Reflections on the "New American" Revolution
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Rove Offers Republicans A Battle Plan For Elections
"White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove offered a biting preview of the 2006 midterm elections yesterday, drawing sharp distinctions with the Democrats over the campaign against terrorism, tax cuts and judicial philosophy, and describing the opposition party as backward-looking and bereft of ideas.
'At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views on national security,' Rove said. 'Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn't make them unpatriotic -- not at all. But it does make them wrong -- deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.'
... At a time when Democrats have staked their hopes in large part on the issue of corruption, Rove and Mehlman showed that Republicans plan to contest the elections on themes that have helped expand their majorities under President Bush. They see national security and the vigorous prosecution of the campaign against terrorism at the heart of the GOP appeal to voters.
Rove's RNC address was a rare public appearance at a time when he remains under investigation in the CIA leak case that resulted in the indictment and resignation of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Despite the investigation, Rove is still Bush's top political adviser.
Taking no questions from the audience or the news media, Rove used his platform to excoriate Democrats for "wild and reckless and false charges" against Bush on the issue of domestic spying and what he called an attempted smear against Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings last week. "Some members of the committee came across as mean-spirited and small-minded, and it left a searing impression," Rove said, referring to the Senate Judiciary Committee."
Chirac's atomic bombshell
"how can countries such as Iran and North Korea be persuaded not to seek the bomb if the 'official' nuclear powers flaunt their double standards and issue threats? As President Chirac quipped memorably of someone else in a different context: he missed an excellent opportunity to shut up."
Vatican Paper Hits 'Intelligent Design'
"The author, Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, laid out the scientific rationale for Darwin's theory of evolution, saying that in the scientific world, biological evolution 'represents the interpretative key of the history of life on Earth.'
He lamented that certain American 'creationists' had brought the debate back to the 'dogmatic' 1800s, and said their arguments weren't science but ideology.
'This isn't how science is done,' he wrote. 'If the model proposed by Darwin is deemed insufficient, one should look for another, but it's not correct from a methodological point of view to take oneself away from the scientific field pretending to do science.'
Intelligent design 'doesn't belong to science and the pretext that it be taught as a scientific theory alongside Darwin's explanation is unjustified,' he wrote.
'It only creates confusion between the scientific and philosophical and religious planes.'"
Friday, January 20, 2006
Are You Ready to Be Bugged and Tortured By George W. Bush?
"This isn't about war: It's about dictatorship. It’s about making power permanent by using private information against you, and by terrifying you with torture.
Team Bush believes it rules by Divine right. It has already re-defined 'terrorist' to mean anyone who questions its power. It will use 'anti-terrorist' wiretapping as a tool against anyone who dares oppose it.
All serious indicators show that 'information' extracted by torture is virtually worthless in fighting terrorism. So is the information taken from wiretapping huge numbers of people, which Bush has been doing since before 9/11.
So ask yourself: if granted the power to torture, do you trust the Bush Administration---or any regime- - to refrain from torturing its political opponents? If granted the power to record private phone conversations, do you trust Karl Rove to not use this material against his political opponents?"
Medicare Woes Take High Toll on Mentally Ill - New York Times: "Mix-ups in the first weeks of the Medicare drug benefit have vexed many beneficiaries and pharmacists. Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, president of the American Psychiatric Association, said the transition from Medicaid to Medicare had had a particularly severe impact on low-income patients with serious, persistent mental illnesses.
'Relapse, rehospitalization and disruption of essential treatment are some of the consequences,' Dr. Sharfstein said.
Dr. Jacqueline M. Feldman, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said that two of her patients with schizophrenia had gone to a hospital emergency room because they could not get their medications. Dr. Feldman, who is also the director of a community mental health center, said 'relapse is becoming more frequent' among her low-income Medicare patients.
Emma L. Hayes, director of emergency services at Ten Broeck Hospital, a psychiatric center in Jacksonville, said, 'We have seen some increase in admissions, and anticipate a lot more,' as people wrestle with the new drug benefit.
Medicare's free-standing prescription drug plans are not responsible for the costs of hospital care or doctors' services. "They have no business incentive to worry about those costs," said Dr. Joseph J. Parks, medical director of the Missouri Department of Mental Health, who reported that many of his Medicare patients had been unable to get medicines or had experienced delays.At least 24 states have taken emergency action to pay for prescription drugs if people cannot obtain them by using the new Medicare drug benefit. Florida is not among those states."
Wayward Christian Soldiers - New York Times
"
Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, whose weekly sermons are seen by millions of television viewers, led the charge with particular fervor. "We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible," said Mr. Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. "God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers." In an article carried by the convention's Baptist Press news service, a missionary wrote that "American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
As if working from a slate of evangelical talking points, both Franklin Graham, the evangelist and son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the editor of the conservative World magazine and a former advisor to President Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims. Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely popular "Left Behind" series, spoke of Iraq as "a focal point of end-time events," whose special role in the earth's final days will become clear after invasion, conquest and reconstruction. For his part, Jerry Falwell boasted that "God is pro-war" in the title of an essay he wrote in 2004.
David Brooks correctly noted that if evangelicals elected a pope, it would most likely be Mr. Stott, who is the author of more than 40 books on evangelical theology and Christian devotion. Unlike the Pope John Paul II, who said that invading Iraq would violate Catholic moral teaching and threaten 'the fate of humanity,' or even Pope Benedict XVI, who has said there were 'not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq,' Mr. Stott did not speak publicly on the war. But in a recent interview, he shared with me his abiding concerns.
'Privately, in the days preceding the invasion, I had hoped that no action would be taken without United Nations authorization,' he told me. 'I believed then and now that the American and British governments erred in proceeding without United Nations approval.' Reverend Stott referred me to 'War and Rumors of War, ' a chapter from his 1999 book, 'New Issues Facing Christians Today,' as the best account of his position. In that essay he wrote that the Christian community's primary mission must be 'to hunger for righteousness, to pursue peace, to forbear revenge, to love enemies, in other words, to be marked by the cross.'"
Breaking Ranks--Larry Wilkerson
""As a teacher who's studied every administration since 1945, I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I've seen in 50-plus years. You've got to go back and think about that. That includes the Bay of Pigs, that includes -- oh my God, Vietnam. That includes Iran-contra, Watergate.""
Legal Rationale by Justice Dept. on Spying Effort
"President Bush and Mr. Cheney have been critical of the public disclosure of the program in The New York Times, and the Justice Department has opened an investigation into the disclosure. Mr. Cheney acknowledged in his speech that "a spirited debate is now under way, and our message to the American people is clear and straightforward: These actions are within the president's authority and responsibility under the Constitution and laws, and these actions are vital to our security."
But Robert Reinstein, dean of the law school at Temple University, said in an interview that he considered the eavesdropping program "a pretty straightforward case where the president is acting illegally," and he said there appeared to be a broad consensus among legal scholars and national security experts that the administration's legal arguments were weak.
The foreign intelligence law passed by Congress in 1978 represents the Bush administration's biggest legal hurdle, he said. "When Congress speaks on questions that are domestic in nature, I really can't think of a situation where the president has successfully asserted a constitutional power to supersede that," he said...
Mr. Reinstein predicted that the court would ultimately declare the program unconstitutional. "This is domestic surveillance over American citizens for whom there is no evidence or proof that they are involved in any illegal activity, and it is in contravention of a statute of Congress specifically designed to prevent this," he said."
Leaked Paper Reveals Effort to Stifle CIA Flights Debate
"Mr Straw contends that to his knowledge no detainees have passed through Britain since the September 11 attacks. But the memo said that “the papers we have unearthed so far suggest there could be more cases”."
Thursday, January 19, 2006
The New Reformers
"A year ago, Denny Hastert was defending a rule to allow indicted members (especially with the initials T.D.) to keep their House leadership jobs, the speaker now wants to crack down on questionable ethical practices. Not long ago, Rick Santorum was helping run the K Street Project, a mechanism for the GOP leadership to pressure trade associations to hire Republicans. Now he's the point man on reform.
Most Democrats weren't exactly storming the gates to change the rules either until lobbyist Jack Abramoff became an albatross they thought they could hang around the GOP's neck.
I think the press, with a few exceptions, had been snoozing about this issue until the Abramoff tale heated up. Only recently do we read that the number of lobbyists in Washington has doubled in the past few years, to 35,000. Only recently do we read that half the former members of Congress are lobbyists."
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
2002 Memo Doubted Uranium Sale Claim
"the assessment by the State Department's intelligence analysts concluded... that it would have required Niger to send '25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers' filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border.
The analysts' doubts were registered nearly a year before President Bush, in what became known as the infamous '16 words' in his 2003 State of the Union address, said that Saddam Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Report Questions Legality of Briefings on Surveillance - New York Times
"A legal analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concludes that the Bush administration's limited briefings for Congress on the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping without warrants are 'inconsistent with the law.'
The analysis was requested by Representative Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who said in a Jan. 4 letter to President Bush that she believed the briefings should be open to all the members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
Instead, the briefings have been limited to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and of the Intelligence Committees, the so-called Gang of Eight."
Purple Heartbreakers - New York Times: "in recent years extremist Republican operatives have inverted a longstanding principle: that our combat veterans be accorded a place of honor in political circles. This trend began with the ugly insinuations leveled at Senator John McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries and continued with the slurs against Senators Max Cleland and John Kerry, and now Mr. Murtha.
Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate effect on its battlefield of choice. The casting of suspicion and doubt about the actions of veterans who have run against President Bush or opposed his policies has been a constant theme of his career. This pattern of denigrating the service of those with whom they disagree risks cheapening the public's appreciation of what it means to serve, and in the long term may hurt the Republicans themselves.
Not unlike the Clinton 'triangulation' strategy, the approach has been to attack an opponent's greatest perceived strength in order to diminish his overall credibility. To no one's surprise, surrogates carry out the attacks, leaving President Bush and other Republican leaders to benefit from the results while publicly distancing themselves from the actual remarks.
During the 2000 primary season, John McCain's life-defining experiences as a prisoner of"
Pakistan Strike: No Remorse
"The airstrike in Pakistan reaffirms how our behavior is plummeting in the direction of the evil we proclaim to fight. At home, we are appalled by drive-by shootings that take out innocent children. Abroad, the fly-by airstrike is the source of no remorse, with dead children and mothers taken very lightly."
Pakistan Strike: No Remorse
"The airstrike in Pakistan reaffirms how our behavior is plummeting in the direction of the evil we proclaim to fight. At home, we are appalled by drive-by shootings that take out innocent children. Abroad, the fly-by airstrike is the source of no remorse, with dead children and mothers taken very lightly."
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Official US agency paints dire picture of 'out-of-control' Iraq
"An official assessment drawn up by the US foreign aid agency depicts the security situation in Iraq as dire, amounting to a 'social breakdown' in which criminals have 'almost free rein'.
The 'conflict assessment' is an attachment to an invitation to contractors to bid on a project rehabilitating Iraqi cities published earlier this month by the US Agency for International Development (USAid).
The picture it paints is not only darker than the optimistic accounts from the White House and the Pentagon, it also gives a more complex profile of the insurgency than the straightforward 'rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists' described by George Bush."
Gore launches bruising attack on Bush over wiretapping
"'A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government,' he said.
...
In yesterday's speech, Mr Gore also called for an independent counsel to investigate the secret wiretap programme. He ranked the operation with other controversial decisions by the administration in the war on terror, including its holding of "enemy combatants" indefinitely without trial, and its justification of harsh interrogation techniques.
"The disrespect embodied in these apparent mass violations of the law is part of a larger pattern of seeming indifference to the constitution that is deeply troubling to millions of Americans in both political parties," he said.
The President Needs to Denounce the Swift-Boating of Murtha... Now!
"Bush has called Murtha 'a fine man, a good man, who served his country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a United states Congressman.'
So what's the president's excuse for remaining silent this time?"
Early Warning by William M. Arkin - washingtonpost.com
"Since at least the middle of 2004, U.S. long-range bombers and submarines have been on alert to carry out an attack on weapons of mass destruction targets that could potentially threaten the United States. At Strategic Command (STRATCOM) in Omaha, the global strike plan has been written and refined. The choreography for bomber and cruise missile attacks has been arranged. Actual targets have been selected, and WMD activity is monitored, resulting in constant revisions of the choreography.
... Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directed the military in 2002 to create the capability to undertake "unwarned strikes" in crisis situations.
... Under global strike, the objective wouldn't be to "disarm" Iran: It would be to stop it."
Who is responsible for Abu Ghraib?
"The real crime of the wars since 9/11 is that when it comes to any kind of 'sensitive' -- read controversial -- actions and policies, there are no explicit written orders. Without rules, without oversight, without accountability, with such a high octane and high pressured overblown -- almost manic -- enterprise, it is no wonder that many of the participants think that they are saving the world and thereby take liberties in their day-to-day efforts."
Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends - New York Times
"President Bush has characterized the eavesdropping program as a 'vital tool' against terrorism; Vice President Dick Cheney has said it has saved 'thousands of lives.'
But the results of the program look very different to some officials charged with tracking terrorism in the United States. More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who knew of the secret program and how it played out at the F.B.I., said the torrent of tips led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.
'We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed,' said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. 'After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration.'"
Iraq War to Cost over $1 trillion, conservatively
"the likely cost of the war in Iraq.... will be much higher than previously reckoned — between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, depending primarily on how much longer our troops stay."
Gore: Bush 'Repeatedly and Persistently' Broke the Law
"'What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently,' the Democrat maintained...
He said the spying program must be considered along with other administration actions as a constitutional power grab by the president. Gore cited imprisoning American citizens without charges in terrorism cases, mistreatment of prisoners - including torture - and seizure of individuals in foreign countries and delivering them to autocratic regimes 'infamous for the cruelty of their techniques.'
Gore didn't only criticize government officials. Referring to news reports that private telecommunications companies have provided the Bush administration with access to private information on Americans, Gore said any company that did so should immediately end its complicity in the program."
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Dubya Makes His War Pitch
"We do know, from the memoirs of former aides, congressional inquiries and leaked British documents, that Iraq was high on Bush's agenda as soon after he took office on Jan. 20, 2001. But the reasons remain mysterious.
Bush's new emphasis is on 'winning' the war and 'complete victory' is questionable and suggests that he has a military triumph in mind. That's not going to happen in Iraq, where U.S. military leaders repeatedly stress that a political solution is the key to ending the conflict there. Part of the solution should be the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Bush also claims to welcome next month's congressional hearings on his explosive order to eavesdrop on Americans without court approval. Those hearings will be 'good for democracy,' the president insists.
What would really be good for democracy is for the American people to know what the president is up to -- and why."
The Imperial Presidency at Work
"Mr. Bush, however, seems to see no limit to his imperial presidency. First, he issued a constitutionally ludicrous 'signing statement' on the McCain bill. The message: Whatever Congress intended the law to say, he intended to ignore it on the pretext the commander in chief is above the law. That twisted reasoning is what led to the legalized torture policies, not to mention the domestic spying program.
Then Mr. Bush went after the judiciary, scrapping the Levin-Graham bargain. The solicitor general informed the Supreme Court last week that it no longer had jurisdiction over detainee cases.
... Both of the offensive theories at work here - that a president's intent in signing a bill trumps the intent of Congress in writing it, and that a president can claim power without restriction or supervision by the courts or Congress - are pet theories of Judge Samuel Alito, the man Mr. Bush chose to tilt the Supreme Court to the right."
Proof Bush Deceived America
"Risen’s book also confirms the most damning element of the British Cabinet Office memos popularly called the “Downing Street memos;” namely, that “the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.” The result is that it is no longer credible to maintain that the failures in the Iraqi intelligence were the product of a broken intelligence community. The Bush administration deliberately fabricated the case against Iraq, lying to Congress and the American people along the way.
"
Thursday, January 12, 2006
A do-nothing way of saving us all
"Australia and the US have placed all their confidence in the goodwill of big business and industry to wean themselves off cheap but polluting fossil fuel energy such as coal."
