin this new year, the Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress to prevent such abuses.

It is imperative that respect for the rule of law be restored."

If you have not heard it, go to cspan.org; if you want to read it, go here

I've got friends with low wages

Wal-mart workers rights Watch the video by jibjab!

Report Rebuts Bush on Spying
Domestic Action's Legality Challenged

A report by Congress's research arm concluded yesterday that the administration's justification for the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments. link

Vietnam Veterans Association on federal cuts

November/December 2005
PTSD/SUBSTANCE ABUSE COMMITTEE REPORT
BY TOM BERGER, CHAIR

With the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq having topped 2,000, those fortunate enough to return face the task of putting the war behind them and resuming their lives. Some are getting reacquainted with wives and children they left behind a year or more ago. Many face the task of catching up on bills or fixing homes that have gone in need of repair. Some lost jobs or had their businesses falter while they were gone. More than a few have found they have returned home with their war anxieties.

“They are witnessing far more traumatic experiences than they did in the first Gulf war,” said Terri Tanielian, a senior military health policy analyst for the Rand Corporation. Longer deployments, fiercer engagements, and more casualties have left Iraq war veterans more vulnerable to psychological trauma than Gulf War veterans, Tanielian said. She said many veterans may be shunning counseling services offered by the military out of a misplaced sense of honor. “Their training is to go on with the mission and put on the brave face,” Tanielian said.

A recent article in USA Today noted that more than one in four American troops have come home from Iraq with health problems that require medical or mental health treatment. According to the Pentagon’s first detailed screening of service members leaving the war zone, almost 1,700 returning this year said they harbored thoughts of hurting themselves or that they would be better off dead. More than 250 said they had such thoughts “a lot.” Nearly 20,000 reported nightmares or unwanted war recollections; more than 3,700 said they had concerns that they might “hurt or lose control” with someone else. link

interesting discussion at the Boerne Daily Grind

We went over there to test my daughter's WiFi connection as the Boerne Daily Grind has free WiFi, and ran into a gray haired man who started a conversation with us. It all started when he saw my Quaker shirt that states "war is costly." The conversation covered many issues, but the most outstanding issue was healthcare. When I stated that I felt it was a moral imperative to offer healthcare for everyone in this country, his return arguement was shocking to me. He felt, as a physician, he should not be required to give away his intellectual property, his skills as a physician that he spent thousands of dollars for, and should not be forced to take care of people who could not pay for his services. That entire argument astounds me. I think his Merlot went to his brain.

Scary news

The Bush administration is preparing its NATO allies for a possible military strike against suspected nuclear sites in Iran in the New Year, according to German media reports, reinforcing similar earlier suggestions in the Turkish media.

The Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel this week quoted "NATO intelligence sources" who claimed that the NATO allies had been informed that the United States is currently investigating all possibilities of bringing the mullah-led regime into line, including military options. This "all options are open" line has been President George W Bush's publicly stated policy throughout the past 18 months. link

Jan 1 protest against Bush

A few brave souls got up really, really early to meet outside BAMC to protest as Bush arrived to visit the troops. We got to speak with the SAPD detectives, SAPD, Secret Service, and a wave from Ft. Sam Houston police. The law enforcement personnel were very polite and considerate. One even gave a ride to a group member who moved a car to a far off location where we parked.
Sadly only 7 people showed up. We were first allowed to stand outside the fence by the helipad, but then we were moved across the access road very far from the helipad. We could see the Bush motorcade arrive, but I am positive we could not be seen by anybody unless pointed out. Ah well, we at least exercised our constitutional right to protest.

Then to hear the next day that Bush talked about his "combat" with a cedar tree, in front of real combats Vets, just wound me right up. What kind of insenstive idiocy is that? These men and women have lost arms and legs, had real serious wounds, and he talks about a stupid cut from a cedar tree? I am so embarrassed that this is the President! Good grief!

Wire tapping without a warrant is illegal ... Doh!

The most relevant precedent is United States v. United States District Court (Keith). Decided in 1972, Kieth involved a prosecution for conspiracy to blow-up a CIA office. The Executive argued that in order “to gather intelligence information” that was “necessary to protect the nation from attempts . . . to attack and subvert the existing structure of the Government,” it was constitutionally entitled to engage in electronic surveillance of American citizens without complying with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. In Kieth, the Supreme Court unanimously and unequivocally held that, even in national security investigations, the President had no constitutional authority to conduct electronic surveillance of American citizens on American soil without a judicially issued search warrant based on a finding of probable cause. link

Rethuglicans again trying to cut VA benefits...

December 30, 2005

Dear Sally:

This week, the Washington Post reported on an increasingly politically charged debate in Washington centered on one of the most serious costs of war -- post traumatic stress disorder, and its impact on war veterans.

At the center of the debate is a sharp increase in recent years in PTSD claims filed with the VA, largely accounted for by Vietnam veterans who are only now seeking treatment for combat related stress. According to the Post article, the increase in PTSD benefits does not account for new claims coming into the system from Iraq and Afghanistan vets, many of whom are suffering from severe trauma.

"What they are trying to do is figure out a way not to diagnose vets with PTSD," said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans advocacy group. "It's like telling a patient with cancer, 'if we tell you, you don't have cancer, then you won't suffer from cancer.' "

As long as three years ago, Veterans for Common Sense argued that a tremendous hidden cost of going to war in Iraq would be the long term costs associated with medical care and treatment of veterans. What we did not anticipate then would be increasing attempts from the VA, the House Veterans Affairs Committee and the Administration to redefine veterans health care and disability as an "entitlement" program.

Santa brought just what I wanted!

The "Barbie Tar" filled the bill, but unfortunately the crass music that came with it, did not fill Mama and Grandma's bill, but Nana loved it!
Merry Christmas everyone!

What is really happening in New Orleans

From activist-extraordinaire, Lisa Fithian...

December 24, 2005

Dear Friends and Allies,

Seasons greetings to you to all. I hope this email finds you with loved

ones and some quiet peaceful time. As many of you know I have been working the last two months in New Orleans with a group called the Common Ground Collective. We are an all volunteer, grassroots, activist organization that is still providing direct relief and support to residents and returning evacuees. I am writing to ask for your support and let you know about a report back I will be doing in Austin next week. ( see details below)

It is quite amazing being in New Orleans. The utter destruction – miles and
miles of it, is impossible to convey. The infrastructure in a major US
city collapsed. What is being rebuilt favors middle to upper class predominately white communities. The reconstruction plans do not adequately address the levees and whole communities are being discouraged from returning. Housing is hard to find, schools, health care facilities and most stores are still closed. Huge areas are still without power and mounds of debris still covers the streets. Hot water can be hard to find. Phone and mail service is non-existent in some places. It is becoming all to clear that the government and corporate America are planning a land grab preventing many historically Black communities from coming back together again.

New Orleans has similarities to a war zone (military in the streets, Halliburton contracts, ruin and rubble) - and the policies that led us into war in Iraq are at work in New Orleans as well. Each day there is more reason to drive this Administration out and rebuild something new. That is what we are doing in New Orleans

Common Ground has become a light of hope amidst the destruction and greed We talk about Solidarity Not Charity. We are taking a holistic approach– from providing basic food and water to cleaning supplies and tools, a free medical clinic (the first to open after the hurricane) roof tarping, home gutting, clean up and repair, legal and anti-eviction housing support, a media center which hosts Radio Uprising along with free internet and phone.

We have cleaned up, repaired and are now using 2 daycare and one community center.--these will be returned to their owners ready to go. We have done soil and water sampling, initiated a small bioremediation project, cleaned up three community gardens and planted one. We are now in the process of setting up a childcare cooperative and home school program.

We started with $50 and 5 volunteers and have grown to a core group of about 40 “organizers” and hundreds of volunteers. Over thanksgiving week we had 300 volunteers in and have on average 200 volunteers a week now through the end of January.

As I drove back to Austin, literally emerging from a disaster zone, I found the holiday season and nice clean functioning neighborhoods surreal. Life for most continuing as usual, with few having any clue about what is still really going on – or not going on in New Orleans.

Those crazy folks in Boston! Brrrrr !

The annual Speedo run, benefitting The Ellie Fund, which is a non-profit organization that helps families in their fight against breast cancer.

A motion for censure, thanks Mr. Conyers!

by JOHN CONYERS JR.
[posted online on December 22, 2005]

On December 20, 2005, I issued a 273-page report outlining the Bush Administration's panoply of misconduct associated in the run-up to and since the Iraq War.

In brief, I have found that there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice President and other high-ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration.
full article

Darth Vader breaks a tie

$40 billion from federal spending will be cut over five years, including cuts to social welfare programs such as health care for the elderly and poor, funding that helps enforce child support payment, funds for college, and more.
Darth Vader (Vice President Dick Cheney)broke a 50-50 tie when he voted in favor of the spending cuts.

This looks like another way to make sure women and children live in poverty and have no way out. God forbid anyone wants to do the old fashioned American thing..pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Darth Vader took the bootstraps so you are on your own and best of luck.

Secret History of the Credit Card

If you have not seen this Frontline report, you missed something great. watch online

This is truly the screwing of the American people. But then, we have been stupid enough, and strapped for cash enough that we just fell into the abyss.

Debunking Clinton and Carter "did it" claims that they authorized spying on US citizens

DEBUNKING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER MYTH: Conservative activist Matt Drudge yesterday posted the following headline on his popular website: "Clinton Executive Order: Secret Search on Americans Without Court Order." This is false. Drudge highlights one sentence from an executive order issued by President Clinton in February 1995: "The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order." But the order also includes the following text: "Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) [50 U.S.C. 1822(a)] of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance] Act (FISA), the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section." That section of FISA requires the Attorney General to certify that the search will not involve "the premises, information, material, or property of a United States person." That means U.S. citizens or anyone inside of the United States. In stark contrast, Bush’s program permits, for the first time ever, warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and other people inside of the United States. Neither Clinton’s 1995 executive order, nor President Carter's 1979 executive order (which Drudge also claims allows warrantless searches of Americans) authorizes that.

American Progress Report

2005 the year in review

Jib Jab came up with another good animation worth watching.

TSA Wants Access to Veterans’ Files to Add ‘Mental Defectives’ to Watch List

Great, Bush sent our military off to fight his bogus war, without necessary equipment, and now when they get home, his administration wants to prevent them from flying? Puhleeez! A bunch of draft dodgers are gonna decide this one? What ignorant, pompous asses!

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY – INTELLIGENCE
Dec. 9, 2005 – 8:57 p.m.
TSA Wants Access to Veterans’ Files to Add ‘Mental Defectives’ to Watch List
By Jeff Stein, National Security Editor
Is there an efficient, legal way to keep crazy people off airplanes altogether, like the manic depressive man shot dead at the Miami airport last week?

As it turns out, the government was taking steps in that direction almost a month before Rigoberto Alpizar was plugged by U.S. air marshals after he ran down the Jetway with a bundle in his hands while saying, according to the government, that he had a bomb.

A Nov. 15 notice put out by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is always thinking about new ways to keep potentially dangerous people off our airliners, states TSA is looking for contractors to add a number of new databases for screening passengers and airport workers.

Up first are the files of the Defense Department (DoD) and Veterans Administration (VA), which the TSA says it wants scoured for “mental defectives.”

As if troubled veterans didn’t have enough to worry about. According to a 2004 Government Accountability Office (GAO) study, about 15 percent of the soldiers coming home from the intense guerrilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to be afflicted with what was once called “combat fatigue.”

The New England Journal of Medicine also reported in 2004 that “15.6 percent to 17.1 percent of returning soldiers from Iraq exhibited signs of anxiety, major depression or other mental health problems.”

Today those symptoms are lumped together in what’s called post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which afflicted hundreds of thousands of soldiers who came home from Vietnam combat with “a thousand-yard stare” and fell into depression, suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse.

One of them might be sitting next to you on an airplane: More than half, or 53 percent, of the 1 million combat veterans of Vietnam were afflicted to one degree or another, said a four-year, $9 million study published by the VA in 1990.

Are we really this stupid?

Cenk Uygur, Huffington Post
The deficit is careening out of control. Health care costs are through the roof. We’ve started a disastrous war in Iraq that threatens the stability of the whole region. Osama bin Laden has never been caught. The 9/11 Commission says four years after the attacks on this country, we are failing to protect the American people.

And what are the Republicans talking about? Tax cuts that go largely to the upper class. The war on Christmas. The gay marriage amendment. Flag burning. Does anyone believe these are the real pressing concerns of the American people? Is our top problem that the rich don’t have enough tax breaks?

Cenk Uygur is co-host of The Young Turks, the first liberal radio show to air nationwide. The Young Turks began as Sirius Satellite Radio’s first original program, and, while still on Sirius, is now nationally syndicated and available on itunes and online at youngturk.com and radiopower.org

link

In the Kingdom of the Half-Blind

Bill Moyers does it again with an awesome speech on 12/09/05 for the 20th anniversary of the National Security Archive at GW University.
summary and link

Obama calls it!

Republicans Practice “Social Darwinism”…

Sen. Barak Obama of Illinois, a fast-rising Democratic star, told Florida party members that only a philosophy among Republicans of sink or swim explains why some Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans still live in cars while Republicans in Washington prepare next week to enact $70 billion in tax breaks.

"It's called the 'Ownership society' in Washington. This isn't the first time this philosophy has appeared. It used to be called Social Darwinism," Obama said late Saturday at the Democrats meeting at Walt Disney World.

Republicans running the federal government believe, "You are on your own to buy your own health care, to buy your own retirement security ... to buy your own roads and levees," Obama said, referring to flood barriers that gave way in New Orleans during Katrina last August.

link

Texans, we got screwed!

Editorial from the NY TImes
Fixing the Game
But The Washington Post's Dan Eggen reported last week that the Justice Department has been suppressing for nearly two years a 73-page memo in which six lawyers and two analysts in the voting rights section, including the group's chief lawyer, unanimously concluded that the Texas redistricting plan of 2003 illegally diluted the votes of blacks and Hispanics in order to ensure a Republican majority in the state's Congressional delegation. That plan was shoved through the Texas State Legislature by Representative Tom DeLay, who abused his federal position in doing so and is now facing criminal charges over how money was raised to support the redistricting.

Full article

Get your copy of the RollingStone and read this!

The Man Who Sold the War
Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war
By JAMES BAMFORD
link to RollingStone

Rendon is a man who fills a need that few people even know exists. Two months before al-Haideri took the lie-detector test, the Pentagon had secretly awarded him a $16 million contract to target Iraq and other adversaries with propaganda. One of the most powerful people in Washington, Rendon is a leader in the strategic field known as "perception management," manipulating information -- and, by extension, the news media -- to achieve the desired result. His firm, the Rendon Group, has made millions off government contracts since 1991, when it was hired by the CIA to help "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power."

Costco CEO Finds Pro-Worker Means ProfitabilityHigh Wages, Employee Benefits Build Loyalty -- and P.R. Ambassadors

story

This year's sales total more than $52 billion from 462 stores in 37 states and eight countries. Costco is now the nation's fourth-largest retailer, selling everything from crab legs to flat-screen TVs to caskets — and even a Picasso painting.
In an era when many CEOs are seen as greedy and sometimes corrupt, Sinegal is proving that good guys can finish first — and without all the corporate frills.

Sinegal is unfazed by his critics. "Wall Street is in the business of making money between now and next Tuesday," he said. "We're in the business of building an organization, an institution that we hope will be here 50 years from now. And paying good wages and keeping your people working with you is very good business."

What Sinegal has proven is that a company doesn't have to be ruthless. Being humane and ethical can also make you money.