the deception continues

from the Los Angeles Times:

Asked about Abramoff on the Sunday talk shows, [three] Republican lawmakers said the White House should release all records of its contacts with the now-disgraced lobbyist.

"I'm one who believes that more is better … when it comes to disclosure and transparency, so I'd be a big advocate for making records that are out there available," Sen. John Thune of South Dakota told Fox News Sunday.

The photos should not be released, he said, "but I do think it's important that everybody understand what this guy's level of involvement was."

Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, appearing on the same program, agreed on the need for the White House to release its records related to Abramoff.

"Absolutely. I think this president is a man of unimpeachable integrity," Pence said. "The American people have profound confidence in him. And as Abraham Lincoln said, give the people the facts and republican governance, perhaps, will be saved."

Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said it was "silly" to think that a lobbyist and his campaign contributions would influence the president. But full disclosure is the best policy, he said.

"My personal opinion on these things is to just get it out. If you've got pictures, get the pictures out," Hagel said on ABC's This Week. "Disclosure is the real issue. Whether it's campaign finance issues, whether it's ethics issues, whether it's lobbying issues, disclosure is the best and most effective way to deal with all of these things."

Is it really so silly, Mr. Hagel, to think the President could be swayed by promises of political or capital gain and influence? Let's remember that this is the President who allowed oil companies to rewrite - and therefore undercut - our environmental protections to fatten their own wallets. This is the President who has allowed waste, fraud, and abuse to continue unchecked in handouts to friends of the Administration supposedly overseeing the rebuilding of Iraq. This is the President who has trumpeted his compassionate side and his faith even while turning his back on working Americans.

And it's a bitter irony - or a sad state of ignorance - for you, Mr. Pence, to use the word "unimpeachable" in describing anything about the President. Or were you merely bragging that this is the case because Republicans control the mechanisms for impeachment? At any rate, here is an appropriate use of the word "silly" (Hagel, take note): praising the President's integrity. Why the need to lie, obfuscate, and dissemble?

One who has nothing to hide need hide nothing. Oh Mr. President...come out, come out, wherever you are. On one point, at least, I agree with these men: the President should give full disclosure of the access that Abramoff had to anyone within the Administration. Surely the President has heard the saying, "The truth shall set you free?" Or is he afraid that the truth is actually too damning?

thanks, Ms. Ivins

from the Columbus Free Press:

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

*emphasis hers

"Bigotry Conquers All"

from OneWorld.net:

"It is astonishing that the Bush administration would align itself with Sudan, China, Iran, and Zimbabwe in a coalition of the homophobic," [said Scott] Long [director of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) program for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people].

When the final history of the NewCon / Republican attempt at creating a dictatorship is written, it is up to us to prevent the first line from being: "First they came for the homosexuals..." Things will only snowball from there. We know that Muslims will quickly follow, along with liberals of various stripes, and then peace lovers and union members and on and on ...

Evil is evil, yet Bush shows no qualms about mixing it up with terrorists when signing on with such an alignment will earn him a few more bucks and a little more political capital. Disgusting. He has no interest in doing anything decent for humanity; there is no compassion in this man. His careless actions and cold attitude toward so many - be they working poor or victims of natural disaster - almost beg the question, does Bush even have a soul?

debate shifts to ‘tipping point’

from washingtonpost.com / MSNBC.com:

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.

Finally, the conversation is turning an important corner! We're at the point where we need to squabbling with those unconvinved that there's a problem and start figuring out just how big the problem is. Some people may have good reason to be unconvinced; regardless, by the time society waits for everyone to come around, for some to pull their heads out of the sand, and for a few to find a way to make a buck off solutions and therefore stop contributing to the misinformation, it may already be too late. Not to be alarmist, but global warming is an immediate problem that requires immediate attention. Stewardship of resources, care for God's creation, not to mention maintaining a decent environmental for health & quality of life type issues - all of these are reasons to be attentive to what's happening to the environment as a result of humanity and to be pro-active in protecting the environment.

Or else we all might wind up like this poor Kenyan woman, stuck in a famine stricken country with nothing left to do but curse God and die.

READ THIS

I can't even begin to summarize this article by John Pilger, appearing in the New Statesman:

The Death of Freedom
The rights of ordinary people to speak out against an unjust war and atrocities unleashed in their name are being crushed. Fascism is at the door. Who else will fight it?

nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, ...

from the AP:

Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay decided Saturday to give up his post as House majority leader, clearing the way for new leadership elections among House Republicans eager to shed the taint of scandal, two officials said.
...
DeLay is battling campaign finance charges in Texas and was forced to step aside temporarily as majority leader last fall after he was charged in his home state. He has consistently maintained his innocence and said he intended to resume his leadership post once cleared.

His about-face came amid growing pressure from fellow Republicans who were concerned about their own political futures in the wake of this week's guilty pleas by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
...
DeLay acted hours after a small vanguard of Republicans circulated a petition calling for leadership elections and citing DeLay's legal problems as well as his long ties to Abramoff.

This is good for the country, I don't care what party you support. We do not need money launderers running Congress. I don't think this will, in the short term, shed anyone's image of Congress as being a brood of vipers or a den of thieves, but it's a step in the right direction.

stop the press!

from the Observer/UK

Paul Bremer, who led the US civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, has admitted that the Americans "didn't really see" the threat coming from insurgents in the country.

He also criticized President George Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying they had not listened to his concerns about the quality of Iraq's army, and that ultimately the White House bore responsibility for decisions that had led to the current violence.
...
Bremer's comments ... join a lengthening list of Iraqi hawks turned critics of policy in the country. Bremer launched his attack in an interview with the American television network NBC that is to be broadcast tonight. His attack also comes on the eve of the publication of Bremer's book on Iraq, called My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope, which is to be released tomorrow.

In the TV interview Bremer admits the insurgency was a surprise. "We really didn't see the insurgency coming," he said, adding that he was worried about US plans, formulated in 2004, to begin reducing their troop numbers in favour of relying on Iraqis. He said he raised concerns with Bush and Rumsfeld, but they were ignored. "There was a tendency by the Pentagon to exaggerate the capability of the Iraqi forces," he said.

Bremer's critics say that he is trying to shift the blame away from himself for the violence in Iraq. Many experts have attacked his decision to disband the Iraqi army just after the invasion was complete as one of the main factors behind the insurgency.

However, Bremer said the ultimate responsibility for the situation in Iraq lay at the door of the White House. "I believe I did everything I could do. ... The President, in the end, is responsible for making decisions," he said.

it's recess! time to appoint some cronies

from InterPress Service:

WASHINGTON - Resorting once more to controversial "recess" appointments, U.S. President George W. Bush has named two political cronies to key administration positions without Senate approval.
...
Bush appointed half a dozen other officials Tuesday whose nominations had been held up in the Senate, but most, such as that of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, were less controversial or politically charged than those of Sauerbrey and Smith.

Recess appointments, historically very unusual, have become far more common under Bush, who has generally resorted to them for nominees whose right-wing ideological tendencies have made it unlikely or impossible for them to be confirmed by the Senate as a whole.
...
Sauerbrey's nomination has been particularly controversial. It was opposed by three of the nation's most important newspapers, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, both because of her far-right ideological views and her almost total lack of relevant experience, particularly in emergency relief operations, which her office oversees.

In that respect, the timing of her nomination was particularly unfortunate, coinciding with the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), then headed by another political appointee with no relevant experience, Michael Brown.
...
After Bush's 2000 election, Sauerbrey, who served as chair of his campaign in Maryland, was appointed to a low-profile State Department post, eventually becoming U.S. representative to the Economic and Social Council of the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women.

As ambassador, she has pushed her ideological views, including her staunch opposition to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women -- a position which the Bush administration shares with Iran, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia -- and to any form of abortion rights.

Shouldn't be a single thing in here that's surprising. The "up or down vote, let the process work" Republican party that throws tantrums when things don't go their way has no problem monkeying with it themselves when it suits their needs. Oh, and isn't it nice to know that when it comes to human rights, Pres. Bush is pushing the agenda of the most inhuman despots in the world?

*emphasis mine

Alito Spies China

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year ...
There, that about catches me up to date.
Except so much has been going on!
Unfortunately, major life changes (many!) are keeping me busy.
So I'll be posting sporadically for a while.
However, there are a couple thoughts I want to share right now...

ALITO
Here are a few good reasons to oppose the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court (and to contact your Senator!):

With respect to personal liberty, Alito takes an extremely narrow view of what the Constitution protects, as reflected in his opinion sanctioning the strip search without a warrant of a ten-year old girl. With respect to religious freedom, he has not insisted upon the separation of church and state, as required by the First Amendment. With respect to the regulation of dangerous industries, he ruled that Congress does not have the authority to make the possession of machine guns illegal. With respect to labor, he ruled that despite a Congressional statute authorizing it, state workers had no ability to sue for unpaid sick leave. With respect to the environment, he made it more difficult to sue polluters under the Clean Water Act. With respect to employment discrimination, Alito favors rules that make it more difficult for women and minorities to sue. With respect to corporate power, he has ruled against anti-trust remedies. With respect to one person – one vote, Alito has said that he disagrees with Reynolds v. Sims, a leading case establishing this principle.

SPYING
I can't believe President Bush actually admitted to a crime on live television! His attitude on this whole spying thing reminds me of Jack Nicholson's character's damning over reaction in A Few Good Men. I mean, come on! When the law allows the President to order a wiretap on anyone without court approval and gives him 3 whole days to ask for approval after the fact there can only be three excuses: ignorance, laziness, or questionable intent. The first two are terrible, and don't apply. We know the President was not ignorant of the law because he had his lawyers work up grand-sounding logic around the law just in case; we know that he wasn't lazy because he sure spent an awful lot of energy on the spying itself, going after grannies and Catholics and people who like peace. Why wouldn't the President ask for approval for wiretaps from a court that has approved something like 300,000 out of 300,040 asked for in the last 30 years? Requests for such wiretaps are not public, so it couldn't have even been that he feared word of his actions would get out. No, the only plausible scenario is that he knew what he was doing was wrong, that it probably wouldn't get court approval, and that it definitely wouldn't stand up to public scrutiny. So, he kept it secret, operated outside a very fluid law, and violated the US Constitution. You tell me, is this worse than a lie about an extra-marital, consensual sexual affair? Shame on anyone that says No!

CHINA
As the pieces of the always murky 'what will the future look like' puzzle begin to fall into place, a few things are apparently clear: the environment will be a wreck and natural resources in shrinking supply; the world in general and the US in particular will continue to be addicted to oil because oil will continue to drive market, consumer, and capital power; China will grow as a competitor to the "world's sole super-power" (the U.S.) on many, many fronts - including political, military, commercial (which makes the whole world go 'round, don't you know?), and consumption. Connect the dots: oil drives world economies - greater access means greater dominance; oil will be in increasingly tight supply; oil will be in increasingly high demand; the US and China will be in fierce competition for oil to keep their markets chugging. Two possibilities are readily apparent: 1) we can learn to get along, to share, to do all those things parents try to teach their kids; or 2) we can go to war (again!) over oil. Of course, we won't really go to war over oil. No, instead China will be painted as some kind of monster bully instigating a fight with peaceful, freedom loving America. Attempts will be made to scare the American public silly with what might happen should we lose out - communism spreads, the masses are unemployed, censorship reigns and rights are revoked. Fight for your Rights! we'll be told. Meanwhile, we're already losing our rights to an increasingly dictatorial presidency and cabal of cronies intent on perverting power for their own agenda. Don't believe me? Consider the President's push for the right to torture, despite a just passed law specifically banning it; his push to hold people in prison forever without charge or trial despite habeas corpus and the essential moral principles of liberty and freedom; his Orwellian subversion of environmental protections and control on corporate power; and the latest, spying on his own people and subverting dissenters while pretending to 'protect them' (see above). This President, and those who would continue the process he has begun, will one day have us fighting a monster they paint China as being (or some other foreign power) while they quietly remake us into exactly that image. We are already on a path that leads to the possibility of the torture, imprisonment, and 'disappearance' of anyone who dares speak against the will of power. We must resist all efforts to strengthen the executive branch; we must maintain checks and balances and the spread of power; we must not allow the unitary executive theory to become reality. No one person (and no group of con-men) can be trusted with so much power. George W. Bush has proved this once again.