starzero

the road forward

2009-02-25T07:22:00.001-06:00

i'm not sure about this stimulus. obama has been quick to disappoint. he's a consensus builder when we need a leader. right or wrong, he needs to take the reins and steer this country somewhere. he needs to stop trying to sell his agenda and make things happen.

republican deception continues

2008-09-04T11:40:00.001-05:00

factcheck reviews some new (and old) republican claims:

palin not all that

misleading at the rnc

re-educate the elderly

2008-08-20T13:47:00.001-05:00

to prevent protest, despite promising to allow it in designated areas, china has sentenced two elderly women to a year each in a labor camp for "re-education." not only is the chinese government a liar, it's cruel too.

wild horses

2008-07-02T13:50:00.001-05:00

your government, bush especially, is slaughtering wild mustangs. you should be outraged.

not enough people even know wild mustangs still exist.

ask your representatives to stop this. please.

mugabe mugger

2008-06-05T09:47:00.002-05:00

open threats against america in zimbabwe. i wonder whether this is yet provocation for war. bush would be circumspect, you'd think, but the un would strongly condemn any sort of roughing up, or especially murder, of diplomatic personnel. too bad america no longer holds any moral high ground. that goes far when you can back it up.

it's about direction.

2008-04-01T11:26:00.002-05:00

does the libertarian party have a chance with mike gravel as their candidate? any more of a chance than one of their other possible candidates? can a third-party president work effectively with a congress divided between two other parties? can anyone really change anything in america?

politics as usual IV (screw corruption, show us your tits)

2008-02-22T11:27:00.000-06:00

is it possible that this lobbyist issue might shake the mccain campaign? i doubt it's substantial enough, or arrived early enough, to derail his nomination campaign, but this is certainly fuel for a presidential opponent. how mccain handles this now is crucial for his political future. it would be crazy if it shook his bid so deeply he lost the nomination to huckabee (or somehow romney got back into the campaign--would that be a first?). i don't see huckabee beating either democrat, so alienating is he, but this could be an issue which, if the democrats spin it properly, could seriously hamper mccain's campaign.

that said, supporters will overlook relatively minor improprieties, such as this appears to be, especially when they're petty corruption issues: we're cynical about money scandals. it's amazing to me that we'll jump on a president for having an affair (merely an oral sex affair, no less), but we won't bat an eyelash when our representatives get caught promoting the interests of political donors. i'd rather bill get blow jobs than bush fuck the people of new orleans, but that's america for you: run by incompetents.

regarding that last remark, keep in mind that we're technically a country of the people, for the people, by the people. yes, the electorate is a bunch of incompetents. why else would they vote gwbuttfucker into office? they got what they deserved. everyone who voted for him, or did not vote at all, deserves the economic, cultural, scientific, environmental, and social anal rape bush dealt to them. the rest of us just got screwed.

big brother coming on

2008-02-13T10:59:00.001-06:00

everyone in congress, and the white house, should be put on trial for allowing the united states to become a police state. not only are they spying on us, but they're letting international corporations spy on us.

if your senators voted for this bill, you have to vote against them, whatever else they've done. your freedom is more important than anything else in the world.

go watch persepolis if you think freedom doesn't matter.

get your facts straight

2008-02-07T10:43:00.001-06:00

hillary is still spreading lies about obama. if she's so eager to lie about her opposition, what will stop her from lying to us? isn't that what bush and his cronies have been doing these past 8 years?

people should spend more time visiting factcheck.org to understand who is distoring what. those people should include me.

watch your back

2007-11-19T16:18:00.001-06:00

how the american military abridges freedom of the press and mocks due process.

if they can do it in iraq, it's not much of a step for them to do it here. bush and congress have laid the groundwork for this sort of treatment domestically. your rights are slowly being stripped away. stop them before it's too late.

dumb as paint

2007-11-14T07:34:00.000-06:00

this is fucking compassionate conservatism?

what gall bush has in claiming the democrats are fiscally irresponsible. when the republicans controlled congress pork barrel spending ballooned 1000% and yet he vetoed nothing. the federal government built a bridge to nowhere in alaska, and he didn't care. only when the other party sends him spending bills does he make a fuss about fiscal responsibility. this is the guy who gave us big-government conservatism, which basically means he enlarged government to exert more control over you (especially your morality). that he would claim to be responsible is a ridiculous lie.

unfortunately, because of republican spending cuts on education, the american public is too stupid to notice.

the air we drink, the water we breathe.

2007-11-07T10:48:00.001-06:00

an important spending bill on water projects should have the votes to override gwbutthead's veto. bush claims to have vetoed it because it was too expensive. this is the same guy who spent six years creating the largest budget deficit in american history. he oversaw the largest expansion of the federal government in something like 50 years. he didn't even veto anything until the democrats took power in congress. do we need more proof that our president is a liar and a hypocrite, and the worst american president ever? history won't be kind to his failure in iraq or his failures at home. a hundred years from now, when they're writing the history of american decline, gwbuttfucker will be seen as the start of the fall. after nearly eight years of progress and stability, he has divided the nation, thrown it into two quagmire wars, and stripped citizens of their civil rights.

but don't think i let the democrats off the hook. the divisions and polarisations endemic in politics will further drive this once-great nation into the ground. there will come a day, hopefully not in your lifetime but we'll see, when right-thinking americans will be embarassed to be associated with this country and the corrupt political system that abuses it.

step one: re-align districts in a non-partisan way--no more gerrymandering.

step two: restrict lobbying and campaign financing as much as constitutionally viable.

step three: educate the populace. an educated citizenry makes clinging to power more difficult, but makes for a stronger nation. this should happen at all levels, and include funding for the arts, both participation in and appreciation of.

step four: stop election fraud.

step five: for government to regain the peoples' trust and faith, it has to be honest and well-run. politicians have to work for the people in their constituencies and also nationally. they have to limit pork and special interests. they have to stop cheating, lying, taking bribes, and skirting issues. they have to stop pandering to the people and do what is right for them. this has to happen at all levels of government, from the lowest village council to the federal congress, president, and supreme court justices.

step six: work together.

step seven: guarantee a non-political bureaucracy, with people appointed based on merit, not as favors to friends and supporters. fema, i'm looking at you.

i don't think anyone's listening.

congressional democrats are selling you out

2007-09-20T07:38:00.001-05:00

"They are trying to completely immunize this [the surveillance program] from any kind of judicial review,” added Cohn. “I find it a little shocking that Congress would participate in the covering up of what has been going on."

selfish humanity will die

2007-06-14T09:34:00.001-05:00

my theory of globalisation is that it evens the playing field for the poor, though the wealthy suffer. outsourcing (or offshoring if it leaves the country) is part of globalisation. what many americans forget is that for 95% of us, being "poor" in america is nothing like being poor in india. you still have ways to get food and live somewhere. you're not living in an overcrowded city with dirt streets, a ineffective sewer system, and a rampaging monkey problem. "sending" jobs to india lifts them above that level, and gives their country the opportunity, through higher tax revenues, to improve the lot of all indians (whether that actually happens depends on their politicians, not ours).

yes, this sucks for us, and it's easy for me to say because i have a job (they tried to offshore us but the process proved uneconomical), but it is the way of the future. cross-border, cross-cultural co-operation will bring the world closer together. those extremists battling to make their fundamentalist views dominant are fighting progress, are fighting humanity, are fighting the future. the world will come together. people will unite. history will continue. they can't stop the internet, they can't stop globalisation, they can't stop progress.

what we should be doing isn't fighting offshoring and outsourcing. we should be fighting borders. we should be fighting nations. nafta is a good thing if the boundaries between canada and mexico fall and we become more integrated. you can say the poor will drag down the rich, but the rich will in turn lift the poor. are we so selfish that we'll let africa starve just so we can keep our tedious, dull jobs? are we so selfish that we'll deport illegal immigrants just because they're taking jobs the rest of us don't want to do?

i am proud to be american because it is closest to my ideal that i have found. it is not ideal, and the practice of america is tarnishing the concept, but it's still better than what's around. i'll admit it's not complete. america is not the leader it once was, and the world is not even remotely united enough to do what it needs in order for mankind to survive. too often people focus on the individual and not enough on the species. we can be free even while we strive together for a greater common goal. the problem is, we're all too selfish to unite. we want to be individuals, we want to be non-conformists. we want to be free, but we don't want to make the sacrifices required to maintain that. thus, humanity will die out because it is too selfish to unite behind the social and scientific endeavors necessary to progress beyond earth. we are unwilling to transcend ourselves, and this is our doom.

your bourgeois ideals keep you down

2007-06-13T09:48:00.000-05:00

you want to get immigrants out of this country? you want to keep people from streaming through our borders? give them a reason not to be here.

two choices:

a) make america such a terrible place to live that no one would want to come here.

b) make their home countries such great places that they don't want to leave.

remember, racism is the rich man's solution to class warfare: turn the poor against each other and they won't be able to unite to bring you down.

entertainment exists to control you. the trivial things you think you need, the harder it is for you to fight the important battles. if you want to change the world, you have to be selfish enough (and "irresponsible" enough) to let everyone and everything fuck themselves while you go off to fight. if you fail, you'll be dead and it won't matter. if you succeed, the world will be different--you won't be going back to what you had before anyway.

america is failing

2007-05-31T14:39:00.001-05:00

i link for you an article summarizing why al gore thinks america is going to hell (my description, not his).

fortunately, some people are checking facts for you. if only americans cared. we'd rather vote for american idol than for our political leaders, even though idol just prances around and those leaders get us killed.

i'm not going to chase that train, because i can't persuade the ignorant people to stop helping the kakistocracy perpetuate incompetence in government by not voting.

find another way

2007-05-24T08:17:00.001-05:00

high gas prices isn't all exxonmobil's fault.

the truth is, corn ethanol is less efficient than gasoline, oil refineries are working less than optimal capacity, and global demand for petroleum (i.e. in china) is rising. you want to lower prices? don't blame the gas station for price gouging. instead, stop buying oil-based plastics (e.g. ipods, cell phones, etc.) and start walking.

the world hates hypocrites

2007-05-23T07:35:00.001-05:00

how can the united states be concerned with nuclear weapons in iran if they're not going to maintain verifiable nuclear treaties with other nuclear powers?

i've just heart a bbc interview with john bolton, the former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. the bbc approach to interviews is to ask difficult questions, to push their interviewees and to play devil's advocate. bolton felt pressured and retaliated by insulting his interviewer. first he called him an "extreme left-winger", meant as an insult, and then when the interviewer explained he held no views when interviewing people, bolton called him "empty-headed". this man represented the united states on the world stage at the united nations. gee, i wonder why congress wouldn't approve his appointment. i wonder why he's no longer our u.n. ambassador.

sending us all to hell

2007-05-21T14:26:00.000-05:00

george bush is actively fighting efforts to combat global warming.

as if anyone reads this anyway

2007-05-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

The weekly update from Media Matters for America

Lawlessness ... and fecklessness
Yesterday, Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald wrote:
The Washington Post Editorial page has been one of the most establishment-defending organs over the last six years, repeatedly minimizing or dismissing criticisms of the Bush administration and reserving its vigor primarily for attacking Bush critics (and for supporting the Iraq war). That's what makes its Editorial this morning regarding James Comey's testimony -- entitled "The Gonzales Coverup" -- so striking, and potentially indicative of a compelled acknowledgement by the Beltway class of how serious the NSA [National Security Agency] scandal is and how serious it has been all along.
[...]
[Washington Post editorial page editor Fred] Hiatt-like protests are welcome (even if inexcusably belated), but they must be accompanied by genuine and relentless demands for follow-up and accountability otherwise they will amount to nothing more than inconsequential rhetoric. The Attorney General lied continuously, and the administration concealed pervasive criminality at the highest levels of our government. Even Fred Hiatt says so. So now what?
As we have long noted, it is the "So now what?" that is the problem.
For all the cheerleading the Post's editorial page has done for various Bush administration blunders, it has also denounced -- in sometimes blistering and blunt language -- the administration's lawlessness.
Lawlessness: that's how the Post editorial board described the Bush administration in Wednesday's editorial about Comey's testimony -- "Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source."
And that's the way the Post has described the Bush administration several times in the past.
On March 11, the paper described as a "lawless practice" the FBI's use of "exigent letters" to assure telephone companies that federal investigators needed access of phone records due to "an emergency situation and that subpoenas or national security letters would follow," though the "exigent letters" were in fact often used when there was no urgency and no subpoenas followed.
On September 7, 2006, the Post ran an editorial headlined "Ending the Lawlessness; President Bush wants congressional action on detainees. That's good -- as long as he doesn't get the bill he wants."
On June 20, 2006, the Post editorialized that, despite passage of "the McCain amendment, which prohibits 'cruel, inhuman, or degrading' treatment of all prisoners in U.S. custody ... the administration has not accepted that ban as the last word. It still has not renounced the right to subject some detainees to practices such as 'waterboarding,' or simulated drowning, even though they violate the law. It has yet to adopt clear standards governing the interrogation and treatment of foreign prisoners, or return to full compliance with such treaties as the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture. Until this situation changes, there will be more of the lawlessness and simple confusion that have led to hundreds of cases of abuse, and dozens of homicides, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere."
On June 18, 2006, a Post editorial declared "the Bush administration's lawless practices have so discredited it that it has lost support even for legitimate anti-terrorist measures."
On March 23, 2006, a Post editorial described the Bush administration's efforts to implement an EPA policy that the District of Columbia Circuit Court had "already rejected" as "simply lawless."
On December 16, 2005, the Post wrote "Thanks to a belated White House retreat, Congress is on the verge of taking an important step toward curtailing the systematic human rights violations committed by the Bush administration in its handling of foreign prisoners. President Bush said yesterday that he would agree to an amendment by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) prohibiting "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of all prisoners held by the United States. [...] Whether Mr. Bush will heed the message, or the new legal standard, unfortunately remains an open question. [...] [P]assage of Mr. McCain's amendment will not end waterboarding or curtail the administration's policy of abuse unless there is aggressive follow-up by Congress. There must be an independent check on the administration's legal interpretations. [...] In short, restoring the rule of law over an administration that deliberately chose lawlessness in its treatment of detainees may be an arduous process."
A November 3, 2005, Post editorial denounced "the discredit the United States has earned for its lawless treatment of foreign prisoners" and noted "President Bush has authorized interrogators to subject these men to 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment that is illegal in the United States and that is banned by a treaty ratified by the Senate. The governments that allow the CIA prisons on their territory violate this international law, if not their own laws. This shameful situation is the direct result of Mr. Bush's decision in February 2002 to set aside the Geneva Conventions as well as standing U.S. regulations for the handling of detainees."
On July 3, 2005, the Post editorialized that the Bush administration's seizure and torture of a "radical Egyptian cleric" constituted "lawless behavior."
Washington Post columnists have also described the administration as "lawless" several times. David Ignatius, for example, described the NSA's wiretapping operation as a "lawless approach" in a December 28, 2005, column that was largely supportive of the program. And David Broder memorably described Bush as "lawless and reckless" in a September 21, 2006, column that noted Bush "started a war he cannot finish, drove the government into debt and repeatedly defied the Constitution."
The editorial board of The Washington Post has been moved to describe the Bush administration as "lawless" at least nine times. Its columnists have done likewise, and its reporters have detailed some of that lawlessness.
But does The Washington Post actually care that the executive branch has engaged in years of lawlessness -- and lawlessness about important things like torture and spying on Americans?
It is difficult to conclude that the Post does care. Individual reporters may, of course, but institutionally, the Post seems content to occasionally note the administration's lawlessness and stonewalling, then move on.
The Post editorial board's reluctance to deal with the questions raised by its own statements -- what should the nation do about the president's lawlessness? -- and apparent lack of long-term (or even medium-term) memory are particularly breathtaking.
Most people, after concluding for the ninth time, that the executive branch is behaving in a "lawless" way, would begin to wonder what steps -- special counsel? congressional censure? impeachment hearings for Gonzales? for Bush? -- could be taken to force the administration to begin obeying the law.
Most people, after noting again and again and again that the administration is stonewalling and covering up legitimate inquiries into its actions, would realize that expecting the administration to be forthcoming is a fool's errand, and would begin searching for ways to compel the disclosure that isn't coming voluntarily.
But not the Washington Post editorial board. The Washington Post editorial board steadfastly refuses to call for so much as a special counsel to investigate what it describes as lawlessness. (The newspaper, as we have often noted, called for such an investigation of President and Mrs. Clinton when there was, in the Post's words, "no credible charge" that they had done anything wrong.)
To be sure, the Post stamps its feet and shakes its fist with the best of them. And when it is done, rather than keeping the pressure on; rather than using its influence to press for an investigation that might actually yield the answers -- and changes in behavior -- the Post claims to seek, the paper simply moves on. And a few months later, some other situation pops up that causes the Post editorial writers to sternly denounce the cover-ups and lawlessness. (See here and here for our previous explanations of this pattern.)
Not that the Post's editorial board is alone in failing to devote sufficient attention to the administration's lawlessness. The paper's reporters and editors have some soul-searching to do as well.
Roughly a month after the initial disclosure of the Bush administration's domestic spying operation, we examined the enormous disparity between the resources the Post and The New York Times had apparently devoted to the spying story and the resources they dedicated to the Monica Lewinsky story in 1998:
All told, on January 22, 1998 [the day after the first Lewinsky story in the Post], the Times and the Post ran 19 articles (five on the front page) dealing with the Clinton investigation, totaling more than 20,000 words and reflecting the words of at least 28 reporters -- plus the editorial boards of both newspapers.
In contrast, on December 17 [the day after initial disclosure of the spying operation], the Times and the Post combined to run five articles about the NSA spying operation, involving 12 reporters and consisting of 6,303 words.
On February 25, 1998, 35 days after the story first broke, the Post ran four articles and an editorial about the Clinton investigation, totaling 5,046 words, involving 11 reporters, and the paper's editorial board. The Times ran four articles, two opinion columns, and an editorial -- seven pieces in all, totaling 5,852 words and involving at least six reporters and columnists, in addition to its editorial board. The papers combined for 12 articles, columns, and editorials, involving 17 reporters and columnists, as well as both editorial boards.
On January 20, 35 days after the NSA story first broke, the Times ran one 1,324-word article about the NSA operation written by two reporters. The Post ran one 945-word article written by one reporter. Combined: two articles, three reporters, 2,269 words.
We could go on and on with comparisons like these, and bring in other news organizations, but it should be clear by now that the nation's leading news organizations haven't given the NSA spying story anywhere near the coverage they gave the Clinton-Lewinsky matter. And, based on available evidence, they haven't dedicated nearly the resources to pursuing the NSA story that they dedicated to the Lewinsky story.
So, some questions for the Times, and the Post, and ABC, and CBS, and NBC, and CNN, and Time, and Newsweek, and other leading news organizations:
1) How many reporters, editors, and researchers did you assign to the Lewinsky story when it broke? How many remained assigned to that story one month later?
2) How many reporters, editors, and researchers did you assign to the NSA story when it broke? How many remained assigned to that story one month later?
3) How do you explain the disparity?
We never got formal responses to those questions, but the answers were obvious. Despite concluding that the Bush administration spent years engaging in lawless activities aimed at the American people, the nation's news media have dedicated significantly less resources to pursuing the story than they did the Lewinsky matter. Probably less than they devoted to the OJ Simpson trial, for that matter.
It's simple, really: A news organization that believes the president is acting in a "lawless" way in ordering things like torture and "systematic human rights violations" and spying on Americans but does not dedicate overwhelming resources to pursuing every possible aspect of the story is failing its readers, and failing its profession.
But at least the Post has covered James Comey's testimony. ABC and CBS just can't be bothered to do so. (CBS did manage to find time to report that the soon-to-be-published private diaries of Ronald Reagan show that he "did not want war with the Soviet Union," and that he "adored" his wife, but "hate[d] Mondays.")
And none of the three broadcast networks quoted President Bush's refusal to answer a question about whether he sent Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales on a possibly illegal and certainly inappropriate trip to John Ashcroft's hospital room. Nor did The Washington Post (though the paper mentioned it in an editorial) or USA Today or the Chicago Tribune or the Los Angeles Times or countless other news organizations.
Journalism may be the first draft of history, but that does not mean its practitioners are immune from history's judgment. Those who fail to do everything they can to educate the public about presidential lawlessness relating to torture and domestic spying will find that judgment can be harsh.
But can we wait that long? Or will it then be too late to undo the damage done by a lawless and torture-happy administration (inadvertently aided and abetted by an insufficiently vigorous press corps) to the ideals and values that distinguish us from the enemy we claim to oppose?

re-write the constitution (our politicians aren't smart enough to do it)

2007-04-23T10:15:00.001-05:00

an interesting view of government and how to fix it that i hope one day to find time to read.

just a thought

2007-03-30T10:08:00.001-05:00

maybe iran took those british sailors to drive up the price of oil. they know it's possible something might happen to hinder their oil production and/or oil exports, so they're trying to save up as much money as they can now before that happens.

head-to-head

2007-03-21T07:22:00.000-05:00

political brinkmanship is about to blow up. gwbastard is going head-to-head with congress. he seems rather concerned about this sudden congressional oversight the republicans were too scared or corrupt to display. bush will fight tooth and nail any attempt to keep tabs on his administration, and hopefully the democrats will fight too. i don't care about what they say, about what fingers they point, i just want someone to keep the president accountable to the nation. right now he is not, but maybe the democrats can impress on him, on the republicans, and the rest of us as citizens and voters, that congressional oversight is necessary for a properly functioning united states government. i don't expect bush to back down or pull back the sniveling hypocrisy of his rhetoric, but if the democrats press him we're going to have one hell of another two years.

"a platoon of lesbians"

2007-02-08T12:58:00.000-06:00

Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) yesterday urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to consider hiring military linguists discharged under the federal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service members. During hearings on the 2008 State Department budget, Ackerman pressed Secretary Rice to address the government's foreign language deficit by employing discharged lesbian and gay linguists with training in Arabic and Farsi. Secretary Rice responded that she "certainly will look at what we are doing right now," when asked by Ackerman if the proposal was realistic.

"[I]t seems that the military has gone around and fired a whole bunch of people who speak foreign languages -- Farsi and Arabic, etc.," Ackerman said. "For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are [of] terrorists, but they're very brave with the terrorists," he continued. "If the terrorists ever got hold of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad," Ackerman said.

"Considering the critical shortage of linguists in the armed forces, a platoon of Arabic-speaking lesbians may be just what the military needs," said Sharon Alexander, deputy director of policy for SLDN. "In fact, faced with the shortage of language experts, the military would do well to consider Congressman Ackerman's point. We cannot afford to lose critical personnel because of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' There are many brave gay men and lesbians who report for duty every day, and their contributions are immeasurably important to our national security."

laws of government cannot override the laws of economics

2007-01-19T11:39:00.000-06:00

if we stopped growing crops in the desert, e.g. in california, the economy--locally, nationally, globally. we'd use less water out there, diverting it from over-used rivers to an inefficient irrigation system. we wouldn't have the same demand for labor as we do now--labor which in this case is generally fulfilled by illegal immigrants. prices for those crops would go up, not just in american but globally.

the ramifications of all this balloon outwards unimaginably, really beyond our ability to understand. we don't know what all would happen, though we can guess. if prices went up, especially if trade barriers came down, then people elsewhere in the world would make more money. if governments didn't regulate these markets the growing would shift to more efficient places, as would labor. this has its own risks, since a place like brazil might find it profitable to grow more corn or sugar for ethanol--much more profitable than it is to let the amazon rainforests alone. how do we balance this deforestation? does brazil impose laws to cut back or even halt it? do other places around the world plant their own forests to make up for what has been lost? take into account that when the trees go down they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. if you're paying for trees to be planted every time you fly, in order to offset your impact on the environment generated by the horrible inefficiency and pollution from the airplane, and they burn down, then you've failed completely--you may even have made things work.

i digress, and this rant and ramble has plenty of room to careen all over the place, but i have to wrap up my work and go home. i want your thoughts about this. i want to discuss. please feel free to link to this entry and give me your thoughts on it. i'm happy to link back and reply. i'm happy to carry on a debate and figure out where we stand. i don't have hard facts--i'm no economist--but i have my own ideas about how the world could be run. i want to know yours.

america in freefall

2007-01-05T09:39:00.000-06:00

will congress continue to sit idly by while the president illegally expands his power or will they finally move to impeach the bastard for his illegal and unconstitutional abuse of power?

even if you feel impeachment is too far, certainly you can't believe that this expanded invasion of privacy (any threat of invasion of anyone's privacy is an actual invasion of your privacy) is a good thing. certainly you can't believe that the president should be able to give himself new powers when signing a bill into law, especially when that bill does not give him such powers.

it's like this congress has to make laws that specifically lay out what the president can and cannot do, and then add statements that require him to follow the law as written, and not modify it with a "signing statement". it's incredible how he has given himself new and expanded powers just by adding a few words to his signature. the republicans made no move to curtail or criticise this. will a democrat majority have the spine, the principles, the fucking decency to do what is right?

i doubt it.

still angry?

2006-11-08T11:25:00.000-06:00

a) our choices are all poor ones, so of course we're going to complain.

b) we do not live in a democracy. we live in a representative democracy, or a republic. democracy, on this scale, is nearly impossible. furthermore, democracy is mob rule. it is truly majority rules. thus, if 51% of voters wanted everyone to wear clown pants, then everyone would have to wear clown pants. if your religion prohibited you from wearing clown pants, or if you just simply didn't feel like wearing clown pants, too bad, the majority has spoken.

what, you don't want to have an abortion? that's too bad, because the majority just decided that no one under twenty can have children, so if they get pregnant they have to abort it.

in america we have a constitution that protects certain rights and freedoms, and in the process protects minorities against the whims of the majority. it protects people with different viewpoints, it protects people from unreasonable search and seizure, it establishes a system by which people vote democratically for representatives, and have their vote diluted by an electoral college for president, which in theory is a masterful arrangement of checks and balances. don't blame our form of government for the corruption rampant in the present system. don't blame the constitution for the failure of people to respect it. the system may be broken, but that is a political problem, not the fault of the founding fathers.

as i was saying last night, people are concerned about their own personal problems, their own personal space, and not concerned enough with the public good. and the people who are concerned about the public good are determined to force their views on others. so those of us who want to be left alone aren't willing to push that stance on others, while those of us who want to control everyone else are, well, trying to control everyone else. whose fault is it gwbutthead is president? yours. mine. it is the fault of everyone who voted for him. it is the fault of everyone who didn't vote but could have voted against him. it is the fault of everyone who doesn't stand up and speak out, who doesn't fight oppression, who doesn't do anything about the current state of affairs in our country. why is america collapsing? why is it falling? because no one reads history and no one does anything about it. read about the fall of the roman empire. see the parallels between that and our present situation. this fall can be avoided, america can recover, but not if ignorant people vote and run the country, and not if intelligent people are too cynical and apathetic to do anything about it. you have to believe in the system for it to work. you have to approach your idealism naively, or you'll never be able to pursue it to its necessary end. if you can't do this, you will forever be repressed. you will forever be a failure.

just as i am.

you will be shot

2006-11-01T09:07:00.000-06:00

WILL THIS ELECTION BRING A BRIGHTER DAY OR THE END OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

SUPPORT THE PEACE TEAM CANDIDATES NOW: http://www.peaceteam.net

If there were ever a more urgent reason to replace each and every member of Congress virtually without exception, one need only look at the breathtaking new martial law powers granted to the Bush administration this month. It has always been a sacred tenet of our Democracy that the U.S. military should not be deployed AGAINST American citizens. But literally in the dead of night and almost without comment, an amendment to the Insurrection Act was slipped into the just passed Defense Authorization bill stating, and get this:

"the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when . . . the President determines that domestic violence has occurred"

So let's just say for example that the electronic election results in 8 days are so far out of line with pre-election and exit polling data so as to defy credulity. And let's just say that people organized massive peaceful protests of the theft of their elections. And let's just say that the Bush administration provoked "police" riots, or even had their own provocateurs commit violent acts so as to justify a military crackdown. Voila . . . now you have American soldiers shooting at otherwise peaceful political protesters. And you thought Kent State was a party!

And if you don't think that could ever happen, then why the hell have they pushed for such changes, which are now the law of the land?

The whole concept of the president as an unaccountable determiner, or "decider", insulated from any kind of oversight by Congress or the Courts has been the hallmark of the Cheney/Bush executive coup, which just keeps steamrollering along while our presumptive protectors in Congress are asleep at the switch, or cowering in their cloakrooms.

Shame on each and every member of Congress who allowed this to happen with hardly as much as peep or a whimper. Shame on them for their lack of diligence and lack of oversight. Shame, shame, shame on Democrats as well as Republicans. Are there any, any at all worth keeping, who will actually fight for the people and their rights? The list of keepers must now be short indeed.

rush limbaugh is a big fat asshole

2006-10-25T07:23:00.000-05:00

in case you hadn't already realized this: rush limbaugh has no shame.

of course, i think all republicans are like this.

prove me wrong.

the republicans are cheating on you

2006-10-24T10:50:00.000-05:00

the republicans are going to fix the next election. they've already arranged it to make cheating easier, and easier to hide the cheating. anything that looks like cheating they can blame on other people, on outsiders intent on disrupting the system. at the same time, delays and confusion will cause lines and distractions, which will reduce the number of overall voters. republicans hope this means only the dedicated vote, and that conservative voters are more dedicated than the rest of us.

don't believe me? after the 2000 election the republicans passed laws to make the voting process "more accurate", though the result has been simply and untested system going into crucial mid-term elections. if the democrats can pull out enough victories they can give our nation much needed congressional oversight of the executive branch. maybe even bring some of the criminals running our government to justice. though without a clear majority i doubt it.

the government still spies illegally

2006-10-18T11:46:00.000-05:00

an update from my senator:

Current law permits the wiretapping of communications made by American citizens living within the United States only according to the procedures set forth in the federal criminal wiretap statute and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). To protect against abuses by the Executive branch, the government must seek a warrant from a special FISA court in order to conduct electronic surveillance of communications between American citizens and persons outside of the country.

The NSA did not obtain approval from the FISA court or from any other court before initiating its domestic wiretapping program. Few members of Congress were briefed about the wiretap program until its existence was revealed by the media, and those members were sworn to secrecy. The Administration has also shut down its own internal Department of Justice investigation of the NSA program.

Several bills have been introduced in the Senate that would essentially provide blanket legal authorization for the NSA's surveillance of American citizens. The Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006 (S. 2455/S. 3874), introduced by Senator Mike DeWine, would simply authorize the President's surveillance program as it exists today. The National Security Surveillance Act of 2006 (S. 2453/S. 3876), introduced by Senator Arlen Specter, would permit the Administration to voluntarily submit the entire NSA program to the FISA court for a review of its constitutionality, and would allow the Administration to appeal a ruling of unconstitutionality while denying any appeals of rulings of constitutionality.

I voted against these bills when they were considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2006. The bills simply do not provide meaningful oversight of the Executive Branch to ensure that surveillance powers are not misused against American citizens. Every member of Congress wants to monitor communications among suspected terrorists, but this can be done in a way that ensures that the Executive Branch does not misuse its surveillance authority against American citizens. Further, I do not believe the Senate should pass legislation that gives the Administration blanket authorization for these surveillance programs when most Senators do not even know the programs' operational details.

Due to the widespread resistance to the Administration's warrantless surveillance programs, the full Senate did not vote on these bills before the Senate adjourned for the election season. When the Senate reconvenes, I will continue to work to ensure that any government surveillance of American citizens is conducted in a manner consistent with our civil liberties and the rule of law as well as our security needs.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

vote!

2006-10-02T09:56:00.000-05:00

i got an email today saying the deadline for voter registration in illinois is 10/10. they gave me a link to make it easy.

you should register. you should vote. i'm not going to twist your arm, but this is something important to me. we're only a democracy if people vote, if people make the effort to contribute to how their country is run. otherwise we might as well let bush, or someone like him, be a dictator and concede all decisions to him. we should just shut up and suffer whatever decisions the government makes for us. if this means they control every aspect our our lives, from what we can put in and take out of our bodies, then so be it. if we won't make our voice heard, if we won't contribute, then we deserve to be governed poorly. we have the opportunity to make a difference (even if it doesn't seem like we can) and to deny it or avoid it is to throw away our freedom.

a bitter taste in my mouth

2006-09-19T08:38:00.000-05:00

when america sends someone to another country to be tortured, then america is complicit in that torture.

as an american, in this nation of government for, of, and by the people, you are complicit in this torture. you are to blame.

the politics of fear

2006-09-06T14:33:00.000-05:00

bush acknowledges the existence of heretofore secret cia prisons.

i'm not sure what to say just yet. i'm outraged, definitely, but i don't know how to characterize it. america, after 9/11, had the world's sympathy in the fight against al-qaeda and terrorism. the support for our invasion of afghanistan was near universal. though the outcome hasn't been perfect, few frown on it as a waste of energy or point it out as a bad thing.

the problem is, since then, with the extra-judicial nature of guantanamo, the groundless iraq war, the torture in abu grahib, our support for israel's attacks on civilians, and now these secret prisons, we have lost all that support. we have lost the moral high ground in the fight against al-qaeda and islamist fundamentalism. we have lost civil rights at home (not only does the president feel he can tap your phones, congress is doing nothing to stop him), and our president, who initially characterized this war on terrorism as a 'crusade', believes he has a religious duty to fight 'islamist fascism' regardless of the democratic forces that are supposed to be running the country. i don't know about you, but i fear for a peaceful political transition in 2008. someone somewhere is laying the groundwork for the republicans to hold onto power, by force if necessary, so they can prosecute their racist war. so they can push their theocratic agenda down your throats. so they can round up and execute all dissenters.

the germans in the 30's elected adolf hitler. they wanted him to lead their country. they didn't expect the madness that followed, but they did think he would save them from the financial crisis of the 30's. they followed his hate-filled agenda because it gave them an enemy. he used fear to motivate his followers, turned that fear to hatred and built an empire. if he hadn't overreached, if he hadn't wasted so much time and energy on concentration camps, if he had made a few decisions more wisely, he would control all of europe.

study your history: america is not immune to repeating it. america is not immune to bigotry, racism, or authoritarianism. the masses are ruled by fear, and the republicans are adept at making us afraid of someone (russians, terrorists, liberals, etc.) so they can retain power. if you don't fight these forces, they will consume you.

they will swallow you whole.

no sovereign territory

2006-06-29T07:19:00.000-05:00

"Officials will be questioned and eventually indicted, the Israeli army and government officials said."

another take over of palestinian lands from imperialist israel. i do not believe the israelis are innocent in all this violence. they have provoked the palestinians, they have set the stage for this sort of thing. they clearly do not want peace. they want ongoing struggle to prop up a government that would otherwise have to face social issues, that would otherwise have to devise a peace plan.

thank gwbutthead for announcing publicly that israel was justified in using violence to solve the problem of an abducted israeli soldier. that's a blank check for israeli territorial aggression. it is, in turn, a blank check for islamist militants to proclaim america's complicity in this matter, which will only fuel the flames of hatred.

why won't someone, anyone, in the american political machine condemn this violence? it would anywhere else.

you breed corruption

2006-06-16T08:46:00.000-05:00

america's culture of corruption is worse than you think. you can't even donate to disaster relief without fear it will be stolen and sold for profit. it might not even be prosecuted because government employees stole stuff too.

trust is breaking down in our society as greed and selfishness rise. all this talk of individualism means less compassion, less care, less thought for others. it means we become callous and unfeeling towards our fellow humans, our fellow americans. politicians like to blame movies and video games for violence and desensitivity to violence. i disagree. i blame politicians. the same day harris and klebold opened fire on their school, clinton was bombing kosovo--both instances of using violence to solve problems. the republican push for the rights of the individual has driven many to believe they alone have rights, and the rest of us should follow what they believe.

if i had a gun, i'd still never be able to buy/make/steal enough bullets to put an end to this. american society is in decline, all because we want to have it all, and share nothing. give me satisfaction now, and damn the consequences.

al-qaeda does have a point, but their tactics mean we won't think about corruption in our society, we won't address it thoughtfully, we won't do anything to change how corrupt we've become. we'll only get worse: less tolerant, more self-centered.

not that i support his views or his proposed vision of a solution. i see the breakdown of society as a horrible problem with no easy solution. too bad we're all too lazy and selfish to work at changing things.

get out of somalia.

2006-06-14T07:52:00.000-05:00

the cia is funneling money to corrupt somalian warlards in a vain and futile effort stop the advance of organized islamists. somalia is a non-country, a chaos land with no functioning government and little order. yes, these islamists follow sharia law, but with some support and some negotiation they may be encouraged to loosen up, while still maintaining their organized approach to government and order. they claim to oppose hosting al-qaeda, and maybe we should show some trust to earn their trust. the british and italians, former colonial rulers, are working to bring peace and unity to somalia, but american meddling can only make a mess. haven't we learned? will we ever learn?

i saw blackhawk down. i know we can't help there. certainly not in the way the cia is doing it now.

america is why the world is spiralling out of control. america has created determined enemies because of its judgemental attitude and irrational racist fear. partisanship polarises and destroys honest, open debate. it does not allow for reason or logic. it only fucks things up. this is america, coming unglued one politician at a time.

i am angry. i am angry because i grew up thinking america was a great place, thinking we all had a wonderful bright future ahead of us. now i'm an adult i see it isn't so. worse, though, i see that our so-called leaders are only making a mess of all the great things i thought we had. sure, it wasn't as good as i thought it was, but i never thought it could be this bad. it's only getting worse.

not that anyone cares what i think.

it will never happen

2006-05-25T11:34:00.000-05:00

the democrats have an opportunity, but no leader with the balls to strike. no one smart and gutsy enough to turn the tables on the republicans.

the republican leadership has shown itself happy to expand government and make itself more intrusive into private lives. it has a total disregard for constitutional freedoms and protections, and an eagerness to tell people what to do and how to do it. this is anit-libertarian, and one of the accusations conservatives have made against the democrats in previous years. now is the time to turn it around, remind the public the republicans are doing this, and contrive to attach the same, or greater, level of opprobium to the label 'conservative' as the republicans connected with 'liberal' 20 years ago. 'liberal' should stand for freedom, liberty, less government, and a shift away from corruption and influence peddlers into something that protects the individual, the little guy (while also pursuing liberal economics, which includes fair trade). 'conservative' stands for bossiness, government intrusion, and repression. it always has, but now we have to show the american public that this is a bad thing, something to oppose, fight, and tear down. we have to marginalize the religious right while pulling the libertarian and centrist conservative into the fold.

the problem is, our political system of gerrymandering and corporate political contributions means people, the mainstream especially, have no say in how the party is run, the direction it takes, or who its leaders are. bill clinton had the right idea, but his faction's been pushed out in favor of radical leftists and grassroots fanatics. the appeal to the fanatics gives you vocal support, but hurts your respect with the majority of voters. somehow the republicans managed to pull in that majority, while also feeding their lunatic fringe. i don't think the democrats can do that. i think their radicals are too far for most americans--they scare us. if the democrats don't centralize and appeal to a broader range of people, they're still going to lose the mid-term elections, and the nest presidiential election. someone has to step up and take charge. someone has to lead.

and they need good advisors, with proven track records, not those losers who keep losing.

judicial insanity

2006-05-17T11:31:00.000-05:00

Fourth Circuit OKs Retaliation on Whistleblower

While a group of workers watched a breaking news story on the office TV, one employee known for making similar comments blurted out, "They should put those two black monkeys in a cage with a bunch of black apes and let the apes f**k them." Last Friday, May 12, a divided Fourth Circuit panel concluded that there's nothing illegal about firing an employee for reporting such racially inflammatory remarks to supervisors.

Republican appointees Paul Niemeyer
(Bush I) and H. Emory Widener (Nixon) joined in the majority over a sharp dissent by Clinton appointee Robert King, who simply could not fathom a ruling so manifestly contrary to federal anti-discrimination law and the public policy goals underlying it.

Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 outlaws retaliation against employees who report workplace discrimination, including racially hostile work settings. By dismissing Jordan's case at the earliest possible stage of litigation, Judges Niemeyer and Widener ruled that IBM did not violate Title VII even if it did retaliate against Jordan for his report. Their reasoning? Jordan was not blowing the whistle on what a reasonable person would perceive as unlawful; rather, they said, he was reporting nothing more than a "unique and never-to-be-repeated" incident that did not reflect a fully-ripened or "planned" racially hostile work environment. Such a report, they concluded, was insufficient to trigger Title VII's protections against retaliation.
(Click here for more (http://e2ma.net/go/270183166/213696/6176958/goto:http://www.afj.org/fullcourtpress.html))

Jordan v. Alternative Resources Corp., No. 05-1485 (4th Cir. May 12, 2006)

senate responsibility (and the republicans' efforts to destroy it)

2006-05-12T10:02:00.000-05:00

Dear Mr. starzero:

Thank you for contacting me about President Bush's judicial nominees. I appreciate hearing from you.

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I carefully review the merits of each nominee. During this process, I evaluate the nominee's past record, professional competence, integrity, temperament, and judicial philosophy; his or her commitment to upholding the rights and protections established by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and subsequent laws; and the background information and testimony collected in the course of the candidate's confirmation hearings.

It is important to ensure that fair and independent judges are appointed to the federal bench. The federal judiciary must reflect the diverse values, ideals, and views of all Americans. The nomination of mainstream, qualified judicial candidates with bipartisan support will increase the public's confidence that our courts are a forum that fairly considers claims affecting the lives and security of all Americans.

Attempts to eliminate Senators' ability to use a filibuster when they deem it necessary undermine a fundamental principle upon which our country was founded - the system of checks and balances. This mechanism was created to limit the power of the President and the majority party in Congress. It was designed to protect the rights of the minority and promote compromise among the branches of government. It guarantees that we meet our obligation to conduct the kind of debate necessary to ensure that candidates for the judiciary have broad support.

President Bush must respect the Senate's constitutional role in the judicial nomination process and seek our advice, not just our consent. The Constitution does not make the Senate a rubber stamp for the President's nominees. By working together, the President and the Senate can make progress on nominations as well as other important matters.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please feel free to stay in touch.

Sincerely,

Richard J. Durbin

republican corruption will never stop

2006-05-12T09:51:00.000-05:00

Alphonso Jackson, the Republican Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told a story recently during a talk he gave in Dallas. Here's what he said, according to the Dallas Business Journal:

Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.

"He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years," Jackson said of the prospective contractor. "He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something ... he said, 'I have a problem with your president.'

"I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

You're probably not too surprised to hear that. Frankly, neither am I. And that's the problem.

The Republican culture of corruption has so infected our government that we aren't even surprised to hear a cabinet secretary talk about the "logic" of potentially illegally awarding federal contracts based on political affiliation. That's right -- if this story is true, it is probably illegal. Our taxpayer dollars are required by law to be spent based on merit.

Public pressure for Jackson to resign is already building, and Democrats in Congress are calling for an investigation. You can be a part of the groundswell of support for clean government by demanding Jackson's resignation.

We're shooting for 100,000 Americans sending a clear message to Secretary Jackson that he is not fit to serve. We will deliver your message to him when you sign this petition demanding his resignation:

http://www.democrats.org/hudscandal

Jackson summed up what's left of the Republican philosophy of government when he said, "That's the way I believe." The journalist Josh Marshall put it well when he wrote yesterday:

"Just as interesting was Jackson's follow-on statement in which shows his understanding of how government contracting works: political supporters get contracts so they can pump a percentage of the profits back into the political party. Standard machine politics, at best. Organized bribery, at worst. And whatever you want to call it, the guiding principle of all contracting and government spending in the second Bush administration."

That's exactly right. And Jackson isn't the only example of this entrenched Republican corruption. Bush's Republican procurement chief -- the man in charge of spending huge sums of taxpayer dollars -- was arrested and charged with conspiracy in the evolving scandals associated with Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

This kind of mentality must be rooted out. But you don't have to wait until November to send your message that you want change. Sign this petition now and demand the resignation of Secretary Jackson:

http://www.democrats.org/hudscandal

Just like many Americans, the media has come to expect this kind of corruption from the Republicans. But it's up to those of us who want change to build public pressure and ensure that our friends and neighbors know that corruption is a day-to-day reality in Republican Washington.

Sign this petition and send your message to Secretary Jackson -- and then pass this message along to your friends:

http://www.democrats.org/hudscandal

Enough is enough -- and we're not going to stop until we achieve real change.

your wealth makes you complacent

2006-05-12T09:01:00.000-05:00

our country is still sinking into corruption and disgrace. we have a government intent on wrecking its human rights record, violating every freedom and right known to man, and pretty much establishing itself as a dictatorship. when the tanks roll in 2008 to enforce marshal law and keep bush in power, don't be surprised. the blame for all of this falls on the apathetic voters who simply don't care that their politicians have created a separate world for themselves and are out of touch with most of the country. in the name of retaining power they have reworked constituencies so that incumbents remain in power and challengers rarely make headway against vested interests. this allows, even forces, our so-called representatives to pander to the fringe groups of their support base, because those are the ones who care enough to vote. the more they do this, the less the mainstream voters feel connected to their politicans, and thus the less they vote, reinforcing the cycle. we live in a declining america rife with corruption and political malfeasance. we are still capable of changing this, but no one seems to care enough to try. democratic representation is dying in america, because no one is left to fight for it.

stop killing yourself

2006-05-11T14:25:00.000-05:00

crossing the line from activism to terrorism.

or maybe we should just stop making new medicines. no more pain relievers. no new anti-depressants. no new diabetes medication.

should we stop using medicines developed using animal testing? ok, what's left?

the goal is to stop hurting animals, right? well, building houses hurts animals, all that wood taking down their homes. driving cars and all that pollution hurts animals. eating meat. all our electricity and books and cds and guitars and appliances and pretty much everything has come through some process that has hurt animals. so we stop making more, stop using more, stop doing more?

then what? we can't eat animals, so we're left with plants. we can't yoke up an ox or horse to plough the field, because that's cruel, so we're pretty much stuck with what grows naturally.

a lot of us are going to die.

the rest of us will compete with animals for food. is that ok? or do we just roll over and die, let them take over? let them kill each other, eat each other? let some other species evolve into dominance, enslave the rest of the world. what's the ultimate end of all this?

somebody tell me because it doesn't make any fucking sense.

the right hates everyone (part 1,709

2006-05-11T13:08:00.000-05:00

On May 5, 2006, the Eleventh Circuit issued a split, 2-1 decision denying asylum to a Colombian woman who, because of her political work, had been on the receiving end of menacing phone calls, a death threat note and gunfire.
Previously filibustered, formerly recess-appointed, highly controversial Bush II pick Bill Pryor authored the majority opinion over a stinging dissent by Bush I appointee Ed Carnes. Despite the growing evidence that immigration courts have been falling down on the job, the Eleventh Circuit has never - yes, never - reversed an immigration court's refusal to grant political asylum. In Luz Marina Silva's case,
Judge Carnes felt the time had come. Unfortunately for Ms. Silva, Judges Pryor and Frank Hull (a Clinton appointee who regularly joins the court's most conservative wing) thought otherwise.
(Find outmore)
(http://e2ma.net/go/265542945/210694/6098371/goto:http://www.afj.org/2006/05/eleventh-circuit-thinks-death-threats.html)

every freedom precious

2006-05-11T10:24:00.000-05:00

Most Americans think mid-term elections are a big yawn. But you and I know differently.

This year's Congressional elections are an exciting, high-stakes opportunity -- a historic chance for you and your friends to stop the radical right in its tracks.

We've seen what 6 years under President Bush and an anti-choice Congress means for women. We have less access to both birth control and honest information about preventing unintended pregnancy. At the same time, Bush and his allies are doing everything in their power to make it more difficult and dangerous to access abortion care.

Now is the time to get started. We have exactly 6 months to let our friends, neighbors, and colleagues know why they have to act -- and vote -- on their pro-choice values this election cycle. This is our opportunity to turn the anti-choice tide.

You can help take our grassroots message to Chicago, IL and wake up other pro-choice Americans this election season. Download our "5 Reasons Why I'm Voting Pro-Choice in November 2006" flyer and put it up in your workplace and pass it around to your friends. Click here to download the flyer: http://prochoiceaction.org/ct/z7LRNvK1oXpL/

Go ahead. Wake them up and say you're voting to elect a pro-choice Congress because:

:: We must block potential anti-choice Supreme Court nominees now that Roe v. Wade hangs by just one vote.

:: For more than three years, Bush's FDA has refused to allow the "morning-after" pill - a safe and effective way to prevent unintended pregnancy - to be sold over-the-counter.

:: More than half a billion taxpayer dollars have been spent on ineffective abstinence-only programs since Bush took office.

:: We need the votes to pass the Freedom of Choice Act so that we never have to fight for the right to choose again.

:: With only two years left in his term, Bush will use his anti-choice Congress to pass as many anti-choice bills as he can. This is our chance to stop him (and them)!

With your help, our pro-choice message will be taken to individuals and communities across the country. We'll stir them up, we'll get them talking, and we'll vote pro-choice and win this November!

Thank you for all you do to protect a woman's right to choose.

stop genocide worldwide

2006-04-28T13:46:00.000-05:00

representatives arrested in protest of sudan.

$5 strawberries

2006-04-09T17:36:00.000-05:00

we have conflicting stories: bush blames democrats for stalled immigration reform, but the us republican leader rejects guest worker plan. how can the democrats be to blame for something the republicans are doing?

politics as usual III (you are still not free)

2006-03-29T08:53:00.000-06:00

Thank you for contacting me regarding Senate Resolution 398, the resolution introduced by Senator Russ Feingold that would censure the President for authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct a warrantless wiretapping program of American citizens. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

Protecting both the security and the freedom of the American people is among my greatest concerns. I share an obligation with my fellow Senators to ensure that the federal government protects and defends the people of the United States while preserving the civil liberties that have helped make our country the greatest and most enduring democracy in the world.

President Bush has stated that he authorized the NSA to conduct warrantless wiretapping of communications made by American citizens living within the United States. Current federal law provides that electronic surveillance and interception of domestic oral, wire and electronic communications may be conducted only according to the procedures established in the federal criminal wiretap statute and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Under FISA, the government must seek a warrant from a special court in order to conduct electronic surveillance of communications between American citizens and persons outside of the country. FISA requires that these court proceedings be conducted as expeditiously as possible, and FISA permits the government in emergency situations to begin conducting surveillance immediately and obtain a warrant up to 72 hours later. FISA also places safeguards on the ways in which the intercepted information can be used and disseminated.

When the President and the Administration order actions such as the surveillance of American citizens, these actions must be conducted in a manner consistent with the rule of law and the Constitution's commitment to civil liberties. Even President Bush himself has apparently recognized that it is improper to subject Americans in the United States to wiretapping without court approval. In a speech on April 20, 2004, the President said:

Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires - a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so.

The current Congress has failed to conduct the kind of oversight that should be applied to the actions of any President who has been accused of breaking the law. Because this Congress has not adequately investigated the fact that the President's domestic wiretapping program does not appear to follow the procedures outlined in FISA, Senator Feingold introduced his resolution seeking to censure the President. Senator Feingold's resolution could serve as a catalyst for that scrutiny. The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, has indicated that he does not believe there is a constitutional basis for the program and that, despite the Administration's claims to the contrary, he did not think that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq that Congress passed in 2001 empowered the Executive Branch to conduct this warrantless wiretapping program. Senator Specter also agreed that the operational details and legal underpinnings for this program are not clear and need to be investigated further in order for Congress to exercise appropriate oversight.

Senator Feingold's resolution has helped draw more attention to the warrantless wiretapping program and the legal rationales the Administration has put forth to justify it. What is needed now is the full investigation that will clarify the nature of this surveillance. That investigation should guide us to the appropriate response as well as to efforts to ensure that any future government surveillance is conducted in a manner consistent with our Constitution and laws.

some things speak for themselves (you have no freedom you don't take for yourself)

2006-03-27T12:36:00.000-06:00

"During the weekend Newsweek magazine reported Justice Antonin Scalia in a private meeting in Switzerland dismissed the idea that Guantanamo detainees have constitutional rights. Critics complained that he was prejudging the issue and should step aside, although there was no indication he would."

stolen from democrats (but still with a point)

2006-03-27T09:54:00.000-06:00

BUSH UNDERMINES WOMEN'S HEALTH CARE SECURITY

Every week, America's women learn additional details on the Bush Administration's harmful budget. This week's new revelation - President Bush has made reckless cuts to the federal government's national breast and cervical cancer program run by the Centers for Disease Control. Despite the known success of this program and its reputation for saving lives, the President has proposed a $1.4 million cut that will stop 4,000 women from benefiting from early detection. [Budget of the U.S. Government FY07]

These cuts will disproportionately affect woman of color. According to two studies published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, African-American woman with breast cancer are 20 percent more likely to have a fatal result and women of color (including Hispanic women) are half as likely to receive crucial follow-up treatment such as radiation and chemotherapy following surgery. This program is specifically designed to help a critical population of working women who are ineligible for Medicaid, and whose employees do not provide health care coverage. Many of these women lack the benefit of a family doctor who might help them get access to early screening. The program provides an essential service in the battle to fight cancer by offering free mammograms, Pap tests, and additional early detection services. Instead of providing additional funding to help fully service the affected population, President Bush has proposed deep budget cuts to this vital program.

This budget cut is just another example of Bush's inability to see that prevention is good public policy - and is the right thing to do for working women who are under or uninsured.

call your senators

2006-03-16T08:30:00.000-06:00

Many Senate leaders oppose abortion. But would the Senate actually vote down a measure to prevent unintended pregnancy?

The U.S. Senate will vote tomorrow on a budget amendment that would:

:: Ensure that insurance plans cover prescription birth control in the same way they pay for Viagra;

:: Fund teen-pregnancy prevention programs;

:: Educate women about the "morning-after" pill; and

:: Fund programs that help low-income women care for newborns.

This is an opportunity for anti-choice senators to end their divisive attacks on a woman's right to choose and support a commonsense proposal spearheaded by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Harry Reid.

be free (fight the government that oppresses you)

2006-03-13T11:07:00.000-06:00

Something is wrong in our country. The president is overreaching his authority with a vast program of illegal spying on Americans, and Congress, which is supposed to check executive power, is preparing to ratify his illegal surveillance program after the fact.

In a backroom deal announced this week, key Senate Republicans met with Vice President Dick Cheney and agreed to create legislation that would rewrite our laws by requiring less disclosure and less judicial power to check wiretaps than current law demands.

The message these partisans are sending to the people and the country is clear: partisans are willing to put party loyalty over fundamental and timeless values, such as the preservation of the Constitution and the rightful power of Congress as a check on the president. Many Americans are appalled that our President has not only ordered warrantless spying on Americans, but has unapologetically claimed that he has the power to break the law.

The question for us now is: What message will we the people send Congress?

The ACLU is asking you to join with us in declaring unequivocally that warrantless spying on innocent Americans is unacceptable.

It’s at moments like these that our system of checks and balances matters most. When the president asserts absolute power and the legislative branch abdicates its responsibilities, we must turn to the courts: the third pillar of our democracy.

Yesterday, the ACLU asked the judge in our NSA lawsuit to immediately block the illegal NSA spying program in order to prevent “concrete harm” to our plaintiffs — journalists, non-profit groups and other advocates — and to the American way of life. The ACLU v. NSA lawsuit aggressively challenges the Bush Administration’s abuse of power, charging that the spying violates all Americans' rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution.

White House allies in Congress may be willing to help cover up this illegal program, and other lawmakers may be willing to stand on the sidelines, but when the president breaks the law, neither Congress nor the courts should give him a get-out-of-jail free card.

I urge you to stay involved as we work to end illegal government spying and restore the rule of law. The debate in Congress is far from over, and our legal challenge to the NSA has only just begun. We must stay vigilant if we want to preserve a democracy where the people are both safe and free.

grand old anti-woman party

2006-03-13T11:03:00.000-06:00

BUSH WAR ON WOMEN MARCHES ON
While the Republican Party holds photo ops at the White House to mark Women's History Month, there is no 'honoring' America's women in the budget this Administration has put forward for 2007. The truth is the war on women marches on ... and it's marching all over us.

The Bush Administration and Washington Republicans have lost all credibility and failed to fulfill their promises. The lip service given each year in the State of the Union address and photo-ops at the White House does not square with the real day to day needs of America's women. As the President's approval numbers continue to drop with women of all political stripes, Democrats must speak out that our Party stands ready to rebuild the trust, the credibility and the results so that women can be full partners in our country's success.

Want some examples of the cuts that will impact your community? See how this President's Budget is more of the same misplaced priorities and puts special interests ahead of America's Families.

The President's budget:

Cuts overall funding for Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) programs. When all Violence Against Women programs are taken into account, the budget cuts funding by $19.5 million - cutting programs aimed at preventing domestic violence and providing essential services to victims of domestic violence.
Eliminates funding for programs that increase women's opportunities in non-traditional employment. Under the President's budget, the Women in Apprenticeships and Nontraditional Occupations Act (WANTO) is eliminated. The WANTO program awards grants to employers to help them recruit, train, and retain women in non-traditional high-wage jobs. Women who have access to WANTO-funded projects are 47 percent more likely to enter a higher-paying technical occupation.
Eliminates the Women's Educational Equity Act (WEEA). The Bush budget completely eliminates WEEA, an initiative that has funded hundreds of programs to expose girls to careers from which they have traditionally been excluded; develop teaching strategies for math and science; and clarify school obligations with regard to sexual harassment.
Increases child care waiting lists by hundreds of thousands. The Child Care and Development Block Grant program provides child care assistance for low-income families and early education services to our country's most disadvantaged children. The President's budget freezes funding for this program for the fifth consecutive year and cuts child care assistance by 400,000 children by 2011.
Freezes the maximum Pell Grant for the fifth year in a row. Women at all levels of education still face significant disadvantages in financing a college education and disproportionately rely on Pell Grants. Despite these challenges, the Administration refuses to increase the size of the maximum Pell Grant, making these disadvantages harder to overcome.
Cuts funding for food stamps and eliminates nutritional food program for women and their families. Single mothers and their children and elderly women living alone disproportionately rely on federal nutrition assistance - nearly 70 percent of adult food stamp recipients are women. Yet changes to eligibility in the food stamp program could cause 300,000 Americans to lose their food stamp benefits.
Slashes funding for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). The Bush budget makes significant cuts in the Community Development Block Grant, a program that helps women, especially single mothers and elderly women, find shelter in a difficult housing market. The CDBG program plays a critical role in providing housing to our country's most vulnerable, including victims of domestic violence and Hurricane Katrina survivors.
THE ASSAULT ON WOMEN'S HEALTH
Now that South Dakota Republican Governor Mike Rounds has signed legislation to prevent women from making their own decisions about reproduction, America's women are wondering what next? If a challenge to this legislation were to make it to the Supreme Court, as many observances suggest, the likely timing would place the debate squarely before the next Presidential election in 2008.

South Dakota is not the only state to debate prohibition of abortion and ignore the danger to the mother's health or in the case of rape or incest. And if our Supreme Court reverses or modifies the Roe vs. Wade ruling, states could have even more purview to regulate the private decisions of Americans. Democrats know this debate stirs a variety of feelings for our members - as we are the Party that stands not only for a woman's right to privacy and choice in reproductive health care but also as the Party who fights for programs and policies that prevent unwanted pregnancies and in turn works to reduce abortions.

It is interesting to note that, according to the South Dakota affiliate of Planned Parenthood, while this Legislature worked so hard on studying the abortion prohibition issue and passing restrictive legislation, they let legislation that could have helped men and women PREVENT unwanted pregnancies dwindle and die in committee. These bills included a requirement that hospitals make women aware that emergency contraception is available, a requirement that insurance companies cover contraceptive drugs if they cover other prescription drugs and a requirement that school districts to offer sex education.

So women - and men - who are without affordable access to contraception, are without medically-accurate sexual education information and are not informed that emergency contraception is available in the instance of sex with no consent - are left to ponder... Just where is the compassionate conservatism?

DEMOCRATS TAKING THE LEAD
This week began with devastating news - that Dana Reeve, who was never a smoker - lost her battle with lung cancer. Dana, along with her late husband Christopher Reeve, were tireless advocates and eloquent champions for people with disabilities and the promise of life-saving stem-cell medical research. The sudden loss of such an effective champion and committed mother is painful. Our hearts and prayers go out to the Reeve's children and the rest of her family.

Reeve's courage and strength in the face of her husband's struggles and her own illness are not unlike the daily challenges that caregivers in each of our communities face every day. Caregivers - who are most often women - must struggle with the increasingly complicated maze of health insurance choices, prescription drug costs and Medicare changes brought to us by a Washington Republican establishment who gives insider access to drug and health industry special interests.

The Bush Administration's recent budget proposals for 2007 will only bring more confusion and headache to caregivers:

Slashes Medicare by $36 billion over five years and $105 billion over 10 years. The GOP budget-cutting bill (S. 1932) that the President just signed into law includes cuts in Medicare payments to health care providers of $22 billion over 10 years. Now, the Bush budget is calling for extensive new cuts in Medicare payments to providers - slashing Medicare by $36 billion over five years and $105 billion over 10 years. This drastic cut in Medicare would have a particularly damaging impact on women, as women account for over 56 percent of adult Medicare beneficiaries.
Includes gross Medicaid cuts, including both legislative and regulatory cuts, of $17 billion over five years and $42 billion over 10 years. The Bush budget calls for $42 billion additional Medicaid cuts, on top of the deep cuts Congress enacted in 2005. Medicaid beneficiaries, the majority of whom are women and girls, will be adversely affected by these new cuts. Medicaid cuts of this magnitude cannot be found by simply closing loopholes - the pain will be felt by women and their families who must pay even more for their care, or lose access to care if they are under-insured.
Fails to make health care affordable for women and their families. More than 20 million women do not have health insurance, and millions more can barely afford to pay their premiums. Yet the President's plan to expand Health Savings Accounts gives employers an enormous incentive to drop or reduce the health benefits that they provide now - thereby undermining employer-based health care coverage. For women, who typically need and use more health care than men, HSAs can lead to high out-of-pocket costs that will discourage necessary health care use.
While President Bush is cutting the programs that affect the care and health of our families, Washington Republicans are stonewalling advances in scientific and medical research. Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist continues to postpone debate on legislation to expand stem-cell research opportunities despite a majority of Americans supporting expansion of this important and life saving research. Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid (NV) knows debate on this key issue is what American families want.

a public service announcement

2006-03-10T08:52:00.000-06:00

To All 9/11 Families, Friends and Supporters,

On January 24, 2006 the LMDC Family Advisory Council (FAC) met with LMDC President Stephan Pryor and WTC Memorial Foundation President Gretchen Dykstra as well as several members of their staff. At this meeting numerous issues were discussed including: the proper listing of the Names; putting Artifacts like the sphere and tower facades at the street level of the WTC site; preserving the Footprint remnants at bedrock; moving the Memorial Museum above ground; and the security and safety of visitors to the site. LMDC President Pryor and his representatives were noncommittal in their response to the concerns raised.

On February 27, 2006, the Advocates for a 9/11 Fallen Heroes Memorial with support of the NYPD and FDNY unions held a rally at the WTC site demanding that the LMDC address the issues outlined above as well as the issue of raising the Memorial itself above ground.

A week after the rally and 6 weeks after the FAC meeting, LMDC President Pryor chose to respond to the concerns in a letter addressed to the FAC. Mr. Pryor chose not to tell the FAC that this letter had already been released to the NY Post. Pryor's letter to members of the Families Advisory Council was misleading. Transcripts we have obtained through a Freedom of Information Request belie his assertions.

Despite as he claimed in the letter that the LMDC has always worked in "good faith" this is clearly not good faith. We consider this highly unprofessional act the final straw and will no longer deal with the LMDC. We demand a meeting with Governor Pataki and his Chief of Staff John Cahill.

We are asking each of you to email and/or phone Governor Pataki telling him that the LMDC does not act in good faith and that the Governor and his Chief of Staff must meet with the Take Back the Memorial representatives and historic preservation groups prior to the commencement of construction. Additionally, to increase the pressure, please contact NY State Senators Schumer and Clinton as well as your state representatives asking for their support.

Time is short; on March 13th construction will begin on this seriously flawed Memorial. America deserves more.

america online is a scam

2006-03-09T10:17:00.000-06:00

In the last week, hundreds of thousands of us spoke out against AOL's "email tax." And, with your help, our diverse DearAOL.com coalition has jumped from 50 organizations to 500.

Now, AOL is striking back with an active misinformation campaign against their own customers and the public. One AOL support representative even claimed that our emails were a scam—and told the customer to block future emails from MoveOn (you can read the live chat transcript below).

We're writing to set the record straight. So take a look at the "myth and reality" points below—and then please tell AOL to stop misleading their customers and stop their pay-to-send proposal.

Help reach our goal of 7,000 contacts to AOL by clicking here:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1529&id=7004-3787499-eLg7XENpVIAiV0wUzT7iLg&t=3

Please tell AOL we will not accept anybody paying to bypass spam filters—it's wrong to sell access to people's inboxes, and everyone who doesn't pay will get inferior service. We know the truth and we're pushing back.

Here are 3 myths that AOL hopes the public will believe:

MYTH #1: Nothing will change for those who don't pay to send.

REALITY: This weekend, the Silicon Valley-based San Jose Mercury News wrote an editorial entitled, "Paid e-mail will lead to separate, unequal systems; Free systems will become neglected." Here is an excerpt:

[AOL's pay-to-send system] is likely to work as an incentive for AOL to move as many senders as possible to the paid system...the temptation would be to neglect the free e-mail system, whose reliability would decline. Eventually, everyone would migrate to the fee-based system. There would be no way around the AOL tollbooth. [Read the full editorial at http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1522]

MYTH #2: AOL's pay-to-send system will reduce spam.

REALITY: AOL doesn't even claim its pay-to-send proposal would reduce spam—because it won't. Just the opposite, AOL wants to let commercial emailers pay to bypass spam filters. This creates a perverse incentive for AOL to err on the side of letting more unwanted emails into their customers' inboxes.

About this conflict of interest, the San Jose Mercury News editorialized, "why doesn't AOL announce it will forgo the fees—a decision that would help silence critics? AOL won't say."

MYTH #3: Nonprofits would not be hurt by AOL's email tax.

REALITY: Those who pay AOL's email tax would get guaranteed delivery, but everyone left behind would get increasingly unreliable service. Last Friday, AOL tried to create the illusion of responsiveness. They repackaged an already existing feature for nonprofits as if it was new, and then tried to divide our coalition by giving special email privileges to some "qualified" nonprofits while leaving other nonprofits, charities, small businesses, and even community and hobby mailing lists behind.

"I don't take bribes," responded Gilles Frydman, a coalition partner who needs email to run his free online network for cancer patients. "The solution is not AOL offering a few of us service for free in exchange for our silence—the solution is preserving equal access to the free and open Internet for everyone."

Can you help reach our goal of 7,000 contacts with AOL? Tell AOL to stop misleading their customers—we will not accept anybody paying to bypass spam filters because it will destroy the free and open Internet. Click here:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1529&id=7004-3787499-eLg7XENpVIAiV0wUzT7iLg&t=4

–Eli Pariser, Noah T. Winer, Adam Green, and the MoveOn.org Civic Action team
Thursday, March 9th, 2006

EXCERPT OF A LIVE CHAT WITH AOL STAFF

AOL: Hello...Welcome to Live Technical Support. My name is Nezel.

USER: if AOL starts charging ANYONE for mail I will not continue to use the service...Just wanted to tell you.

AOL: I understand that you have received a notice that AOL will be charging you for e-mail...Please send the e-mail to my screen name: AOLTechCNR...

AOL: At this time, I can say that AOL will not be charging you extra for using e-mail feature.

USER: not me, certain groups...

AOL: At this time, AOL will not charge you extra for using e-mail feature alone...I want to check the email...AOLTechCNR@aol.com is my complete e-mail address.

USER: That doesn't answer the question I asked. You said I will not be charged. I asked if groups like MoveOn will be...

AOL: Did you send it?

USER: Yes..do u have it?

AOL: Yes. I got it...That e-mail is a scam...

USER: Its a scam?...really?...

AOL: Yes...It is REALLY a scam mail...Please do block the sender of e-mail from sending e-mail on your AOL account.

USER: I will check into it with MoveOn...

The end.

make your choices wisely

2006-03-07T13:34:00.000-06:00

from naral:

24 hours. 50 states. 1 goal: Guarantee all American women's access to birth control. You can make it happen. Click here to be a part of our Prevention First Challenge for Common Ground Day of Action:
http://prochoiceaction.org/campaign/prev1st_day_of_action/wi3g8g5495k5xwd?

With South Dakota's ban on abortion -- and 11 state legislatures pushing similar bans -- anti-choice lawmakers are exposing their hypocritical agenda of taking away a woman's right to choose while simultaneously taking away her ability to prevent pregnancy.

Anti-choice leaders have picked a fight they cannot win. 98% of American women use birth control at some point during their reproductive years. If anti-choice leaders continue trying to restrict access to this basic health care, they're going to have to answer to an overwhelming majority of women.

That's where today's Prevention First Challenge for Common ground comes in. At the state and national levels, NARAL Pro-Choice America and our affiliates are working to promote policies that will prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion. Instead of divisive attacks on women's reproductive freedom, we are asking lawmakers to unify behind commonsense and widely supported measures.

Here is the national platform of pro-prevention legislation that we're calling our leaders in Congress to support. Click here to help us make this platform a reality:
http://prochoiceaction.org/campaign/prev1st_day_of_action/wi3g8g5495k5xwd?

:: The Real Education About Life Act will set up the first-ever federal sex-education program for young people.

:: The Access to Legal Pharmaceuticals Act will ensure that women receive their prescription contraception, in spite of rogue pharmacists who want to give them lectures instead.

:: The Equity in Prescription Insurance Contraceptive Coverage Act will ensure that prescription birth control is covered equally with other prescription drugs, like Viagra.

:: The Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act will ensure that survivors of sexual assault are offered emergency contraception in the emergency room.

With your help, we can do more than just shut down anti-birth-control measures. We can make real progress for women's access to contraception and expose the true agenda of those who oppose a woman's right to choose. Please, click here to be a part of this Day of Action by urging your members of Congress to support these bills, and help us guarantee that all women have access to safe, effective forms of birth control:
http://prochoiceaction.org/campaign/prev1st_day_of_action/wi3g8g5495k5xwd?

Thank you again for all you continue to do.

from moveon.org

2006-03-02T09:43:00.000-06:00

Dear MoveOn member,

This evening, the Associated Press released secret transcripts and video footage showing President Bush being personally briefed the day before Hurricane Katrina hit land. The predictions he heard were shockingly precise and accurate—including the failure of the levees. He knew exactly what was coming.

The article is a smoking gun on Bush's unpardonable failure to keep us safe. In just a few hours, the White House will be filling the airwaves with spin, so it's important to reach out right now to pass on the straight story to family and friends. If each of us acts, we can directly reach millions of people before morning.

The full AP article is attached below. Can you help get the word out to at least 5 friends? You can forward on this note or follow the link below:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1508_video

At the August 28th briefing, the president was told exactly what to expect:

The chief scientist of the National Hurricane Center warned that a major levee breach was "obviously a very, very grave concern." Bush lied to the entire nation about this point just 5 days later.
Michael Brown told the president that if New Orleans flooded the Superdome emergency shelter would likely be under water and short on supplies, creating a "catastrophe within a catastrophe."
Experts and officials implored the President to prepare for, as the AP described it, "devastation of historic proportions."
President Bush didn't ask a single question during the briefing. In the next two days he campaigned, attended birthday parties and played guitar while the worst natural disaster in American history killed over 1,300 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

There can now be no mistake: President Bush had a chance to lead, and he failed to keep us safe.

In the next few days, we'll be tracking this story carefully and coordinating our response with partners in New Orleans and around the nation.

The survivors of Katrina deserve to know why the president left them to suffer the storm. And the people of the United States deserve leadership we can trust to keep our families safe. We'll work hard together until we have both.

ignorance makes america weak

2006-03-01T13:56:00.000-06:00

american's don't know how lucky they are.

someone (with money) should start an advertising campaign promoting the first amendment.

more importantly, we need the public to be more involved with, and more knowledgable about, the political process. not just their pet issues, but the procedures of voting, and the documents that construct the foundation of this should-be-great nation.

do you know the 5 freedoms the first amendment gives you?

prepare for atrocity

2006-02-21T16:07:00.000-06:00

i contend that we the public only know a portion of the illegal and unethical (not to mention immoral) behavior ongoing within this bush administration. it is clear to me, at least, that bush is not telling us the whole story. his actions suggest he has much to hide, and that what he is hiding is potentially much worse than what we already know. to make matters worse, his party has lined up to defend him pretty much down the line, so that it is impossible to get a real investigation into the behavior of this republican administration. congress' job is to act as a check on the powers of the executive. instead, it has acted as an enabler, allowing the president unprecedented power, both through legislation and through inaction. this makes "president" bush something resembling a king, with his political cronies doing nothing to stop it. their lust for power has blinded their ethics and morality, so that are mere puppets of a corrupt regime. who will save us from this horrible fate?

from senator durbin (d-ill.)

Thank you for contacting me about our nation's policies regarding the detention and treatment of prisoners held at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other detention centers around the world.

I share your concerns about this important issue. In the aftermath of September 11, the Bush Administration made it clear that it was prepared to bend some of the time-honored rules of warfare when it came to the treatment of prisoners, creating a secret detention system outside the strictures of domestic and international law.

In its detention and interrogation policies, the United States should hold itself to the same high moral values that our nation stands for in other circumstances. Certain Administration policies regarding the detention and treatment of prisoners are not only inconsistent with our moral values, they risk increasing the danger to our own soldiers. Our troops are safer when we adhere to the highest standards of civilized behavior rather than lowering ourselves to the standards of our enemies.
The alternative -- actions such as those revealed in the photos from Abu Ghraib -- risk fueling the insurgency in Iraq and put our soldiers in that nation at greater risk.

In conjunction with Senator John McCain of Arizona and other Senate colleagues, I introduced an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Appropriations bill that reaffirmed our nation's long-standing obligation not to engage in torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and required that the treatment of detainees comply with the Army's Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation. The Senate overwhelmingly approved this amendment, and it has been signed into law. I also cosponsored an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Authorization Act that would establish an independent commission on the treatment of wartime detainees in U.S. custody. Unfortunately this amendment was rejected by the Senate in a party line vote.

When the President signed the legislation containing the McCain amendment prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the President also issued a "signing statement" laying out his interpretation of the new law. The President's signing statement signaled an intent to view the prohibition on torture narrowly. The statement prompted a response from Senators McCain and John Warner of Virginia, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, making clear that the Congress specifically declined to include a Presidential waiver of the restrictions in the legislation, and noting that the Armed Services Committee intends to strictly monitor the Administration's implementation of this law.

Our commitment to principle, even during difficult times, has made America a special country. We must not allow the depravity of our enemies to cause us to abandon our nation's most fundamental values. Torture, indefinite detention without recourse to legal proceedings, and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are inconsistent with the principles of liberty and the rule of law that underpin our democracy. I will continue to work to ensure that our laws –- and the core values upon which they are based -- do not fall by the wayside as we act to defend our national security in a time of war.

a message to the democrats

2006-02-17T08:48:00.000-06:00

i have no confidence in the democrat party. in fact, i can't find any politician out there today who reflects my views. i have no one to support. this is disappointing. it is not very democratic.
but then, we're not a democracy.
what really troubles me about the democrats is their total lack of leadership. their inability to get anything done. the republicans have unity, they have party leadership, and they have a direction. it may be the wrong direction, but they're going somewhere. they have ideas, and as such they control policy debate. i see the democrats protesting, i hear them complaining, but i don't hear or see them proposing any solutions or alternatives. the republicans are mired in scandal--now is the time to strike--yet i don't see any democrats making a move. no one is standing firm and proposing a different direction for america. no one is standing tall and making a mark.
it disappoints me.
the democrats have a chance to take the power back, and they're squandering it.
the party is shifting to the left, catering to activists and nutjobs. this is not the way to win elections. you can cater to your hardcore extremists if you show leadership and direction, if you can also persuade the center that you have a vision and it is in their best interests to follow it. this is what the republicans have done, and despite bush's malfeasance and the rampant corruption and sleaze of their party, they're still in charge. the failure of democrat leadership has allowed the right to put two conservative judges on the supreme court. it has allowed the right to mire america in an ugly war. it has allowed the right to screw up the budget, curtail liberty and civil rights, and push a very un-democratic religious agenda on america. in short, the failure of democrats to lead, to stand for something, has allowed the republicans to severely damage this once-great nation. the america in which i live is not the one i dreamed it would be when i was younger. it is not the land of the free, or even the home of the brave.
it is the republicans' fault for doing this to us, and the democrats' fault for not stopping them.

as it turns out, no one respects democracy anyway

2006-02-16T12:53:00.000-06:00

i don't understand. i thought we were supposed to support democracy. yet when a foreign country elects a government not to our liking we demonise it and threaten to cut off support and diplomatic ties with it. we did this with arafat before, and now we're going to do it with hamas. nevermind that, unlike arafat and his corrupt fatah party, hamas was popularly elected and proposes to cut corruption and run an efficient, effective government. maybe such a thing is not in israel's interest, as an efficient, effective palestinian government would have to be taken more seriously, and might one day earn it the right to be heard in international forums, or at least when it comes to negotiating a solution to the ongoing conflicth with israel. personally, i can't defend this behavior, punishing voters for electing a government. it's not like it hasn't happened to us, or won't in the future. if we were dumb enough to elect a corrupt, abusive, power-mad government, do we still deserve to be punished for it? maybe we should be encouraged to vote better next time. maybe our government should be published, but not the voters.

personally, aside from their vow to destroy israel, i think hamas might be a better government than the republican party is right now. we'll see, but if it can cut corruption it's already a step up on the republicans. if it can avoid invading foreign countries without provocation or legitimate cause, then it's two steps up. if it can make palestine a well-governed country, well, then it does deserve respect.

who, besides iran and maybe china, will give it to them?

the republican party: violating you since 2002

2006-02-16T10:53:00.000-06:00

senate republicans prove once again they don't give a shit for your rights and liberties.

of course the u.s. rejects the un's claim of torture. what do you expect them to say: oops, sorry, forgot about that one. thanks for pointing it out. we'll try to do better next time.

duh.

the president is our enemy

2006-02-16T09:47:00.000-06:00

i don't believe in capital punishment, i don't believe in torture. i don't believe in treating other human beings in that way.

i believe the government always goes further, always oversteps its bounds, than we know. given that, want what we know about what the present government has done, i suspect some pretty horrible things have happened in the past five years, things that no american should ever be involved with. things people just should not do.

the problem with all of this, though, is bush's self-justification. he says in times of war the president has special powers to bend the laws in able to successfully prosecute the war. i can't disagree with that. however, that's based on the premise of a war against a defined enemy, i.e. a country, and a certain amount of national, if not global, support for this war. it is based on the idea that the war will conclude at some point, probably not very far in the future.

this 'war on terror', which i'm not sure congress has officially validated, is not this sort of war, as the enemy is amorphous and not at all eager to show itself. we're not fighting another country (though other countries do have involvement in this problem), but instead we're fighting a large and wide-ranging group of people who we can't pin down. this isn't a war, it's a change in lifestyle. it's not something that looks to be temporary, or even avoidable. the liberties bush takes with our rights and protections have no foreseeable end, and that is a problem.

i might be willing to accept limited freedom of movement and speech for a year or two, i might be able to accept questionable wiretaps for a short period of time if a) they were approved legally through fisa, and b) they were related to known national security risks. with the war on terror, b is tough to support. with gwbush, a has been bypassed. this sickens me.

violation of my civil rights, invasion of my privacy, and being told what to think/believe/say appalls me. restrictions on my personal freedoms appall me. i don't like this president, and i hate what he's doing to america.

when this government tortures, it's your fault

2006-02-16T07:31:00.000-06:00

more american torture. yes, your government is cruel.

yes, some of these people are wrongly accused.

yes, you could be there too.

gwbutthead and his cronies don't care, if they think you're a threat to their hegemony.

swiped from the economist

2006-02-14T08:20:00.000-06:00

The hidden killer
Feb 9th 2006 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

Many of the terrorists' victims have not stopped coughing

Two days after the World Trade Centre's towers collapsed in September 2001, Christine Todd Whitman, then the boss of America's Environmental Protection Agency, announced that “EPA is greatly relieved to have learned that there appears to be no significant level of asbestos dust in the air in New York City.” The city heaved a collective sigh of relief—but it has been coughing ever since.

On February 2nd, Deborah Batts, a Manhattan federal judge, blasted Ms Whitman and her agency for repeatedly and knowingly misleading the public into believing the air was safe in the days after the attacks. The collapsing towers released a cloud of hazardous substances, including fibreglass, Freon, mercury, lead, 130,000 gallons of transformer oil and some 2,000 tons of asbestos.

By the next day the EPA already knew that tested air samples contained asbestos levels four times higher than its own danger threshold. Separate studies conducted by other government agencies and independent researchers all found frightening levels of asbestos in homes and workplaces. Yet the EPA and Ms Whitman (a former New Jersey governor), encouraged thousands of New Yorkers to return to their schools, homes and offices.

The EPA, federally mandated to clean up the insides of buildings, passed that responsibility to the still reeling and ill-equipped city of New York. The methods used by the city, though inadequate, were endorsed by the EPA. The agency meanwhile used the latest technology to clean, very thoroughly, its own downtown building. Four and a half years later, Lower Manhattan has yet to be cleaned properly. Even the EPA's internal watchdog criticised the response in 2003.

Judge Batts makes these points in an 83-page pre-trial opinion for a class-action lawsuit filed by students, workers and residents of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who say they were exposed to hazardous materials and polluted air. The judge, who described Ms Whitman's assurances as “conscience-shocking”, ruled that she was not entitled to immunity just because she was a public official.

Ms Whitman and the EPA are appealing that decision. It would allow the plaintiffs to continue their suit and to seek monetary damages. Their lead lawyer, Sherrie Savett, says the class-action suit hopes to achieve a proper cleaning for Lower Manhattan, the setting up of a medical monitoring fund and damages for those suffering.

Whatever the merits of the suit, there is plenty of evidence of continuing pain. Babies born after the attacks had significantly shorter gestations and smaller head circumferences, and were underweight. Thousands of New Yorkers are battling respiratory problems, and such diseases may take years to reveal themselves.

Interestingly, on the same day that Judge Batts issued her opinion, a ruling on a similar case filed by firefighters and soldiers went in Ms Whitman's favour. A judge ruled that rescue and clean-up workers were not entitled to sue, in part because the EPA and Ms Whitman made a distinction between risks to workers at Ground Zero and the risks to everyone else. Scores of rescue workers have developed respiratory illnesses and cancer, and the deaths of two emergency response workers and a police detective have been blamed on breathing problems related to the many hours they spent searching for victims.

criminals in power

2006-02-10T10:56:00.000-06:00

do we have a treasonous vice president? it wouldn't surprise me, but it won't mean anything unless they get him before the november elections. even an indictment against cheney would be meaningful.

man are the republicans corrupt. these people who condemend bill clinton for fooling around with an intern, they're taking money for favors and breaking laws and ethics left and right. i suppose this is what happens when your president doesn't understand the difference between morals and ethics, and despite calling himself a 'born-again christian' still believes in killing people. we're being run by a kakistocracy, and it makes me sick.

or is it a kleptocracy?

a letter from naral pro choice, replicated here for you

2006-02-10T08:37:00.000-06:00

Wal-Mart - the nation's largest retail pharmacy - has been
denying millions of American women the opportunity to prevent
unintended pregnancy. The store refuses to stock the
"morning-after" pill, a back-up birth control option that
prevents pregnancy after sex.

With your help, NARAL Pro-Choice America has been fighting this
policy from every angle:

:: In the past year, our activists have generated 75,000
messages to Wal-Mart headquarters, asking the retail giant to
reverse its policy.

:: Our affiliate, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, recently
joined three women plaintiffs who announced a suit against
Wal-Mart for not stocking the morning-after pill.

:: And just last week, we signed onto a letter with Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, the National Organization for
Women, the National Council of Women's Organizations, and
WakeUpWalMart.com, urging Wal-Mart to change its policy (click
here to read the statement
http://prochoiceaction.org/ct/0dLRNvK1BmpI/).

Our efforts are starting to pay off. On Friday, a Wal-Mart
spokesperson told the Associated Press, "Women's health is a
high priority for Wal-Mart, so clearly there are broader
considerations and we are giving this a lot of thought."
[Associated Press, 2/3/06]

We have to continue to push Wal-Mart to end its discriminatory
policy once and for all. Help us convince Wal-Mart that they can
only make women's health a priority by stocking the
morning-after pill. Click here to send a message to Wal-Mart
today
http://prochoiceaction.org/campaign/walmart_ec_0206/wi3g8g5405k7mk3?.

You can also call Wal-Mart on their toll-free line at
1-800-WAL-MART (1-800-925-6278). Use our sample script:

"I ask that Wal-Mart reverse its policy on denying emergency
contraception, also known as the "morning-after" pill, to women
across the country. I hope you will reconsider your policy and
make your customers' health - and rights - your top priority.
Thank you."
--------------------------------------------------

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about our
effort to get Wal-Mart to stock the morning-after pill.

http://prochoiceaction.org/join-forward.html?domain=can&r=b1LRNvK1AzC-

If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for
NARAL Pro-Choice America's Choice Action Network at:

http://prochoiceaction.org/can/join.html?r=b1LRNvK1AzC-E

our president hates us

2006-02-06T11:23:00.000-06:00

bush budget targets fucking you in the ass. be ready.

i'm going to jail, but america's going to hell

2006-01-30T10:34:00.000-06:00

"It's a mystery to me how we've elected such right-wing lawmakers who are trying to keep government off our backs, but apparently don't mind putting government in our bedrooms," said Thelma Underberg, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota. "I think it is time to get active and push the pendulum back the other way."

big-government conservatives are ruining the country. not just on this issue, but on education, health care, pensions, taxes, welfare, freedom, religion, liberty, and privacy. anyone who claims to want the government to stop regulating big business yet also supports the government regulationg your private life, well, they're a hypocritical bastard. when the revolution comes, we'll line them up against the wall and gun them down like the dogs they are.

i'm going to get in trouble for this one

2006-01-30T09:30:00.000-06:00

"The proposition of internal division in our fight against terrorism isn't based in fact," says Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney. "This administration is united in its commitment to protect Americans, defeat terrorism and grow democracy.")

such unanimity terrifies me. a world without dissent is a world where dictators rule at whim and everyone else is oppressed or willing crony complicit in oppression. clearly this administration believes in promoting a false front (a lie) of unanimity while it oppresses any and all who are (so far) powerless to stop it. i'm pretty liberal in most of my ideas, but i believe in a much smaller government, a much less intrusive government, than the one we have now. especially one that allows itself, without legal or constitutional authority, to make up the authority to spy on its people and fight wars on completely made up pretenses. the "war on terror" will last for ever, but we cannot give this president or this government (or any president or government) free rein to run roughshod over our rights and liberties. we must stop this authoritarian rule, we must restrain the executive by any means necessary. if our elected officials won't do their part in the system of checks and balances our founding fathers constructed to keep this nation great and balanced and fair to all, we must take the fight into our own hands.

but you cowards aren't with me, and i'm not brave enough to fight this fight alone.

the corruption never stops

2006-01-10T09:20:00.000-06:00

ashcroft making money off former office

the government is spying on you

2005-12-27T14:42:00.000-06:00

The Justice Department's reports to the U.S. Congress on the surveillance court's activities show that the Bush administration made 5,645 applications for electronic surveillance and physical searches through 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available. In the previous four years, the court received a total of 3,436.

The 11-judge panel modified 179 of the Bush administration's requests. By contrast, only one was modified in the preceding four years. The court has reportedly handled almost 20,000 applications since it was set up, and has rejected only a handful.

Reasons for the modifications were not stated and could range from minor alterations to more substantive changes.

The highly classified court was set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the wake of Cold War spy fears and President Richard Nixon's misuse of U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on the anti-Vietnam war movement and other political dissidents.

changing tact

2005-12-13T09:43:00.000-06:00

Lexington

A heretical proposal
Dec 8th 2005
From The Economist print edition

The Democrats (and abortion rights) might be better off if Roe v Wade were overturned

AS A general rule, Republicans are much happier with American exceptionalism than Democrats. Conservatives celebrate the right of every God-fearing American to carry a semi-automatic in his Kyoto-busting SUV while liberals protest that Europe is greener and safer. But when it comes to abortion, it is the Democrats who are the American exceptionalists.

Most rich countries other than the United States have solved the abortion problem by consulting the electorate—either through the legislature or through referendums. This led to vigorous debates and, broadly, the triumph of abortion rights. Because abortion was legalised democratically, pro-lifers accepted the fact that they had lost and abortion became a settled right. By contrast, in America, abortion is a fundamental right of privacy protected by a 1973 Supreme Court judgment—Roe v Wade.

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Few objective outsiders—if it is possible to be such a thing on abortion—would argue that relying on judges rather than popular will has helped American politics: no other comparable country has such destructive culture wars. Roe left a large chunk of the country feeling disenfranchised by the court; it also established a cycle of attack and counter-attack that has debased everything that it has touched, especially the judiciary.

A prime example is the Roe-obsessed confirmation process for Supreme Court nominees. Samuel Alito, Mr Bush's new candidate, claims that the fact that he once advised the Reagan administration on how to overturn Roe will have no bearing on his behaviour on the court. No less disingenuously, liberal senators pretend they are trying to gauge Mr Alito's legal philosophy when they are trying to catch him out on Roe.

All this is bad for America; but, in political terms, Roe has been particularly disastrous for the Democrats. The Republicans have generally had the better of the abortion wars (something most liberals admit as long as nobody from NARAL Pro-Choice America is in the room). Roe has proved a lightning-rod for conservatives; and many moderates dislike the Democrats'Roe-driven defence of partial-birth abortions. So consider a heretical proposition: why on earth don't Democrats disown Roe?

Merely to mention this in public can be dangerous. Yet there are two obvious reasons for the party to do it. First, abortion rights command broad popular support in the United States, just as they do in Europe. Gallup polling since the mid-1970s has consistently shown that about 80% of Americans want abortion to be legal—either in all circumstances (21-31%) or in some circumstances (51-61%). Without Roe, abortion might be slightly restricted, but certainly not banned, as conservatives want.

Second, Roe is a pretty flimsy decision. The idea that the constitution protects “the right to privacy” was already something of a stretch when Justice William Douglas discovered it in the Griswold v Connecticut case in 1965. Ruling that the state government could not stop married couples from purchasing contraception, Douglas wrote that the right to privacy exists because the “specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.” It was these penumbras and emanations that were stretched still further in 1973 when the court ruled on Roe.

Some Democrats say that they regard “a woman's right to choose” as analogous to a black person's right to vote—a basic human right that cannot be gainsaid by the electorate. This is far from convincing. The constitution is as clear about the right to vote—thanks to the equal protection clause—as it is murky on the right to abortion. And abortion isn't a clear-cut moral issue in the way that the franchise is. Bill Clinton never felt any need to argue that black voting should be “safe, legal and rare”.

A better argument in defence of Roe is that some states might well outlaw abortion. The Centre for Reproductive Rights claimed in 2004 that 21 conservative states were highly likely to do so and nine somewhat likely. But this presumes that public opinion has been frozen in aspic since 1973. Laura Vanderkam of USA Today points out that many of these “anti-Roe” states may well vote in favour of abortion rights: seven have Democratic governors, one (Rhode Island) is firmly in the Democratic column, and many others (Colorado, Ohio) cannot be relied upon to ban it. Moreover, the states that are most likely to vote to ban abortion—such as Mississippi and North Dakota—already have very few abortion clinics in any case: women who want abortions in those states already have to travel huge distances. Crossing state lines would not make that much difference.

Stubborn as a mule
The main reason, alas, why Democrats will stick by Roe is simply because it is a totem in the culture wars. Why should pro-choice forces surrender any ground? That argument makes sense if you want to defend “choice” right into the ninth month, as some zealots do. But for most Democrats who merely want to keep abortion legal under most circumstances, that right would be more secure if it carried democratic legitimacy.

Embracing the democratic process would send a powerful signal that the Party of the People has rediscovered its faith in the people. Relying on judges to advance the liberal agenda allowed conservatives to seize the mantle of populism. Roe has given Republicans a free ride: they can claim to oppose abortion in the comfortable knowledge that it will never be banned. But imagine if Roe were overturned. How many Republicans would vote for a ban on abortion that only one in five Americans support? The conservative coalition would be split asunder.

History is full of great generals who won their wars by staging strategic retreats. Field-Marshal Kutusov allowed Napoleon to occupy Moscow, tempting him to over-extend himself. The Democrats might emulate that aged Russian's wiliness—and stage a strategic retreat to the high ground of popular opinion.

making matters worse

2005-12-04T11:41:00.000-06:00

bush still wants the cia to torture people. is the cia somehow limited to torturing 'enemy combatants', or can they torture whoever they want? like you. i'm being serious here, people. this government has shown it has no problem saying one thing and doing something else. it wrote memos saying the geneva convention doesn't apply to it. it tortured prisoners in iraq, and may be holding them secretly in other countries where it can torture people. why can't they spirit you away to, say, armenia and pull out your fingernails? this is the kind of authoritarian government the soviets promulgated so well. we only barely shut down bush's plan to force americans to rat on each other, the way they did in the ussr. hasn't anyone read '1984'? the republicans are taking us there. doesn't anyone know anything about the fall of the roman empire? all empires die. america will be no exception. the republicans are accelerating the process, though.

showing america cares

2005-12-02T13:55:00.000-06:00

Putting families first
Nov 24th 2005
From The Economist print edition

Children are being taken into care too quickly and for too long

THE budget bill passed recently by the House of Representatives includes around $50 billion in spending cuts, many of them aimed at federal programmes for the poor. This includes trims of around $5 billion in child support, $600m for children in foster care and around $700m in food stamps. A similar bill from the Senate contains $34 billion of cuts with far fewer swipes at social-welfare programmes, but both bills include between $60 billion and $70 billion in tax cuts that disproportionately favour the rich. Child advocates are enraged. As states consider reforming their child-welfare systems, big cuts in social services are not helpful.

Tales of missing, starved, abused and even murdered children in adopted homes and foster shelters are alarmingly common. Some escape the attention of over-burdened social workers; others are shuttled from one foster-care placement to another for years on end. Last year, a Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care concluded that, because of the way federal funding works, children were plucked from their families too soon and left to fester in the system for too long. And although judges play a critical role in moving children to safety, family courts are among the most under-funded in the system, with few incentives to attract top lawyers and judges and little collaboration between the courts and child-welfare agencies. Dependency lawyers tend to be overworked and underpaid, with predictably bad results for the children they represent.

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More than 500,000 children are in foster care in America, most of them black or Latino. They remain in the system for an average of three years. These children, typically placed in the state's care after suffering abuse and neglect at home, often endure a demoralising parade of indifferent caseworkers, lawyers, judges, teachers and foster parents, who offer little real support in their quest for a stable home. For those who cannot return to their birth parents, the situation is grim: in 2003, 119,000 children in America were waiting to be adopted, 67% of whom had been in foster care for more than two years, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

When such children “age out”, or turn 18, as 18,000-20,000 do every year, they are suddenly cut off from all special services such as housing and counselling. Studies show that they disproportionately drop out of college, become homeless and unemployed, turn to drugs and alcohol and spend time in jail.

The federal government pays around half America's $22 billion child-welfare bill, according to the Urban Institute; the rest comes from state and local governments. But states have not been held accountable for how they spend this money. In an extensive three-year audit of state child-welfare systems, the HHS found that not a single state was in compliance with federal safety standards. When it came to the seven federal standards used to assess children's programmes, some of which are almost embarrassingly basic (eg, “Children are first and foremost protected from abuse and neglect” and “Children receive adequate services to meet their physical and mental health needs”), 16 states did not meet any of them, and no state met more than two. The federal agency is now running a second round of audits, to assess whether states are now complying with their own improvement plans.

“We are spending a great deal of money to damage children,” says Marcia Robinson Lowry, director of Children's Rights, an advocacy group. There are no real consequences for states when they fail to meet federal targets, she argues, so class-action lawsuits are the only recourse. Children's Rights has represented foster children in 13 court cases in the past decade. Most of these have ended in a court-ordered settlement that sets the group as a watchdog over a state's mismanaged and overburdened social-services department.

But using the courts to solve America's child-welfare problems is expensive and inefficient. The best answer, many think, is for states to spend money on keeping families together, by investing in services such as child care and counselling, rather than putting children in care. This would require allowing states to use federal funding in different ways. Most federal dollars now begin flowing to states only when children are removed from their families, giving states a perverse incentive to keep children in foster care, explains Carol Emig, the director of the Pew Commission. Instead, the commission suggests that states need a little more federal money to cover all children, not just poor ones, and the flexibility to create a range of services that might keep children from entering care or help them leave care safely.

Such a change carries quite a price-tag: $5 billion over ten years. But advocates say it will bring long-term savings by producing better educated, less delinquent children and more united families. If states safely reduce their foster-care rolls, they can then reinvest dollars earmarked for foster care in other child-welfare services. Meanwhile, federal reviews will hold states to their programme promises. President George Bush has proposed, alternatively, that states should convert their foster-care entitlement programmes into block grants. That would give flexibility at first but, over time, it would amount to a cut in funds.

States and cities can already apply for waivers from federal funding restraints; some 20 states have waivers now. Advocates of flexible funding point to Illinois, a waiver recipient, where the foster-care population has been cut in half and adoptions have more than doubled since 1997. And in late October officials in New York City announced that the number of children in foster care has dropped to around 18,000, half of what it was six years ago. Once home to one of the worst foster-care systems in the country, the city now works to keep families intact and help them look after their children rather than taking the youngsters away. As a result, “the spigot coming into the system has been narrowed”, explains David Tobis, director of the Child Welfare Fund, a local organisation. The money saved from federal entitlements—an estimated $27m in the fiscal year that began in July—will be put back into preventive services.

October also saw Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, sign into law a number of bills to help the state's foster children—more than 80,000 of them. Most of the new laws will help teenagers when they turn 18, by making sure they stay in college and have somewhere to live.

Amid all the horror stories, it can be easy to lose sight of the people who make foster care work. After describing the madness of waiting all day at court to represent a client, only to receive five minutes of a distracted judge's time, one social worker goes on to describe some of the good foster parents she has met. Her voice grows tender when she describes one couple who have taken in a young, physically disabled child. “You tend to hear about the system's flaws”, she explains. “But there are also so many other amazing things.”

environmental failures

2005-11-29T13:23:00.000-06:00

and now, a message from the league of conservation voters:

The holiday season traditionally brings to mind a rush to take advantage of deep discounts at retailers. But depending on how Congressional negotiators hammer out a final budget bill, it could be big corporations that rush to a federal land give-away at the expense of taxpayers.

Tucked into the recently-passed House budget bill, Rep. Richard Pombo's (CA) provision would raid public lands by offering deep discounts to mining companies, who can then develop the land as they see fit -- for mining operations, housing developments, or whatever is on their wish-list. The New York Times calls Rep. Pombo's scheme "legislative robbery" and "a blatant fraud on the American people."

Big Oil's wish-list includes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- but thanks to a bipartisan effort, the House refused to gift this pristine habitat in their bill. The Senate version, however, includes reckless language to open the Arctic Refuge to oil extraction. We must keep the pressure on our elected officials to keep Arctic Refuge drilling out of a final bill.

In the coming days, LCV will be keeping a close watch on the House/Senate negotiations -- and we'll be calling on you to get involved. As their constituents, we need to keep the pressure on our elected officials to do the right thing.

For years now, we have seen how the Bush Administration and Congressional leadership have worked to attack our environmental and public health protections. With less than a year to go until the most pivotal mid-term elections in a generation, we must let our elected officials know that this holiday season, we'll be making our list and following who votes naughty and who votes nice.

politics as usual II (corruption at the highest levels)

2005-11-07T10:18:00.000-06:00

either our president is another incompetent ceo, or a bald-faced liar!

but

at least we don't live (and die) in zimbabwe.

i could have told you this, but the republicans won't do anything about it. oh, sure, dennis hastert is talking big, but when was the last time a republican gave a fuck about you? oh, right, when he wanted to take your money. any republican who says he cares more about the american people getting a good deal than oil companies making record profits is a phony and a hypocrite. to start, he should give back all the money those oil companies gave him. then he'd be financially independent, and wouldn't take their money into account when making such decisions. he could then push them to give some of those profits back to consumers without looking like a liar. not that he cares.

at least the supreme court still seems to believe in justice. roberts will sit this one out, too. good for him. hopefully, the court will take the right stance on the separation of powers should this case get there. the right stance being to enforce the separation of powers and to put a check on conflicts of interest. not that the republicans know anything about that....

character assassination

2005-11-04T08:04:00.000-06:00

some quotes:

"he's a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he's been tapped by god to do very important things."

"perjury and obstruction of justice are high crimes and misdemeanors"

"perjury and obstruction of justice are crimes against the state"

some republicans have suggested that special prosecutor patrick fitzgerald "doesn't know the difference between a legal techincality such as perjury and a real crime".

any guesses on who said what?

well, the last is from lexington's column in this week's economist, as are the other quotes. an anonymous "white house ally" said the first one, while senator bill frist made the second comment and senator sam brownback made the third. things change when the scandal is in your own party, don't they? i find it hypocritical, or at least outrageously naive, for a republican to accuse fitzgerald of being in any way partisan or politically motivated. these the same people who championed kenneth starr's partisanship (monica lewinsky was far far far from his original mandate to investigate shady real estate dealings bill clinton and his wife may have made while still in arkansas). fitzgerald has made no attempt to turn his subject personal.

get your heads out of your asses, republicans.

and you, democrats, do the same. figure out how to lead. we, the american people, need you.

stand for something

2005-11-02T09:04:00.000-06:00

there should be no "litmus test" to determine the eligibility of a person to sit on the supreme court. a person's religious or political views should not interfere with a proper interpretation of the constitution as it lives and breathes today. anyone nominated to the supreme court should not be done so to mollify one's political base, however conservative, or liberal, it is. no one who cannot view the constitution in a modern light, and with moderation, should be considered for the supreme court. in nominating someone based on whether his views will satisfy his party's conservative base, president bush has undermined the nomination process. a democrat filibuster in the senate based on anything but the nominee's qualifications is also a counterproductive, and i would say improper, response to the present situation. i am disappointed that bush has again catered to his radial right political base rather than try to embrace the middle and nominate a more moderate judge for the supreme court. i am disappointed that the republican-led senate refuses to exert even a modicum of oversight on the bush administration. this is not how the system of checks and balances is supposed to work.

i'm sure a brilliant thinker in the democrat ranks can flesh out these views with strong arguments and better support than i have time to give today. i think in handling the alito nomination, the democrats need to get away from the 'protecting roe v. wade' argument and focus more on alito's interpretation of the constitution. what i absolutely reject is any strict interpretation of the original document. erasing 200 years of precedent and established court decisions is ludicrous, as is literally interpreting a document intended to be flexible and thus read flexibly. if this is alito's approach, he is unfit to sit on the supreme court.

i think the american people need to wake up and realize what hypocrites the republicans are. when the shoe is on the other foot, when the democrats are in power again, the republicans will be happy their judges are 'legislating from the bench' and will be horrified by the thought of the senate eliminating the filibuster on judicial nominations. or, if they eliminate it before then, they'll be horrified that they can no longer block the radically liberal judicial candidates a democratic president nominates. they'll call for its return, and the democrats will point out who did what. what the democrats need is a charismatic candidate who stands for something, rather than against someone. instead of someone who says 'hey, at least i'm not george bush', we need someone who lays out a bold, exciting plan for america's future, one that gives americans something to believe in again. one that brushes aside all the corruption and pork barrel politics to form a government that really does work for the people again. i know this hasn't happened for a long time, if ever, but it's time for change. it's time for someone to stand up and take charge. it's time for the democrats to stand for something.

until they do, i can't vote for them. until they do, the republicans will run the country. until they do, we'll keep sinking into deeper debt and worsening social conditions. until the democrats take charge and give us a reason to support them, this country is going to rot.

wiped off the map

2005-10-28T10:53:00.000-05:00

do you think it ever occurs to putin that hardline islamic nations like iran probably support the islamic militants in chechnya, the ones who are openly trying to destabilize the region so as to create a caliphate in the caucauses? i would think that if it did, he'd be a little less sanguine about supporting iran's nuclear ambitions. yes, his country has a lot to gain financially from building iran nuclear power plants and such, but when iran has the bomb who's to say it won't aid the chechens with it?

nor would such a development bode well for israel.

change the face

2005-10-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

some people, i'm sure, are breathing a sigh of relief not that miers has withdrawn her nomination to the supreme court. don't. my money's on alberto gonzalez being nominated, and while he's imminently more qualified, he's also much less good for america. well, in my opinion. he's clearly more conservative, yet he's also latino, which should help garner support. i don't like him.

possibly bush will nominate another woman, but his most likely choices aren't much better than alberto. i wouldn't find a democrat filibuster surprising, and with frist in his sec tangle i have doubts about his ability to go nuclear. so, we'll see. i'm sure i won't like bush's choice to replace sandra day o'connor (i liked roberts, more for his intellect and capacity than his potential conservative politics), but we'll see. maybe he'll do something inspired.

that's a joke.

news for the politically impaired

2005-10-20T15:03:00.000-05:00

troop deployment in iraq erodes national guard readiness.

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“It is shameful that Republicans in Congress are pushing legislation that guarantees their gun-dealing cronies receive special treatment and are above the law.”

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rove and libby sitting in a tree b-r-e-a-k-i-n-g the law.

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some good news in the katrina aftermath (unless you suffer from erectile dysfunction.

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for the president, domestic problems are "background noise"

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miers not being upfront with us.

letter sent to the dnc

2005-10-14T15:17:00.000-05:00

i am a lifelong independent voter. at least, when i was eligible to vote. back in 2nd grade we had a mock election at school, using real (mechanical) voting booths. i voted for mondale/ferraro, but reagan/bush won the school. my classmates all shared who they voted for (we didn't realize you didn't have to tell people) and they all got on my case for voting for some guy who wanted to cut back our supply of nuclear weapons. that's about all any of us knew about either candidate, probably.
unfortunately, i feel that's about all anyone in america knows about the candidates today. i never felt i had a firm grasp of what john kerry stood for, only what he stood against. the republicans had a field day with his military record, and subsequent protest, while somehow persuading the american people bush's record was unimpeachable. it should have been enough to say 'kerry fought, bush didn't', but no one seemed to think of that.
today, i don't know what the democrats stand for, or who they are. under bill clinton the ideology was fuzzy too, but i was ok with that. clinton had the charisma to play the center and win votes. now, with the democrats adrift, playing the blame game, i don't know who they are or what they plan to do. saying no, the republican program doesn't work is one thing (and right), but you have no plans of your own. what will the democrats do if they ever get power back? what do they mean? what is their purpose? i don't know.
i won't vote republican because of their social conservatism and their incessant corruption, but i do prefer the centrist economic policy clinton favored. not that you should bow to corporate pressure, but to stay competitive and promote economic recovery we have to open up the economy. this will mean some losses in some sectors, but it should also bring gains in others. it also means having a plan for the future, instead of merely opposing bush's plan. i don't see that in the party.
in fact, i don't see any new ideas or intellectual support in the democratic party. the republicans have spent the past twenty years building the intellectual and theoretical underpinnings for their political take over. democrats have no such infrastructure. until you do, you will not be able to stand up to the republicans. you won't be able to shut them down in debates, you won't be able to present alternative ideas. opposition is not enough. you have to give the american people a reason to vote for you, something more than 'well, at least they're not republicans'. what are you going to do?
when you tell me, when you have something to present the country, when you have ideas and plans and programs to get america back on the proper track, then i'll be happy to support you financially. until then, my money's just being wasted.

republicans raping the environment

2005-10-06T11:27:00.000-05:00

What I'm about to tell you is so outrageous, it's hard to believe it's true. But unfortunately, it is: Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA) has outlined a plan for the House draft budget reconciliation bill to sell off 15 national parks for energy and commercial development.

That's right - our natural heritage could soon be up for sale. Please sign this petition today to stop Congress' national park give-away.

One of the parks on the chopping block is Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Lake Clark protects the largest known Athapaskan archeological site in Alaska; an incredibly rugged wilderness containing two active volcanoes; and a wide variety of wildlife, including caribou, Dall sheep, brown bears, bald eagles, and peregrine falcons. The protected Lake Clark watershed is a significant part of the greater Bristol Bay watershed, which contains the world's largest Sockeye salmon fishery. This national treasure is irreplaceable.

Incredibly, there's more to the bill than just selling off 23% of the National Park System's acreage. Rep. Pombo's bill would require the Park Service to sell commercial advertising on the exterior and interior of all buses, shuttles, vans, trams, and passenger ferries operated within the National Park System. This bill would also require the Park Service to solicit and sell commercial sponsorship of park visitor centers, education centers, information centers, museums, trails, auditoriums, amphitheaters, and theatres throughout the National Park System.

And a painfully ironic provision of this bill would require the immediate sale of Theodore Roosevelt Island in the District of Columbia, which was established as a memorial for our nation's greatest conservation president.

Congress and the administration have a responsibility to protect our national heritage. Instead, Representative Pombo seems prepared to put our American heritage on the auction block, insulting the American people and tarnishing the birthright of current and future generations.

a human rights alert from care2

2005-10-04T09:47:00.000-05:00

Wal-Mart finds itself back in court - this time it's been accused of denying thousands of workers' lunch breaks that are required by law. The case covers 116,000 former and current Wal-Mart employees in California, who are owed more than $66 million in back-pay plus interest for unpaid work during lunch.

"Time theft" labor abuses are a chronic problem for Wal-Mart. In fact, the company has paid millions to settle numerous cases of this sort already, in which its employees were denied breaks required by law, forced to work off the clock, or denied overtime pay for hours worked.

As the world’s largest retailer and America’s largest private employer, Wal-Mart clearly has some explaining to do. But rather than address the serious issues raised in the worker discrimination lawsuit, Wal-Mart has aggressively fought the charges and attempted to keep this suit out of court for the past four years.

When will Wal-Mart learn that treating workers fairly doesn’t come at the expense of corporate profits? After all, workers who are treated with respect are more loyal to their employers and work harder too.

"we're only going to die from our own ignorance"

2005-10-04T08:55:00.000-05:00

1970—Graduated from Southern Methodist University Law School
1970-1972—Clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Joe Estes
1972-2001—Joined Texas law firm, Locke, Purnell
1985—Elected president of the Dallas Bar Association
1986-1989—Member of the State Bar board of directors
1989-1991—Elected and served one term on the Dallas City Council
1992—Elected president of the Texas State Bar
1993-1994—Worked as counsel for Bush's gubernatorial campaign
1995-2000—Appointed chairwoman of Texas Lottery Commission by Gov. George Bush
1996—Became president of Locke, Purnell, and the first woman to lead a major Texas law firm
1998—Presided over the merger of Locke, Purnell with another big Texas firm, Liddell, Sapp, Zivley, Hill & LaBoon, and became co-managing partner of the resulting megafirm, Locke Liddell & Sapp
2000—Represented Bush and Cheney in a lawsuit stemming from their dual residency in Texas while running in the Presidential primary
2001—Selected as staff secretary for President Bush
2003—Promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
2004—Selected as White House Counsel

There are many important questions that need to be addressed, including:

What policies did she advocate for on the Dallas City Council?
What was her record at the head of the scandal-ridden Texas Lottery Commission?
What cases did she take on while working as a corporate lawyer in private practice, and what positions did she fight for?
What has she written or said in and outside of her law practice about her views on constitutional issues like privacy, the "commerce clause" or equal protection
As White House councel Alberto Gonzales played a pivotal role in softening America's stance on torture. What positions has Harriet Miers advocated for in the same role?
Has she ever publicly distanced herself from George W. Bush?
It's important that we move quickly in answering these questions. The Bush spin machine has been prepared for this nomination for some time and is already cranking at full speed. The strategy is to move Miers through as an enigma. We need to make sure the facts about her views are known.

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i don't like her. i don't like this promoting from within. i don't like this cronyism. "brownie" was part of that process, and look what a good job he did with fema. "rummy" is part of it too, and i'm sure many will agree his job in iraq has been far from stellar. i'm afraid of this woman, and this president's incompetence. he's run everything he's ever run into the ground. finally we get to see him do it to america. um, that's not a good thing.

527 Reform

2005-09-28T10:06:00.000-05:00

Thank you for contacting me to share your thoughts about the 527 Reform Act of 2005 (S. 271). I appreciate hearing from you.

Throughout my service in Congress, I have supported efforts to reform our nation's campaign finance system to limit the influence of money and help restore the public's confidence in the way we elect our leaders. I was an original cosponsor of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA), which was signed into law in 2002. This law made many important reforms to reduce the influence of campaign contributions.

S. 271, the 527 Reform Act, will do little to curb the power of big money in our political system. Wealthy individuals still will be free to spend unlimited amounts of money to further their political interests. They will be able to pay for communications directly, buy as many ads as they desire, and say whatever they wish, without being subject to any constraints or reporting requirements under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Those rights are guaranteed by our Constitution.

However, under S. 271, two or more citizens of modest means who join together to promote their political views and decide for tax purposes to register as a 527 organization would be subject to stringent federal regulations and limitations on the amounts and sources of the funds they may raise. Under S. 271, if a 527 organization spends more than $1,000 on a communication that "promotes, supports, attacks, or opposes" a clearly identified federal candidate at any time up to a year before a general election, the 527 organization must register as a federal political action committee subject to regulation by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). They would be limited to raising money in restricted increments and would be precluded from accepting donations from a single individual that exceed $25,000 in any one year. Consequently, S. 271 would amplify the voices of powerful wealthy interests at the expense of independent citizen groups who pool their resources.

This measure also would do little to prevent corporate entities from spending their profits on messages about the issue positions of federal candidates or public officials. Except for the brief 30 or 60 day period immediately prior to a primary or general election, when the electioneering communication provisions of BCRA prohibit the use of corporate funds for broadcast advertising, corporations are free to communicate with the public on issues without restriction. Even during the 30 and 60 day blackout periods, such entities can continue to use the mail and phones to communicate with the public. While S. 271 would cripple the activities of groups supported by individuals and operated independently of candidates and parties, it would not address any of the money flowing into the electoral process through trade associations and the corporate community.

S. 271 would squelch the civic engagement that characterizes a healthy democracy. The measure undermines the valuable role played by independent, citizen-based groups that have helped raise voter turnout to the historic levels witnessed in recent federal elections. A record 122.3 million people, or 60% of those eligible, cast a vote for President in 2004. Yet S. 271 would require any 527 organization that spends more than $1,000 during a calendar year on "voter drive activity," -- including voter registration activity, voter identification, and get-out-the-vote activity in connection with a federal election -- to operate as a federal political action committee. At a time when the number of voters is rising, I question a policy that would hinder the forces that brought more citizens into the electoral process.

The 527 Reform Act undermines the rights of association and freedom of speech. The enactment of this measure would effectively remove independent voices from the public debate by severely limiting the ability of citizen groups to call attention to the issues of concern to ordinary Americans citizens who share their values.

When the Senate Rules Committee, of which I am a member, considered S. 271, several amendments were adopted, including one I offered that would address the high cost of campaign advertising. Since advertising costs drive the search for ever-increasing campaign contributions, my amendment would require broadcast stations to charge candidates and parties the lowest rate available to purchase time to run political advertisements. My amendment also would make campaign purchases of broadcast time non-preemptible, ensuring that candidate and party advertisements are not bumped by other advertisers willing to pay more in the bidding war for airtime.

I voted against the Rules Committee's motion to send the 527 Reform Act to the Senate floor for further action, but the amended version of this measure was reported by the Rules Committee on April 27, 2005, with a new bill number, S. 1053. I will continue to monitor this measure in case it is considered for a vote by the full Senate.

Thanks again for contacting me. Please feel free to keep in touch.
Sincerely,

Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

george bush the lesser, killing you slowly

2005-09-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

Cindy Skrzycki. The Washington Post. 2005/09/27. Page D1.
The Bush administration, which advocates broad reforms of the legal system, has proposed federal regulations that would prohibit some types of lawsuits. The White House has been using the regulatory system at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Food and Drug Administration, and banking agencies to preempt lawsuits that it sees as violating federal standards. Glenn Lammi, chief counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation, which represents business interests, says that the Bush administration has been working on these smaller issues since it has not been able to gather enough support to get far-reaching tort reforms enacted. For example, on August 19 the NHTSA issued a long-sought proposal to increase the strength of vehicle roofs, which sometimes collapse in rollover accidents. Auto safety groups not only criticized the proposal for not going far enough to save lives in rollovers, but also strongly objected to a provision that would make it more difficult for consumers to file lawsuits related to roof defects against auto makers.

separation is imperative

2005-09-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

i'm not sure what to think about fema reimbursing religious groups. any thoughts? i understand that, in theory, it's any group that helped with housing evacuees from the gulf storms, but the government giving religious organizations money makes me nervous. where's the separation of church and state? i guess what really galls me is that religious groups, and especially those damn conservative christians, have pushed for this. that, coupled with this administration's support for religious (namely christian) organizations makes me uncomfortable. for god's sake, the president wants 'intelligent design' taught in schools alongside evolution. what next, teaching the bible as 'alternative history'?

silence freedom

2005-09-26T12:04:00.000-05:00

please check out this site. it's related to the aclu's attack on the patriot act. thank you.

outside observations

2005-09-23T17:33:00.000-05:00

excerpts from politically-minded emails today:

Bush Suspended Requirement for Katrina Contractors to Have an Affirmative Action Plan for Veterans, Minorities, Women, and Disabled Persons. Bush's Labor Department has suspended requirements that government contractors have a written affirmative action plan addressing the employment of women, minorities, Vietnam veterans, and the disabled if the companies are first-time government contractors working on post-Katrina reconstruction. According to the New York Times, "the move comes as President Bush has tried to address the perception of unfairness in the government's response to the hurricane." According to Shirley J. Wilcher, the interim executive director of the American Association for Affirmative Action and former deputy assistant secretary for federal contract compliance, "It is not simply a paperwork exercise. It is the basis for companies to be mindful of their obligation not to discriminate." [New York Times, 9/20/05]

Bush Suspended Davis-Bacon Prevailing Wage Rules, Allowing Contractors to Hire Employees at Depressed Wages. Bush issued a proclamation for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida that suspends the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931- which requires employers to pay locally prevailing wages to construction workers on federally-financed projects- for Katrina-related work. While touted as a method to save taxpayers money, Bush's proclamation does not require contractors to pass on savings they accrue as a result of cutting wages. According to a Denver Post editorial, "Bush is now using Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to trash more than seven decades of labor law, allowing Katrina contractors to hire employees at whatever wages the depressed local conditions might warrant." [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/20/05; Columbus Dispatch, 9/19/05; Denver Post, editorial, 9/19/05]

This week the Bush Administration prevented witnesses from providing public testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Able Danger, "a secret military unit that is said to have identified four of the Sept. 11 hijackers more than a year before the terrorist attacks." [Foxnews.com, 9/22/05] Even Republican members of Congress blasted the White House's unwillingness to be open and honest with the American people about our fight against terrorism.

The Bush White House has once again shown a preference for playing politics rather than protecting the American people from terrorist attacks. At every turn, this Administration has been unwilling to investigate its own officials, their friends and their cronies. Now, even Republicans in Congress are rebelling against Bush's inability to tell the truth about his Administration's failures. It's time for President Bush to stop stonewalling and demonstrate genuine leadership by working with Congress to independently and thoroughly answer the serious questions about our national security raised by the failures of Able Danger and the failed response to Katrina.

GOP Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA): Bush Administration Owes American People an Explanation. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter blasted the Pentagon's decision not to allow five key officials to testify in front of his committee. "I think the Department of Defense owes the American people an explanation of what went on here. The American people are entitled to some answers." Specter also noted, "that looks to me like it may be obstruction of the committee's activities, something we will have to determine." [Reuters, 9/22/05; AP, 9/22/05; Foxnews.com, 9/22/05]

GOP Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA): Pentagon Wants to Avoid "Egg on Their Face." "A Pentagon spokesman had said the decision to limit testimony was based on concerns about disclosing classified information, but Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said he believed the reason was a concern 'that they'll just have egg on their face.'" [New York Times, 9/22/05]

GOP Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA): "There's something wrong with the system, and we should be able to discuss that." [Portland (Maine) Press-Herald, 9/22/05]

"why stand on a silent platform?"

2005-09-21T09:49:00.000-05:00

hey, can anyone tell me why the democrats are being such pansies? where's the leadership? where are the ideas? it's not enough to complain about bush and his cronies, not enough to argue against his ideas and plans. have your own ideas, have your own plans. someone needs to step up and give us an alternative to believe, not some half-baked 'at least i'm not george bush' mushiness. why did kerry lose? because he didn't stand for anything. the american people wanted someone who meant something, and bush, for better or worse, means something.

please, democrats: grow a spine and take a leadership position. give us ideas, give us beliefs, give us a plan for the future. don't just counter everything bush says, say something better. i don't care if the american people don't like your ideas, i don't care if what you say won't win you votes. have ideas, say something. that, alone, will give you legitimacy, will win you attention and support. the present spineless blob called the democratic party is a travesty.

the true undermining of democracy is the ineffectiveness of an opposition party to show any true opposition. it's not just that the republicans are subverting the election system, it's that they've pushed the debate to that fact, rather than the qualitative reasons for why people aren't voting democrat. they've stolen the focus on ideas, they decide what gets discussed and argued about. the democrats are just responding, being reactive. they need to be proactive or they stand for nothing.

a turning point, or more of the same shit from george w. bush?

2005-09-13T14:46:00.000-05:00

below are excerpts from this msn article:

Following the Gatreaux model in Chicago, the Clinton administration launched a "scatter-site" housing program in four cities that found homes for the poor in mixed-income neighborhoods. While the move doesn't much benefit adults, their children—confronted with higher expectations and a less harmful peer group—do much better. "It really helped in Atlanta," says Rep. John Lewis, a hero of the civil-rights movement. Bush and the GOP Congress killed the idea, as well as the Youth Opportunity Grant program, which had shown success in partnering with the private sector to help prepare disadvantaged teens for work and life. They tried to cut after-school programs—proven winners—by 40 percent, then settled for a freeze.

Beyond the thousands of individual efforts necessary to save New Orleans and ease poverty lie some big political choices. Until Katrina intervened, the top priority for the GOP when Congress reconvened was permanent repeal of the estate tax, which applies to far less than 1 percent of taxpayers. (IRS figures show that only 1,607 wealthy people in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi even pay the tax, out of more than 4 million taxpayers—one twenty-fifth of 1 percent.) Repeal would cost the government $24 billion a year. Meanwhile, House GOP leaders are set to slash food stamps by billions in order to protect subsidies to wealthy farmers. But Katrina could change the climate. The aftermath was not a good omen for the Grover Norquists of the world, who want to slash taxes more and shrink government to the size where it can be "strangled in the bathtub."

chief justice roberts

2005-09-13T09:27:00.000-05:00

i agree that the concept of legal precedent is a "very important consideration." i don't think it's effective to fight roberts' confirmation. i think, also, if he's being honest, he's a conservative of a different stripe than either party expects or fears. he is the sort who won't rock the boat, who won't want to change things. in essence we'll have a static supreme court for the next thirty years. we'll have minor refinement and clarification, but few dramatic decisions. unless something extreme arises, i expect roberts to back congress and the president except where their actions explicitly conflict with the constitution. if he really values precedent, then he won't turn back the clock on anything. he also won't push things forward, either. i don't see roberts as a threat to anything but change. it's sandra day o'connor's replacement we have to watch.

all of this is drawn from third-hand knowledge, and reflects my own opinions of this possibly incomplete and distorted information. maybe i'm wrong, what do i know?

third-world disaster in 'the greatest nation on earth'

2005-09-02T10:48:00.000-05:00

after the terrorist attacks in 2001, bush responded with a resolute swiftness. it was such a surprise for everyone that many of us admired his ability to take a stand, make quick decisions, and get things done. everyone was dazed and he took control. he got a lot of credit for that.

in new orleans they had many days to prepare. they knew the hurricane was coming. maybe they didn't understand the power it would have and the destruction it would cause, but they had to have some idea that it would be a disaster area afterwards. the government could have made some preparations for handling the aftermath. it could have put troops in place for immediate involvement in the region. it could have quickly drawn up a plan for evacuating people and keeping the peace in the subsequent chaos when supplies were low and services shut down.

instead, it took an iraq approach: let shit hit the fan then muddle through the aftermath.

here is an event that, while not avoidable, certainly could have been taken into consideration when drawing up disaster relief plans. plans for reacting to such things. what happens if terrorists discharge a dirty nuke in la or nyc, or even dc? no warning on that, so we'll excuse them a little for not having people ready to rush in afterwards, but would they still be as slow as they are now? it's clear to me they don't have any sort of rapid response team for natural disasters, even when they had a few days to prepare. what do they have for sudden emergencies?

i'll repeat myself here: what do bush and cheney and the administration have to gain from this tragedy. what do they have to gain from higher oil prices, and thus higher gas prices? what do they have to gain, personally, from all this? do you really think that's not a consideration? do you really think they wouldn't lie to us? do you really think they wouldn't invade a country to steal its oil? do you really think a president wouldn't let disaster strike so he can use it to bolster his reputation?

you probably think nixon wasn't involved in watergate, either.

you're for sale

2005-08-26T10:22:00.000-05:00

the economy is improving, for corporations, but wages aren't keeping pace with inflation. some refer to this as a jobless recovery. business is getting more efficient, getting more out of its workers, and due to globalisation (or, rather, global interconnectedness), the labor market is enormous, much larger than the number of available jobs. to make matters worse, rising oil prices are pushing up transportation costs which will, eventually, drive up prices across the board. this means you'll be making less and paying more for. americans aren't saving money, instead investing in property or pushing their debt limits because of low interest rates. this has to change or we're all going to be in trouble. neither does it help that the federal government is fiscally irresponsible. though despite tax cuts the government is due to bring in higher tax revenues and reduce its deficit somewhat, spending is still through the roof. case in point: the highway bill bush recently signed. it costs taxpayers about $280 million (i completely forget the numbers right now so i could be way off), of which about $100 million are going to pet projects for senators and representatives (known popularly as pork) to boost their support among their constituents rather than serve any practical purpose. politicans are spending your money to keep themselves in power. anyone who sponsors such crap should get voted out, but you'll never do it because your vote is for sale.

talk to your enemy

2005-08-19T13:10:00.000-05:00

how'd a republican have such a good idea? i wholly agree. engage in diplomatic relations, show we can be trusted. don't threaten to attck. we can't possibly do it. do you think iran believes it? right next door they have a disaster of our making. there's no way in hell we can threaten them too.

shoot the thief, not the messenger

2005-08-19T13:06:00.000-05:00

i'm beginning to think john roberts is going to work out ok. hype aside, i think he'll be boring and uneventful. and, it's hard to stop his nomination anyway, so let's just get it over with.

though, i would like the president to stop blocking information. we have the most secretive administration since nixon, and you see what he got us. we have laws allowing people access to information so we know how our government is run. the bush administration has circumvented most of that and kept secret it's reasoning for policy decisions. or it has lied to us about them. energy policy? war in iraq? pork-filled highway bill? we live in a kakistocracy. at least it's not a kleptocracy.

politics as usual (wasting money again)

2005-08-10T13:44:00.000-05:00

another nightmare of fiscal irresponsibility (and political pandering from the same people who brought you the war in iraq and the nation's biggest budget deficit.

tom delay is a terrorist

2005-08-02T18:56:00.000-05:00

i got this in an email (you can tell because it uses capital letters), but i want to pass it out because of some of the stuff it does. a) it gives out my tax money in ways that directly oppose the energy conservation and development of renewable energy principles on which i stand b) "relaxes the rules on
export of bomb-grade uranium"!!!!! and we're worried about iran? take a look at your own government, people. all those senators and representatives and judges and presidential hangers-on, they've got nuke-proof bunkers to which they can escape. not that a government does them much good when the country's been wiped out, but at least then they can rebuild the world in their own images. corruption at the highest levels, insincerity and evil everywhere.

It seems like everyday there's more bad news coming out of Washington -- today's recess appointment of John Bolton is a case in point. On Friday, our movement for an America that reflects our values suffered a particularly devastating blow -- Congress passed a terrible energy bill. This legislation makes us more dependent on dirty energy, and hands out billions of unnecessary corporate pork along the way.

The bill gives away more than $8.5 billion in tax breaks over the next 10 years to oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power, and electric utilities. The nuclear industry alone gets $1.5 billion in direct subsidies, $2 billion in "risk insurance," and loan guarantees for future new reactor construction.

But as if that wasn't enough, Representative Tom DeLay managed to slip a provision into the bill at the very last minute to enrich an oil and gas consortium in his district to the tune of $1 billion. Another last-minute addition to the bill (incredibly) relaxes the rules on export of bomb-grade uranium in order to benefit a single medical isotope manufacturer based in Canada.