It’s been almost a year since my last San Antonio blogger update, and since then the local blogging community has expanded ten-fold.
One big change is that the San Antonio Express-News, to its credit, has embraced blogging and now lets its reporters set up blogs off of their main site. They also have a section on the side of the page where they link to “other area blogs” including mine. While this list is helpful, it is not all inclusive and includes a lot of blogs that are not from San Antonio.
So to obtain a comprehensive list of local bloggers I have sifted through lists on a number of local sites and checked each one for recent activity and some evidence of a San Antonio connection. I have also tried to group blogs based on their political ideology. Blogs that have not been updated in more than six months were left off. I also did not include a few blogs which seemed to be devoted entirely to personal and family matters.
I’m sure that I have left many blogs off. It is almost impossible to tell where a blog is based if the author doesn’t choose to include that small detail somewhere on the site and if they never address local issues or happenings.
Left
Rhetoric & Rhythm - that’s my blog.
The Agonist by Sean-Paul Kelley, a progressive community weblog dedicated to international commentary, news and politics. Recently, Kelley has also been guest hosting a weekly radio program at AM550 KTSA.
B and B by P.M. Bryant focuses on science and environmental issues
The Jeffersonian is great for local politics and sports and is authored by the anonymous Cincinnatus.
NewsHog is a group news and commentary site which has at least one of its main contributors - Cernig - based here.
The Red State by Eddie Rodriguez is keyed into state politics.
Just Another Blog by Matt is another good place for local and state political news.
Then there are a few that I am not all that familiar with:
buddenblog (not updated since Oct. 2005)
Ablogistan
saapacblog That’s the San Antonio Area Progressive Action Coalition which is news to me.
Larry For the Lege by some folks challenging Frank Corte Jr. for state representative in my district.
The Kendallian by some Democrats out in Boerne.
Right
All Things Conservative by Bill Crawford (on hiatus) is an invaluable source for positive news coming out of Iraq and also a popular site for folks on the right and left to debate the issues.
The View From The Nest by the Ranten Raven
But That's Just My Opinion by Jimmy Kerr
Pete The Elder by Pete.
Roscoe’s Excuse by Roscoe Ellis
Raving Heretic by Rick
Dead Can’t Rant by Dave and Renee
Tex the Pontificator (shut down)
Surgical Steel
Blogonomicon
Dagney's Rant
Conservative Dialysis
The Daily Brief
Unsure
The Price of Liberty (not updated since Oct. 2005)
San Antonio Politics
loribravo.com
Alan Weinkrantz PR Web Log a local PR guru who is pioneering the use of blogging in the business world.
SAtechBlog also by Alan Weinkrantz
Real Live Preacher by Gordon Atkinson, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in San Antonio.
The Main Point Blog by Michael Main (and one of Gordon’s parishoners).
Monday, January 09, 2006
Friday, January 06, 2006
School Vouchers - RIP
This article at TPMCafe does a good job explaining why yet another really bad Republican idea is now in its death throes:
These are not good times at conservative idea factories and their advocacy affiliates. They were humbled when Social Security privatization bit the dust. They were crushed when they lost the Dover, Pennsylvania intelligent design case. And now the Florida Supreme Court, bless them once again, has struck down Jeb Bush's signature school voucher plan.
Like Social Security privatization, the school voucher idea is unraveling because of a fundamental flaw that inherently prevents it in practice from fulfilling its theoretical promise. It's a flaw that lies at the heart of yesterday's ruling in Florida and has become plainly evident in the nation's biggest voucher experiment in Milwaukee. That flaw is that vouchers require public funds to be spent on activities that lack public accountability....
The whole purported appeal of vouchers ... is that they are supposed to bypass government bureaucracies. Parents "empowered" with vouchers will on their own have the incentives to seek out the best schools for their children without any intervening public agencies.....
But how are parents supposed to discover good schools in the absence of any reliable, systematic source of information about them? How are the rest of us supposed to judge whether the experiment is working or not in the absence of any data?
... One of the great unresolved contradictions in the conservative movement's advocacy on education is the extent to which it is demanding that public schools adhere to rigid testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act while simultaneously promoting voucher systems that require no reporting at all from private schools about their performance.
These are not good times at conservative idea factories and their advocacy affiliates. They were humbled when Social Security privatization bit the dust. They were crushed when they lost the Dover, Pennsylvania intelligent design case. And now the Florida Supreme Court, bless them once again, has struck down Jeb Bush's signature school voucher plan.
Like Social Security privatization, the school voucher idea is unraveling because of a fundamental flaw that inherently prevents it in practice from fulfilling its theoretical promise. It's a flaw that lies at the heart of yesterday's ruling in Florida and has become plainly evident in the nation's biggest voucher experiment in Milwaukee. That flaw is that vouchers require public funds to be spent on activities that lack public accountability....
The whole purported appeal of vouchers ... is that they are supposed to bypass government bureaucracies. Parents "empowered" with vouchers will on their own have the incentives to seek out the best schools for their children without any intervening public agencies.....
But how are parents supposed to discover good schools in the absence of any reliable, systematic source of information about them? How are the rest of us supposed to judge whether the experiment is working or not in the absence of any data?
... One of the great unresolved contradictions in the conservative movement's advocacy on education is the extent to which it is demanding that public schools adhere to rigid testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act while simultaneously promoting voucher systems that require no reporting at all from private schools about their performance.
The Bush Boom
From The Washington Monthly
If you want to know why the economy feels kind of lousy even though the nation's journalists keep telling us everything is peachy, EPI explains it all here.
The short answer is that although the headline numbers of growth and productivity are healthy, this growth isn't benefiting actual workers: hourly wages are down, household income is down, debt is at historic highs, the personal savings rate is now negative, job creation is sluggish, poverty is up, and the number of people without health insurance is rising.
If you want to know why the economy feels kind of lousy even though the nation's journalists keep telling us everything is peachy, EPI explains it all here.
The short answer is that although the headline numbers of growth and productivity are healthy, this growth isn't benefiting actual workers: hourly wages are down, household income is down, debt is at historic highs, the personal savings rate is now negative, job creation is sluggish, poverty is up, and the number of people without health insurance is rising.
Where is the revulsion, Part II
From Salon.com
By Joe Conason
Now that such whited sepulchers as Newt Gingrich have denounced the betrayal of the Republican revolution and the evils of congressional corruption, what more can be said about Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, Tom DeLay and all the other politicians, operatives and bagmen implicated in their schemes? Perhaps it is worth expressing a small hope that the good religious people of this country will rise up in outrage against the abuse of their faith by all these pious hypocrites.
Rarely has the contrast between the rhetoric of the religious right and the behavior of its leaders been so starkly exposed as in the Abramoff scandal. The most obvious example was the manipulation of Christian activists in Louisiana and Texas by Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, who said he was helping them fight gambling when he was actually using them to promote Indian casinos (and to make a few million bucks for himself).
That episode alone should have alerted honest Christians to the moral rot within the Republican leadership that professed to represent their interests. But there is of course much more evidence of the religious cynicism of Abramoff and his cronies....
By Joe Conason
Now that such whited sepulchers as Newt Gingrich have denounced the betrayal of the Republican revolution and the evils of congressional corruption, what more can be said about Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, Tom DeLay and all the other politicians, operatives and bagmen implicated in their schemes? Perhaps it is worth expressing a small hope that the good religious people of this country will rise up in outrage against the abuse of their faith by all these pious hypocrites.
Rarely has the contrast between the rhetoric of the religious right and the behavior of its leaders been so starkly exposed as in the Abramoff scandal. The most obvious example was the manipulation of Christian activists in Louisiana and Texas by Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, who said he was helping them fight gambling when he was actually using them to promote Indian casinos (and to make a few million bucks for himself).
That episode alone should have alerted honest Christians to the moral rot within the Republican leadership that professed to represent their interests. But there is of course much more evidence of the religious cynicism of Abramoff and his cronies....
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Where’s the moral revulsion?
David Brooks slaps his own party around in today’s New York Times.
I don't know what's more pathetic, Jack Abramoff's sleaze or Republican paralysis in the face of it. Abramoff walks out of a D.C. courthouse in his pseudo-Hasidic homburg, and all that leading Republicans can do is promise to return his money and remind everyone that some Democrats are involved in the scandal, too.
That's a great G.O.P. talking point: some Democrats are so sleazy, they get involved with the likes of us.
If Republicans want to emerge from this affair with their self-respect or electoral prospects intact, they need to get in front of it with a comprehensive reform offensive...
Brooks goes on to list some very good reform ideas, some of which are stolen from the Democrats. They include dumping Tom DeLay and holding new leadership elections for the Party, and actually enforcing House rules that they have ignored by allowing members to slip spending provisions into bills at the last minute:
There's bound to be corruption when members are forced to vote on sprawling bills nobody has a chance to inspect. Instead, all legislation should be posted online for 72 hours before the vote, so the staff and bloggers can nitpick and expose.
He also says that they should fire Congressman Bob Ney as chairman of the House Administration Committee immediately.
For God's sake, Republicans, show a little moral revulsion. Back in the dim recesses of my mind, I remember a party that thought of itself as a reform, or even a revolutionary movement. That party used to be known as the Republican Party. I wonder if it still exists.
Answer: No, it does not, if it ever did.
I certainly hope that the GOP leadership will ignore Brooks’ advice and dismiss this column outright.
I don't know what's more pathetic, Jack Abramoff's sleaze or Republican paralysis in the face of it. Abramoff walks out of a D.C. courthouse in his pseudo-Hasidic homburg, and all that leading Republicans can do is promise to return his money and remind everyone that some Democrats are involved in the scandal, too.
That's a great G.O.P. talking point: some Democrats are so sleazy, they get involved with the likes of us.
If Republicans want to emerge from this affair with their self-respect or electoral prospects intact, they need to get in front of it with a comprehensive reform offensive...
Brooks goes on to list some very good reform ideas, some of which are stolen from the Democrats. They include dumping Tom DeLay and holding new leadership elections for the Party, and actually enforcing House rules that they have ignored by allowing members to slip spending provisions into bills at the last minute:
There's bound to be corruption when members are forced to vote on sprawling bills nobody has a chance to inspect. Instead, all legislation should be posted online for 72 hours before the vote, so the staff and bloggers can nitpick and expose.
He also says that they should fire Congressman Bob Ney as chairman of the House Administration Committee immediately.
For God's sake, Republicans, show a little moral revulsion. Back in the dim recesses of my mind, I remember a party that thought of itself as a reform, or even a revolutionary movement. That party used to be known as the Republican Party. I wonder if it still exists.
Answer: No, it does not, if it ever did.
I certainly hope that the GOP leadership will ignore Brooks’ advice and dismiss this column outright.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Sago mining disaster
Today everyone is rightfully upset over the emotional rollercoaster that the families of the Sago mining disaster victims were put through last night. Our 24-hour, you-are-there-when-it-happens news culture spread the mistaken belief that 12 of the 13 miners survived the disaster all over the country before it was confirmed that only one survivor was found.
But what should upset people even more is the way the Bush administration has neglected coal mining safety in recent years.
According to Bloomberg:
Federal authorities issued 21 citations last year for a build-up of combustible materials at the West Virginia mine where 12 men died, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics.
And yet these citations were ignored. Why? Because they had no teeth.
...penalties for OSHA or MSHA violations remain laughably low. The highest penalty of the more than 200 citations received last year by the Sago mine was $878. But that was the exception. Most of the others were $250 or $60. At that rate, it’s hardly a good business decision to even bother fixing anything.
Meanwhile, it is amazing that these mines still get inspected at all considering the political climate in Washington these days.
According to an AFL-CIO analysis, the Bush administration cut 170 positions from federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and has not proposed a single new mine-safety standard or rule during its tenure.
Then, of course, there is the inevitable Republican cronyism - a Bush administration specialty!
Last September, Bush rewarded the coal industry by placing coal industry veteran Richard Stickler in charge of MSHA. Stickler spent about 30 years as a coal company manager with Beth Energy. Mines managed by Stickler were marked by worker injury rates that were double the national average, according to government data cited by the United Mine Workers union.
It wasn’t always like this, though. As Think Progress reminds us:
The mining explosion should call attention to the Bush administration’s inadequate enforcement of federal mining safety regulations. Mining safety in the U.S. has improved dramatically since the Mining Safety and Health Act was signed in 1977. By the time that President Clinton signed the International Labor Organization’s Convention 176 concerning safety and health in mines, mining deaths dropped from 425 in 1970 to 85 in 2000.
But then West Virginia coal firms raised $275,000 for Bush/Cheney, and since then the citations for safety violations have become meaningless.
Phil Smith, the communications director for the United Mine Workers of America, said that while citations have been issued, the fines assessed for safety violations are too small to force large corporations to make improvements. “The problem with the current laws is enforcement.”
Hmmmmmm. Enforcing the laws. Kind of like upholding the Constitution. That is not something that this administration is particularly good at.
But what should upset people even more is the way the Bush administration has neglected coal mining safety in recent years.
According to Bloomberg:
Federal authorities issued 21 citations last year for a build-up of combustible materials at the West Virginia mine where 12 men died, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics.
And yet these citations were ignored. Why? Because they had no teeth.
...penalties for OSHA or MSHA violations remain laughably low. The highest penalty of the more than 200 citations received last year by the Sago mine was $878. But that was the exception. Most of the others were $250 or $60. At that rate, it’s hardly a good business decision to even bother fixing anything.
Meanwhile, it is amazing that these mines still get inspected at all considering the political climate in Washington these days.
According to an AFL-CIO analysis, the Bush administration cut 170 positions from federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and has not proposed a single new mine-safety standard or rule during its tenure.
Then, of course, there is the inevitable Republican cronyism - a Bush administration specialty!
Last September, Bush rewarded the coal industry by placing coal industry veteran Richard Stickler in charge of MSHA. Stickler spent about 30 years as a coal company manager with Beth Energy. Mines managed by Stickler were marked by worker injury rates that were double the national average, according to government data cited by the United Mine Workers union.
It wasn’t always like this, though. As Think Progress reminds us:
The mining explosion should call attention to the Bush administration’s inadequate enforcement of federal mining safety regulations. Mining safety in the U.S. has improved dramatically since the Mining Safety and Health Act was signed in 1977. By the time that President Clinton signed the International Labor Organization’s Convention 176 concerning safety and health in mines, mining deaths dropped from 425 in 1970 to 85 in 2000.
But then West Virginia coal firms raised $275,000 for Bush/Cheney, and since then the citations for safety violations have become meaningless.
Phil Smith, the communications director for the United Mine Workers of America, said that while citations have been issued, the fines assessed for safety violations are too small to force large corporations to make improvements. “The problem with the current laws is enforcement.”
Hmmmmmm. Enforcing the laws. Kind of like upholding the Constitution. That is not something that this administration is particularly good at.
6 percent
What a joke.
Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney '04 re-election campaign, earning the honorary title "pioneer" from the campaign. But the campaign is giving up only $6,000 directly from Abramoff, his wife and one of the Indian tribes that he worked to win influence for in Washington. The money is being donated to the American Heart Association.
The crime isn’t that people got money from Abramoff. It is what they did after they got the money - the quid pro quo. That is what Abramoff will be testifying about in his plea agreement.
Giving 6 percent of the money to some random charity is just a desperate, last-ditch PR move.
Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney '04 re-election campaign, earning the honorary title "pioneer" from the campaign. But the campaign is giving up only $6,000 directly from Abramoff, his wife and one of the Indian tribes that he worked to win influence for in Washington. The money is being donated to the American Heart Association.
The crime isn’t that people got money from Abramoff. It is what they did after they got the money - the quid pro quo. That is what Abramoff will be testifying about in his plea agreement.
Giving 6 percent of the money to some random charity is just a desperate, last-ditch PR move.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Putting your money where his mouth is
President Bush gets a lot of credit from his GOP apologists for spreading freedom and democracy across Iraq. But how much of that is really deserved?
The other day the Washington Post broke the news that the Bush administration is not planning to seek any more reconstruction funds for Iraq.
The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein.
So that means we are done, right? Mission Accomplished!! Or is it?
Today’s Wall Street Journal adds a little more perspective to that WaPo exclusive from the day before starting with the failure of our allies to come through on their promises of reconstruction aid:
“U.S. allies have fulfilled about $3.1 billion of the $13.6 billion they pledged at a donor conference in Madrid shortly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. It is unclear when - or if - the rest will be provided. An October 2003 World Bank study estimated that as much as $60 billion would be needed to rebuild Iraq, far more than has been pledged or delivered.
OK, stop right there! So the World Bank says we need $60 billion for the job and we have only allocated $18 billion in three years, half of which has been diverted for other purposes? So how does the Bush team justify pulling the plug on reconstruction and not allocating any more funds? What are the consequences of stopping now? Let’s go back to the WSJ:
Foreign-funded reconstruction is likely to halt entirely this year unless Iraq’s new government accomplishes the significant task of finding other sources of money. The U.S. has been unable to get electricity or oil production back to pre-invasion levels, and water and sewer problems are growing for many of Iraq’s 26 million people. A continued inability to solve those problems could damp public confidence in Iraq’s next government and possibly lead restive ethnic groups to conclude their interests would be better served through independence.”
So if we just leave this problem to fester it will probably lead to civil unrest that will probably tear apart the fledgling government and lead to civil war.
Now, obviously, I’m one who did not want to go into Iraq in the first place and I have advocated pulling our troops out sooner than later. But President Bush is the one who has insisted that setting up a stable government in Iraq was the reason we toppled Saddam in the first place. Is he really serious about achieving that goal? I’m beginning to doubt it.
I guess it is one thing to ask our troops to go overseas and lay down their lives on behalf of some right-wing, neo-con fantasy. But asking U.S. taxpayers to sacrifice by perhaps raising their taxes to fund a $60 billion reconstruction program? Not on your life!
If Bush was really and truly committed to his stated goal of turning Iraq into a model of Western-style democracy, he would have gone before the U.S. people and told us that it is now our turn to sacrifice the way our soldiers have by opening our wallets to support the ongoing works that must be completed to get Iraq to where it needs to be.
But apparently, that is asking too much. In the end, the only thing that matters to Republicans is tax cuts for the rich. Everything else is just pie in the sky flapping of their gums with no real substance to back it up. And they are just counting on the rest of us not to notice.
The other day the Washington Post broke the news that the Bush administration is not planning to seek any more reconstruction funds for Iraq.
The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein.
So that means we are done, right? Mission Accomplished!! Or is it?
Today’s Wall Street Journal adds a little more perspective to that WaPo exclusive from the day before starting with the failure of our allies to come through on their promises of reconstruction aid:
“U.S. allies have fulfilled about $3.1 billion of the $13.6 billion they pledged at a donor conference in Madrid shortly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. It is unclear when - or if - the rest will be provided. An October 2003 World Bank study estimated that as much as $60 billion would be needed to rebuild Iraq, far more than has been pledged or delivered.
OK, stop right there! So the World Bank says we need $60 billion for the job and we have only allocated $18 billion in three years, half of which has been diverted for other purposes? So how does the Bush team justify pulling the plug on reconstruction and not allocating any more funds? What are the consequences of stopping now? Let’s go back to the WSJ:
Foreign-funded reconstruction is likely to halt entirely this year unless Iraq’s new government accomplishes the significant task of finding other sources of money. The U.S. has been unable to get electricity or oil production back to pre-invasion levels, and water and sewer problems are growing for many of Iraq’s 26 million people. A continued inability to solve those problems could damp public confidence in Iraq’s next government and possibly lead restive ethnic groups to conclude their interests would be better served through independence.”
So if we just leave this problem to fester it will probably lead to civil unrest that will probably tear apart the fledgling government and lead to civil war.
Now, obviously, I’m one who did not want to go into Iraq in the first place and I have advocated pulling our troops out sooner than later. But President Bush is the one who has insisted that setting up a stable government in Iraq was the reason we toppled Saddam in the first place. Is he really serious about achieving that goal? I’m beginning to doubt it.
I guess it is one thing to ask our troops to go overseas and lay down their lives on behalf of some right-wing, neo-con fantasy. But asking U.S. taxpayers to sacrifice by perhaps raising their taxes to fund a $60 billion reconstruction program? Not on your life!
If Bush was really and truly committed to his stated goal of turning Iraq into a model of Western-style democracy, he would have gone before the U.S. people and told us that it is now our turn to sacrifice the way our soldiers have by opening our wallets to support the ongoing works that must be completed to get Iraq to where it needs to be.
But apparently, that is asking too much. In the end, the only thing that matters to Republicans is tax cuts for the rich. Everything else is just pie in the sky flapping of their gums with no real substance to back it up. And they are just counting on the rest of us not to notice.
Guilty, guilty, guilty!!!
Attorney Says Lobbyist Abramoff Reaches Plea Deal in Florida Fraud Case
Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two criminal charges stemming from the 2000 purchase of a fleet of gambling boats, his attorney said Tuesday.
Abramoff will also agree to cooperate in any ongoing federal investigations in Washington, said his Miami attorney Neal Sonnett. Prosecutors there are investigating several members of Congress who allegedly received favors from Abramoff or his clients.
Can Tom DeLay’s second indictment be far behind?
It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Monday, January 02, 2006
2006 Movies
I didn't see many movies that came out in 2005, and it will be sometime before I get to see movies that are coming out in 2006. Still, I'm excited about some of the big movies I've heard about.
Here are a few that I will most likely see at some time or another:
Cars - The latest from Pixar.
The DaVinci Code - I've never read the book and have only the vaguest notion of what it is about, but I figure with Ron Howard directing and Tom Hanks starring you can't go wrong.
Mission Impossible III - I own the first two on video tape. Tom Cruise may be kind of loopy in his personal life these days, but he is still an excellent actor.
Casino Royale - The latest James Bond movie with the new blonde guy in the starring role after they cast off Pierce Brosnan.
Superman Returns - Will this be in the same league with Spider Man and Batman (or the X-Men) Or will it miss the boat and end up in the drink with the likes of The Hulk and Daredevil?
Sicko - The latest by Michael Moore which turns out to be a documentary that goes after the health care industry.
Apocalypto - The lastest from Mel "Passion of the Christ" Gibson.
(Untitled 9-11 movie) by Oliver Stone and starring Nicolas Cage as one of the New York cops who survived the collapse of the first Trade Tower.
Pirates of the Caribbean II - No surprise that they made a sequel here (I understand they have already started a third as well) and it looks like the original cast is all on board.
Of course, there are still a lot of 2005 movies I have yet to see that I want to:
King Kong
Walk the Line
Good Night, Good Luck
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Capote
Syriana
The Producers
Munich
The New World
Chronicles of Narnia
Constant Gardener
History of Violence
Fantastic Four
War of the Worlds
Cinderella Man
Corpse Bride
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit
Chicken Little
The Interpreter
Here are a few that I will most likely see at some time or another:
Cars - The latest from Pixar.
The DaVinci Code - I've never read the book and have only the vaguest notion of what it is about, but I figure with Ron Howard directing and Tom Hanks starring you can't go wrong.
Mission Impossible III - I own the first two on video tape. Tom Cruise may be kind of loopy in his personal life these days, but he is still an excellent actor.
Casino Royale - The latest James Bond movie with the new blonde guy in the starring role after they cast off Pierce Brosnan.
Superman Returns - Will this be in the same league with Spider Man and Batman (or the X-Men) Or will it miss the boat and end up in the drink with the likes of The Hulk and Daredevil?
Sicko - The latest by Michael Moore which turns out to be a documentary that goes after the health care industry.
Apocalypto - The lastest from Mel "Passion of the Christ" Gibson.
(Untitled 9-11 movie) by Oliver Stone and starring Nicolas Cage as one of the New York cops who survived the collapse of the first Trade Tower.
Pirates of the Caribbean II - No surprise that they made a sequel here (I understand they have already started a third as well) and it looks like the original cast is all on board.
Of course, there are still a lot of 2005 movies I have yet to see that I want to:
King Kong
Walk the Line
Good Night, Good Luck
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Capote
Syriana
The Producers
Munich
The New World
Chronicles of Narnia
Constant Gardener
History of Violence
Fantastic Four
War of the Worlds
Cinderella Man
Corpse Bride
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit
Chicken Little
The Interpreter
A New Year
It didn't feel like New Year's today, mainly because there was no Rose Bowl Parade (they bumped it to tomorrow) and also because it was 75 degrees outside.
San Antonio has had a really mild winter so far.
2005 had a lot of problems. Lots of natural and man-made disasters like the Indonesian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the second inauguration of President Bush.
Then there have been countless scandals percolating up from this incompetent administration including the CIA leak that outed Valerie Plame; the corruption swirling around top GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff; and the indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
But none of this took away from the joy my family experienced with the birth of our daughter Isabel in November. Now just over a month old, she is a delight and her big brother Nathan is adjusting well to his new role in the family.
The whole year seemed to just fly right by for me (although I imagine that it probably dragged a bit more for my wife who spent most of that time pregnant).
San Antonio has had a really mild winter so far.
2005 had a lot of problems. Lots of natural and man-made disasters like the Indonesian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the second inauguration of President Bush.
Then there have been countless scandals percolating up from this incompetent administration including the CIA leak that outed Valerie Plame; the corruption swirling around top GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff; and the indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
But none of this took away from the joy my family experienced with the birth of our daughter Isabel in November. Now just over a month old, she is a delight and her big brother Nathan is adjusting well to his new role in the family.
The whole year seemed to just fly right by for me (although I imagine that it probably dragged a bit more for my wife who spent most of that time pregnant).
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Playing by the rules
The Wall Street Journal had a story the other day about a conservative advocacy group known as Move America Forward which pretty much serves the same function on the right that MoveOn.org does on the left.
That would be fine and all, except there is one big difference between the two organizations. While MoveOn.org is a registered political action committee that must disclose its donors and their contributions for public scrutiny, Move America Forward pretends to be a non-partisan, non-profit group and thus gives its donors not only anonymity, but also the right to deduct their donations from their taxes. In other words, the rest of us taxpayers are being forced to subsidize the right-wing group, while the liberal group has to scrape along under the strict reporting requirements for PACs.
Needless to say, this is not fair. But it is also not surprising that the so-called “conservative” group would lie and cheat while the liberal group plays by the rules. They are just following the example set by the current Republican administration.
That would be fine and all, except there is one big difference between the two organizations. While MoveOn.org is a registered political action committee that must disclose its donors and their contributions for public scrutiny, Move America Forward pretends to be a non-partisan, non-profit group and thus gives its donors not only anonymity, but also the right to deduct their donations from their taxes. In other words, the rest of us taxpayers are being forced to subsidize the right-wing group, while the liberal group has to scrape along under the strict reporting requirements for PACs.
Needless to say, this is not fair. But it is also not surprising that the so-called “conservative” group would lie and cheat while the liberal group plays by the rules. They are just following the example set by the current Republican administration.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Limbo in limbo
Interesting story in the NYTimes today - Vatican Considers Consigning Limbo to Oblivion
Limbo, that netherworld of unbaptized babies, worthy pagans and even a few Muslims, is very much on the way out...
This month, 30 top theologians from around the world met at the Vatican to discuss, among other quandaries, the problem of what happens to babies who die without baptism.
Frankly, I think such a move is long overdue. It is nothing short of cruel for the church to tell a mother who just lost a baby that her infant is going anywhere other than to be with God. But I can also see why they have been hesitant to do so up until now.
How can you convince people that they have to be baptized without the fear of hellfire and damnation? If you make an exception for babies, how far does that exception go? At what age can they declare that a child has been consigned to hell for not being cleansed of its “original sin” ? Such a quandry!
The idea of sending innocent babies to hell has always been hard for most people to stomach. But sending them to limbo isn’t much better. So what will they do now? Admit that the church doesn’t have the official rulebook from God that says who does and doesn’t get into Heaven? That’ll be the day!
So I will be interested to see what these Vatican theologians come up with. My guess is that they will take the same stance as doctors dealing with terminal diseases. They will highly recommend baptism for babies, but won’t make any guarantees that it is the final arbiter of salvation.
Limbo, that netherworld of unbaptized babies, worthy pagans and even a few Muslims, is very much on the way out...
This month, 30 top theologians from around the world met at the Vatican to discuss, among other quandaries, the problem of what happens to babies who die without baptism.
Frankly, I think such a move is long overdue. It is nothing short of cruel for the church to tell a mother who just lost a baby that her infant is going anywhere other than to be with God. But I can also see why they have been hesitant to do so up until now.
How can you convince people that they have to be baptized without the fear of hellfire and damnation? If you make an exception for babies, how far does that exception go? At what age can they declare that a child has been consigned to hell for not being cleansed of its “original sin” ? Such a quandry!
The idea of sending innocent babies to hell has always been hard for most people to stomach. But sending them to limbo isn’t much better. So what will they do now? Admit that the church doesn’t have the official rulebook from God that says who does and doesn’t get into Heaven? That’ll be the day!
So I will be interested to see what these Vatican theologians come up with. My guess is that they will take the same stance as doctors dealing with terminal diseases. They will highly recommend baptism for babies, but won’t make any guarantees that it is the final arbiter of salvation.
Bring back Star Trek (and Buffy)
A survey of British TV viewers shows Star Trek as the most missed show on TV today.
It topped a poll of more than 1,000 viewers commissioned by UK interactive TV firm Home Media Networks. Here are the top 10 most missed programs from the survey:
1. Star Trek
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3. Friends
4. Fawlty Towers
5. Blake's 7
6. The X-Files
7. Babylon 5
8. Stargate
9. Seinfeld
10. The A-Team
It topped a poll of more than 1,000 viewers commissioned by UK interactive TV firm Home Media Networks. Here are the top 10 most missed programs from the survey:
1. Star Trek
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3. Friends
4. Fawlty Towers
5. Blake's 7
6. The X-Files
7. Babylon 5
8. Stargate
9. Seinfeld
10. The A-Team
Blockbuster consumption
Like lemmings we all tend to run with the crowd and watch essentially the same movies every year. In looking at the blockbuster movies of years past (films that earned more than $100 million in domestic gross reciepts), I’m struck by how many of them I have seen either in the theater, on video or on TV.
Since 1990, the year I more or less got out of college, there have been 264 blockbusters. Not counting this year, the total is 247. Of those, I have seen all but 59 for about a 75 percent rate of blockbuster consumption.
The films I have not seen, with a few notable exceptions, are ones that I am likely never going to watch because they have no particular appeal for me. Here is the list (* marks movies I still intend to watch someday).
1990 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Dick Tracy
1991 - Beauty and the Beast*
1993 - Indecent Proposal
1994 - The Flintstones
1996 - 101 Dalmations (live action); Scream
1997 - George of the Jungle; Scream 2
1998 - The Rugrats Movie
1999 - Big Daddy; The Blair Witch Project; American Beauty; Analyze This; The General’s Daughter; American Pie
2000 - The Perfect Storm; Meet the Parents; Scary Movie; Traffic; The Nutty Professor II; Big Momma’s House; Remember the Titans
2001 - Hannibal; American Pie 2; The Fast and the Furious; Black Hawk Down*
2002 - Austin Powers Goldmember; Scooby Doo; XXX; The Santa Clause 2; The Ring; Mr. Deeds; Road to Perdition*
2003 - Bruce Almighty; Elf; Cheaper By the Dozen; Bad Boys II; Anger Management; Bringing Down the House; 2 Fast, 2 Furious; Something’s Gotta Give; SWAT; Spy Kids 3-D; Scary Movie 3; American Wedding; Daddy Day Care; The Cat in the Hat; Charlie’s Angels 2
2004 - The Passion of the Christ*; Meet the Fockers; The Day After Tomorrow; The Polar Express*; Ocean’s Twelve; 50 First Dates; Dodge Ball; The Village; The Grudge; Million Dollar Baby*
As for the 2005 blockbusters so far, I can already say that I have little interest in seeing Wedding Crashers; Mr. and Mrs. Smith; The Longest Yard; The Pacifier and 40 Year Old Virgin.
Since 1990, the year I more or less got out of college, there have been 264 blockbusters. Not counting this year, the total is 247. Of those, I have seen all but 59 for about a 75 percent rate of blockbuster consumption.
The films I have not seen, with a few notable exceptions, are ones that I am likely never going to watch because they have no particular appeal for me. Here is the list (* marks movies I still intend to watch someday).
1990 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Dick Tracy
1991 - Beauty and the Beast*
1993 - Indecent Proposal
1994 - The Flintstones
1996 - 101 Dalmations (live action); Scream
1997 - George of the Jungle; Scream 2
1998 - The Rugrats Movie
1999 - Big Daddy; The Blair Witch Project; American Beauty; Analyze This; The General’s Daughter; American Pie
2000 - The Perfect Storm; Meet the Parents; Scary Movie; Traffic; The Nutty Professor II; Big Momma’s House; Remember the Titans
2001 - Hannibal; American Pie 2; The Fast and the Furious; Black Hawk Down*
2002 - Austin Powers Goldmember; Scooby Doo; XXX; The Santa Clause 2; The Ring; Mr. Deeds; Road to Perdition*
2003 - Bruce Almighty; Elf; Cheaper By the Dozen; Bad Boys II; Anger Management; Bringing Down the House; 2 Fast, 2 Furious; Something’s Gotta Give; SWAT; Spy Kids 3-D; Scary Movie 3; American Wedding; Daddy Day Care; The Cat in the Hat; Charlie’s Angels 2
2004 - The Passion of the Christ*; Meet the Fockers; The Day After Tomorrow; The Polar Express*; Ocean’s Twelve; 50 First Dates; Dodge Ball; The Village; The Grudge; Million Dollar Baby*
As for the 2005 blockbusters so far, I can already say that I have little interest in seeing Wedding Crashers; Mr. and Mrs. Smith; The Longest Yard; The Pacifier and 40 Year Old Virgin.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Box office blues
2005 has been a bad year for the movie industry. Lots of stories have been written on the topic, but I think this chart I compiled from the invaluable Box Office Mojo Web site helps make the point pretty clear. The figure on the right is the number of movies that broke the $100 million barrier in domestic box office revenues for that year (not counting foreign box office and video/DVD sales).
2005 - 17
2004 - 24
2003 - 29
2002 - 24
2001 - 20
2000 - 22
1999 - 21
1998 - 18
1997 - 16
1996 - 15
1995 - 10
1994 - 12
1993 - 8
1992 - 11
1991 - 8
1990 - 9
As you can see, 2003 was a peak year so far. But 2005 could be the worst peformer of the decade. In fact, you have to go back to 1997 to find a year that had fewer mega-blockbusters. Of course, the year is not over and there is a chance that a few more 2005 releases could cross the finish line at some future date (Walk the Line is a possibility). But there just aren’t that many more potential blockbusters on the movie industry’s bench this year.
I think one of the problems for Hollywood is that I have stopped going to movies these past few years. My movie watching for this year has been so limited that I don’t even need to update the list I made on Sept. 13 of 2005 films I’ve seen so far this year.
I didn’t realize until now how much Hollywood depends on me, but the evidence is clear. Since the birth of my first child in mid-2003, they have been on a precipitous slide downward. I’m not sure what to tell them. Perhaps if they put daycare centers at the cineplex’s it would lure more of us new parents back into the fold. But whatever they do, they need to do it quick. Now with the birth of my second child last month, I will likely be absent from the local matinees for several more years to come.
2005 - 17
2004 - 24
2003 - 29
2002 - 24
2001 - 20
2000 - 22
1999 - 21
1998 - 18
1997 - 16
1996 - 15
1995 - 10
1994 - 12
1993 - 8
1992 - 11
1991 - 8
1990 - 9
As you can see, 2003 was a peak year so far. But 2005 could be the worst peformer of the decade. In fact, you have to go back to 1997 to find a year that had fewer mega-blockbusters. Of course, the year is not over and there is a chance that a few more 2005 releases could cross the finish line at some future date (Walk the Line is a possibility). But there just aren’t that many more potential blockbusters on the movie industry’s bench this year.
I think one of the problems for Hollywood is that I have stopped going to movies these past few years. My movie watching for this year has been so limited that I don’t even need to update the list I made on Sept. 13 of 2005 films I’ve seen so far this year.
I didn’t realize until now how much Hollywood depends on me, but the evidence is clear. Since the birth of my first child in mid-2003, they have been on a precipitous slide downward. I’m not sure what to tell them. Perhaps if they put daycare centers at the cineplex’s it would lure more of us new parents back into the fold. But whatever they do, they need to do it quick. Now with the birth of my second child last month, I will likely be absent from the local matinees for several more years to come.
Friday, December 23, 2005
Christmas commercialization
I was about to write a post about why I think the commercialization of Christmas is actually a good thing on the grounds that any publicity is good publicity. But then I found this article on the Web that pretty much says everything I was going to say.
So I will shamelessly copy this fellows article and reprint it here:
“You periodically hear Christians complain about how Christmas has become commercialized or secularized. It's not about Jesus Christ any more; it's about Santa Claus. It's not about God's love for us; it's about having fun with our friends. It's no longer celebrated at church; it's celebrated at the mall.
As a Christian, I can only look at this and say: Good thing.
Compare Christmas to other Christian holidays. Logically, our biggest holiday of the year should be Easter. After all, lots of people are born, but very few come back from the dead. There is very little secularization of Easter: A little playing around with Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies, but nothing like the secular stories and traditions built up around Christmas. I am hard-pressed to think of a single story or song about the Easter bunny; I can easily rattle off dozens about Santa Claus. Easter has largely remained a purely spiritual holiday, celebrated almost exclusively through songs and symbols that focus directly on what the holiday is all about -- the resurrection.
So why is it that Easter gets so much less attention than Christmas? Not just in the secular world, but even within the church? Perhaps your experience is different, but in churches I've attended, not only will the Sunday before Christmas be dedicated to the holiday, but at least several Sundays before we will be singing Christmas songs, lighting advent candles, etc. There is usually at least one special service scheduled to celebrate it, on Christmas or Christmas Eve or the Sunday evening before. Somewhere in there will be a big special program for Christmas, with planning and rehearsals begin months in advance.
Easter? The church may have a sunrise service, that is, the service starts earlier than usual that day. And that's about it.
I offer a simple theory: Christmas is a big holiday precisely because it is a mixture of the pious and the practical. The pious element gives the holiday reason and meaning. The practical element gives it action and vibrancy. The pious element makes it profound. The practical element makes it fun.
To the Christian, all the little rituals and traditions give him something to do to celebrate the holiday. Easter should be the most exciting day on the Christian calendar, but it is, to put it bluntly, boring. It is boring because there is nothing in particular to do about it. There is nothing to look forward to, nothing to plan, nothing to get excited about.
At this point I don't doubt that some deeply spiritual person will say, "How shallow! You've missed the point. You should be excited about the thought of the resurrection. You should be overjoyed at the knowledge that Christ has saved you." Etc.
I reply, Maybe we should, but we don't. Because all you are talking about is thinking. And I can think these thoughts at any time, there is nothing about Easter that makes them particularly special. I do not have to eagerly anticipate thinking about the resurrection like a child has to anticipate opening his presents at Christmas. To think about thinking something is to think it. And for many people -- myself included -- the fact that they can do these things whenever they want means that they rarely do them at all.
Why do you think stores advertise a sale as "one day only" or "while supplies last"? Presumably they are making money off this sale or they wouldn't be doing it. So why not do it all year long and make more money? Aren't they afraid that there are people who would like to come but won't be able to make it the day of the sale, and so won't bother to come at all? The answer, as any marketing person will tell you, is, sure, they might lose some sales because they made the sale too short. But by making it short, they get many people to think, Wow, if I want to get this, I'd better go right now. If the sale was on 365 days a year, there are many many people who would say, I'll go tomorrow, and the next day they'd again say, I'll go tomorrow, and they'd keep on saying that, and never get there.
Christmas is a special day because there are specific things we do that day that we do not do on other days. And so we plan, and prepare, and anticipate.
But more important, Christmas, as presently celebrated in America, serves as a bridge between the Church and the world outside. It is precisely because Christmas has been secularized that people with little interest in spiritual things celebrate it anyway. Christians created all sorts of fun activities to celebrate Christmas: giving presents, eating a fancy meal with friends and family, decorating the house, etc, etc. Non-Christians see that these things are fun and want to participate ... and they can't help but occassionally hear and think about what the holiday is really celebrating.
It is precisely because Christmas has been commercialized that stores and shops all over the country spend hundreds of millions of dollars talking about Christmas. At what other time of year do you see television commercials that make any reference, however indirect, to Jesus Christ?”
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Christmas music
My list of favorite Christmas music hasn’t changed much from last year. The only significant addition to the rotation this year is The Chipmunks Christmas, one of my wife’s records from her youth that I burned onto CD. It is now highly popular with my son.
Today, Christmas music is a major industry. Every artist, it seems, is obligated to put out a Christmas album. But does anyone remember who started the whole thing?
Guess what the first commercially successful Christmas recording was.
White Christmas? No, that came later.
It was Silent Night, recorded by Bing Crosby in 1935. The record became Crosby’s biggest hit of the 1930s. But Crosby was uncomfortable with the idea of profiting from a popular Christmas carol, partly because of his devout religious faith, and opted to donate all the proceeds from the song to charity.
Silent Night was the top selling Christmas record until it was eclipsed by Crosby’s recording of White Christmas in 1942, which became the highest selling record of all time.
It’s a shame today that Crosby gets so little respect in our popular culture. To understand just how big a star Crosby was in his day, here is a synopsis
compiled from Gary Giddins’ book, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams – the Early Years 1903-1940,
published by Little, Brown in 2001.
• He made more studio recordings than any other singer in history.
• He made the most popular record ever, “White Christmas,” the only single to make American pop charts twenty times, every year but one between 1942 and 1962.
• Between 1927 and 1962 he scored 368 charted records under his own name, plus twenty-eight as a vocalist with various bandleaders, for a total of 396. No one else has come close; compare Paul Whiteman (220), Frank Sinatra (209), Elvis Presley (149), Glenn Miller (129), Nat “King” Cole (118), Louis Armstrong (85), the Beatles (68).
• He scored the most number one hits ever, 38, compared with 24 by the Beatles and 18 by Presley.
• In 1960 he received a platinum record as First Citizen of the Record Industry for having sold 200 million discs, a number that doubled by 1980.
• Between 1915 and 1980 he was the only motion-picture star to rank as the number one box-office attraction five times (1944-48). Between 1934 and 1954 he scored in the top 10 fifteen times.
• He was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor three times and won for “Going My Way”.
• He was a major radio star longer than any other performer, from 1931 until 1954 on network, 1954 until 1962 in syndication.
• He financed and popularized the development of tape, revolutionizing the recording industry.
• He created the first and longest-running celebrity pro-am golf championship, playing host for thirty-five years, raising millions in charity, and was the central figure in the development of the Del Mar racetrack in California.
• He made the largest number of V-discs and army broadcasts of any American entertainer and raised $14.5 million in war bonds (a “Yank” magazine poll declared him the individual who had done more for GI morale during World War II).
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Scrooge McCheney
Merry Christmas from Scrooge McCheney and the GOP!
The Scrooge cut short his Middle East tour to serve as the tiebreaker on a noxious budget bill that pretends to reduce the deficit by slashing programs for the poor and elderly.
The legislation would allow states to impose new fees on Medicaid recipients, cut federal child support enforcement funds, impose new work requirements on state welfare programs and squeeze student lenders.
Hey, but at least we are finally getting some fiscal discipline, right? Wrong.
According to budget experts, the bill would barely dent the federal deficit, cutting less than one-half of 1 percent from an estimated $14.3 trillion in federal spending over the next five years.
And what is worse is that the projected $40 billion in savings over five years has already been wiped out by the $56 billion worth of tax cuts that Republicans pushed through earlier this year.
Opponents of the bill, including all Democrats and five honest Republicans, said “the poor would bear the brunt of the cuts -- especially to Medicaid, child support enforcement and foster care -- whereas original targets for belt-tightening, such as pharmaceutical companies and private insurers, largely escaped sanction.”
Under the provision, student loan interest rates would be locked in at 6.8 percent and could not be refinanced as commercial rates fluctuate.
"They could give students a lower interest rate, but their choice is to keep interest rates high," said Luke Swarthout of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "They're asking students to pay for tax cuts."
Monday, December 19, 2005
History repeats
Richard Nixon - “I’m not a crook.”
George W. Bush - “I’m above the law and can do whatever I want.” (or words to that effect).
I think it is important to distinguish legal domestic spying by the NSA which goes on all the time and is indeed important in the war on terror, from the secretive, illegal spying that Bush has authorized.
Joshua Micah Marshall touches on that distinction
...it seems the White House and some editors are taking to arguing that surveillance or domestic wiretapping is necessary for national security, that it saves lives.
Of course, it does. What a stupid thing to say, or for the White House, what a disingenuous thing to say.
Wiretaps are conducted around the country every day. The FISA Court alone approves something like a half a dozen a day in highly classified national security or espionage related cases.
The only issue here is why the president decided to go around the normal rules that govern such surveillance, why he chose to make himself above the law.
and Redhedd at firedoglake goes more in depth.
Suffice it to say that we already have provisions in place to allow for emergency spying when security issues are at stake. Why does the Bush administration still feel that it has to circumvent the law this many years after 9/11 and not allow the FISA court to oversee their spying operations?
George W. Bush - “I’m above the law and can do whatever I want.” (or words to that effect).
I think it is important to distinguish legal domestic spying by the NSA which goes on all the time and is indeed important in the war on terror, from the secretive, illegal spying that Bush has authorized.
Joshua Micah Marshall touches on that distinction
...it seems the White House and some editors are taking to arguing that surveillance or domestic wiretapping is necessary for national security, that it saves lives.
Of course, it does. What a stupid thing to say, or for the White House, what a disingenuous thing to say.
Wiretaps are conducted around the country every day. The FISA Court alone approves something like a half a dozen a day in highly classified national security or espionage related cases.
The only issue here is why the president decided to go around the normal rules that govern such surveillance, why he chose to make himself above the law.
and Redhedd at firedoglake goes more in depth.
Suffice it to say that we already have provisions in place to allow for emergency spying when security issues are at stake. Why does the Bush administration still feel that it has to circumvent the law this many years after 9/11 and not allow the FISA court to oversee their spying operations?
Friday, December 16, 2005
I Spy
Why are we even bothering with a debate over the Patriot Act if President Bush is just going to do whatever the hell he wants to do anyway?
The National Security Agency has eavesdropped, without warrants, on as many 500 people inside the United States at any given time since 2002, The New York Times reported Friday.
That year, following the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush authorized the NSA to monitor the international phone calls and international e-mails of hundreds - perhaps thousands - of people inside the United States, the Times reported.
Update
I have to agree with this poster at Daily Kos:
I think the last few days of revelations regarding multi-agency spying on American citizens comes as no surprise. In an administration that has authorized secret prisons, planted propaganda, fought restrictions on torture, and argued consistently for the right to detain whomever is deemed suspicious without recourse to trial, spying on American citizens seems both obvious and pedestrian....
...for true rank-and-file conservatives, this should bring on a crisis of conscience and self-examination. Distrust of the government and its motives runs deep in American conservatism; witness the recoil from relatively benign "nanny state" interventions such as social welfare programs and anti-smoking laws. How much more repugnant is wiretapping, surveillance and massive record-keeping by the feds?
So, are there any ‘true conservatives’ left in this country?
Maybe a few. Instapundit isn’t too happy about it.
And then there are a few Republican senators still willing to stand up for freedom, liberty and the rule of law in our own country:
"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Specter, R-Pa., calling hearings early next year "a very, very high priority." He wasn't alone in reacting harshly to the report. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the story, first reported in Friday's New York Times, was troubling.
But for the most part it would seem that true conservatism is dead, or at least comatose, and has been replaced with a right-wing radicalism that likes to masquerade as conservatism.
The National Security Agency has eavesdropped, without warrants, on as many 500 people inside the United States at any given time since 2002, The New York Times reported Friday.
That year, following the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush authorized the NSA to monitor the international phone calls and international e-mails of hundreds - perhaps thousands - of people inside the United States, the Times reported.
Update
I have to agree with this poster at Daily Kos:
I think the last few days of revelations regarding multi-agency spying on American citizens comes as no surprise. In an administration that has authorized secret prisons, planted propaganda, fought restrictions on torture, and argued consistently for the right to detain whomever is deemed suspicious without recourse to trial, spying on American citizens seems both obvious and pedestrian....
...for true rank-and-file conservatives, this should bring on a crisis of conscience and self-examination. Distrust of the government and its motives runs deep in American conservatism; witness the recoil from relatively benign "nanny state" interventions such as social welfare programs and anti-smoking laws. How much more repugnant is wiretapping, surveillance and massive record-keeping by the feds?
So, are there any ‘true conservatives’ left in this country?
Maybe a few. Instapundit isn’t too happy about it.
And then there are a few Republican senators still willing to stand up for freedom, liberty and the rule of law in our own country:
"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Specter, R-Pa., calling hearings early next year "a very, very high priority." He wasn't alone in reacting harshly to the report. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the story, first reported in Friday's New York Times, was troubling.
But for the most part it would seem that true conservatism is dead, or at least comatose, and has been replaced with a right-wing radicalism that likes to masquerade as conservatism.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Levee repair
Now that the horses are all gone, the Bush administration is finally getting around to fixing that barn door.
Maybe $3.1 billion is enough to do the job right, I don’t know. But I can’t help but point out that it is less than we spend each month on our never-ending mission to rebuild Iraq.
Maybe $3.1 billion is enough to do the job right, I don’t know. But I can’t help but point out that it is less than we spend each month on our never-ending mission to rebuild Iraq.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Redistricting fiasco revisited
Republicans should be very worried about the Supreme Court's decision to revisit the Texas redistricting fiasco. They have a much weaker case than many of them assume.
There have been a few significant developments since a three-judge panel (2 Republicans and 1 Democrat) approved Tom DeLay's dream map for keeping himself in power.
First, there is the little matter of Tom DeLay being indicted for the money laundering scheme that helped get his map into law in the first place. Second, and more significant, we now know that the judges were lied to when told that the Justice Department said the map did not violate the Voting Rights Act. The non-partisan experts in the Justice Department were unanimous in saying that the plan would dilute minority voting strength, as indeed it has.
The Washington Post looks at why that is...
The voting rights suits point to two districts in particular, Doggett's old 10th District, which covered one county and now stretches eastward to Houston, and Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla's 23rd District.
In 2001, the voting-age population of the 10th District was 55 percent non-Hispanic white, while Latinos and blacks made up 39 percent. Now, the white voting-age population is nearly 70 percent, while minorities are just over 25 percent. A district that gave Doggett 84 percent of its votes in 2002 gave Republican Michael T. McCaul 84 percent two years later.
The federal courts had deemed the 23rd District a Latino opportunity district, but Latino groups have said that white voters gave Bonilla his razor-thin margin of victory in 2002 over a Latino Democrat. That year, the voting-age population of his district was 63 percent Latino and 33 percent non-Hispanic white.
For Republicans in Austin, Bonilla's victory was too shaky. After redistricting, he cruised to victory with 69 percent of the vote. That time, the Latino population was 51 percent, while the white population had climbed to 45 percent.
"To dismantle a Latino-majority district for the explicit purpose of making sure they can't elect a candidate of their choice is a violation of the Voting Rights Act," said Nina Perales, southwestern regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Bolstering that case are the Justice lawyers. A December 2003 memo obtained this month by The Washington Post shows that six staff lawyers and two analysts from the voting section concluded that the Texas plan should be rejected because it would harm black and Hispanic voters. Senior Justice officials overruled that recommendation and issued an approval a week later.
People need to remember that the Voting Rights Act is concerned with the voters in the district and not with who they elect. A majority white district can elect a minority candidate, but that does not make it a minority district. My City Council District, for example, is overwhelmingly white, but nevertheless elected a black man, Art Hall, as our representative. But that doesn't mean you could count my district as a minority voting district.
Despite the election of one additional black following the re-redistricting process, the fact remains that in the end two minority voting districts were eliminated to help give Republicans their ultimate partisan advantage. Once the power of incumbency wears off as established members leave office, the full impact of the GOP scheme will become evident.
The Supreme Court will be hard-pressed not to knock this down when faced with the opinion of the Voting Rights experts at Justice who were muzzled by political hacks these past few years.
There have been a few significant developments since a three-judge panel (2 Republicans and 1 Democrat) approved Tom DeLay's dream map for keeping himself in power.
First, there is the little matter of Tom DeLay being indicted for the money laundering scheme that helped get his map into law in the first place. Second, and more significant, we now know that the judges were lied to when told that the Justice Department said the map did not violate the Voting Rights Act. The non-partisan experts in the Justice Department were unanimous in saying that the plan would dilute minority voting strength, as indeed it has.
The Washington Post looks at why that is...
The voting rights suits point to two districts in particular, Doggett's old 10th District, which covered one county and now stretches eastward to Houston, and Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla's 23rd District.
In 2001, the voting-age population of the 10th District was 55 percent non-Hispanic white, while Latinos and blacks made up 39 percent. Now, the white voting-age population is nearly 70 percent, while minorities are just over 25 percent. A district that gave Doggett 84 percent of its votes in 2002 gave Republican Michael T. McCaul 84 percent two years later.
The federal courts had deemed the 23rd District a Latino opportunity district, but Latino groups have said that white voters gave Bonilla his razor-thin margin of victory in 2002 over a Latino Democrat. That year, the voting-age population of his district was 63 percent Latino and 33 percent non-Hispanic white.
For Republicans in Austin, Bonilla's victory was too shaky. After redistricting, he cruised to victory with 69 percent of the vote. That time, the Latino population was 51 percent, while the white population had climbed to 45 percent.
"To dismantle a Latino-majority district for the explicit purpose of making sure they can't elect a candidate of their choice is a violation of the Voting Rights Act," said Nina Perales, southwestern regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Bolstering that case are the Justice lawyers. A December 2003 memo obtained this month by The Washington Post shows that six staff lawyers and two analysts from the voting section concluded that the Texas plan should be rejected because it would harm black and Hispanic voters. Senior Justice officials overruled that recommendation and issued an approval a week later.
People need to remember that the Voting Rights Act is concerned with the voters in the district and not with who they elect. A majority white district can elect a minority candidate, but that does not make it a minority district. My City Council District, for example, is overwhelmingly white, but nevertheless elected a black man, Art Hall, as our representative. But that doesn't mean you could count my district as a minority voting district.
Despite the election of one additional black following the re-redistricting process, the fact remains that in the end two minority voting districts were eliminated to help give Republicans their ultimate partisan advantage. Once the power of incumbency wears off as established members leave office, the full impact of the GOP scheme will become evident.
The Supreme Court will be hard-pressed not to knock this down when faced with the opinion of the Voting Rights experts at Justice who were muzzled by political hacks these past few years.
Very, very good news
Supreme Court to review Texas political map
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Monday it would consider the constitutionality of a Texas congressional map engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay that helped Republicans gain seats in Congress.
I’ll have more to say about this in a bit.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Monday it would consider the constitutionality of a Texas congressional map engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay that helped Republicans gain seats in Congress.
I’ll have more to say about this in a bit.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Redefining terms
So what is a "conservative" today?
This letter in the New York Times the other day makes a good point about how the definition of conservative has changed over time.
To the Editor:
Re "Running Out of Steam," by David Brooks (column, Dec. 8):
There's a simpler explanation as to why the conservative agenda has stalled. Conservatives are no longer conservatives.
Twenty years ago, I was a conservative and believed in balanced budgets, limited foreign intervention and limiting the government's encroachment upon individual liberties and freedom. Today, I believe in balanced budgets, limited foreign intervention and limiting the government's encroachment upon individual liberties and freedom, but now I'm called a liberal.
Conservatives of yesteryear respected state sovereignty and believed that torturing prisoners was only what the Communists did. Today's conservatives have no compunction about using their federal muscle to overrule state courts. It's repugnant that we are even debating the merits of torture.
Joel S. Peskoff
Baldwin, N.Y., Dec. 8, 2005
I think the answer is quite simple, really. The radical right has usurped the term for their own sake even though there is very little in their activist agenda that could truly be described as conservative.
This letter in the New York Times the other day makes a good point about how the definition of conservative has changed over time.
To the Editor:
Re "Running Out of Steam," by David Brooks (column, Dec. 8):
There's a simpler explanation as to why the conservative agenda has stalled. Conservatives are no longer conservatives.
Twenty years ago, I was a conservative and believed in balanced budgets, limited foreign intervention and limiting the government's encroachment upon individual liberties and freedom. Today, I believe in balanced budgets, limited foreign intervention and limiting the government's encroachment upon individual liberties and freedom, but now I'm called a liberal.
Conservatives of yesteryear respected state sovereignty and believed that torturing prisoners was only what the Communists did. Today's conservatives have no compunction about using their federal muscle to overrule state courts. It's repugnant that we are even debating the merits of torture.
Joel S. Peskoff
Baldwin, N.Y., Dec. 8, 2005
I think the answer is quite simple, really. The radical right has usurped the term for their own sake even though there is very little in their activist agenda that could truly be described as conservative.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Two good editorials
A pair of excellent editorials today, one in the NYTimes and one in the San Antonio Express-News.
The NYTimes explains why torture is bad aside from just being illegal and immoral. It has been demonstrated many times over that it produces bad information as well.
The Express-News editors get it right on the Texas redistricting scandal.
The NYTimes explains why torture is bad aside from just being illegal and immoral. It has been demonstrated many times over that it produces bad information as well.
The Express-News editors get it right on the Texas redistricting scandal.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Tortured reasoning
Funny they didn't mention this earlier...
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.
The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.
The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.
Bad policies beget bad intelligence which begets bad justifications for a bad war....
But wait! Let's not say it's a "bad war." Rather, it is the wrong war fought at the wrong time and led by incompentent and corrupt officials who did not know what they were getting into and therefore planned poorly for it.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.
The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.
The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.
Bad policies beget bad intelligence which begets bad justifications for a bad war....
But wait! Let's not say it's a "bad war." Rather, it is the wrong war fought at the wrong time and led by incompentent and corrupt officials who did not know what they were getting into and therefore planned poorly for it.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Ann Coulter IS smarter than you
I don't like Ann Coulter. I think she is arrogant, mean and contemptible. But I also think that is part of her shtick and she plays it up as part of her persona.
Nevertheless, I wish these student groups would just let the woman talk and quit giving her all the extra publicity.
By booing and shouting her down and not allowing her to speak at these campus events they are just making her more sympathetic and making themselves and their cause less so.
As for her reported statement that she is smarter than her audience, I would have to agree. At least at the time and place when she is speaking she can easily demonstrate that point by noting that she is being paid to be there and her audience is not. So who is smarter?
Nevertheless, I wish these student groups would just let the woman talk and quit giving her all the extra publicity.
By booing and shouting her down and not allowing her to speak at these campus events they are just making her more sympathetic and making themselves and their cause less so.
As for her reported statement that she is smarter than her audience, I would have to agree. At least at the time and place when she is speaking she can easily demonstrate that point by noting that she is being paid to be there and her audience is not. So who is smarter?
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Tom DeLay, meet Tom Foley
The Hammer is apparently being smashed flat in the latest opinion polls to come out of his Sugar Land district. He will most likely share the same fate as another former House Majority Leader - Thomas Foley of Washington - who was swept out of his seat in 1994. And Foley wasn't even involved in any significant scandals at the time!
Meanwhile, DeLay's hopes of making a quick return to his leadership post were dealt a serious blow the other day when the judge in the case refused to throw out the most serious charges against him. That means the case will go to trial and won't be completed until after House Republicans hold new elections for their leadership.
Meanwhile, DeLay's hopes of making a quick return to his leadership post were dealt a serious blow the other day when the judge in the case refused to throw out the most serious charges against him. That means the case will go to trial and won't be completed until after House Republicans hold new elections for their leadership.
Failing grade for Bush administration
In what should have been the most important and most pressing measure by which to judge our nation's leadership these past three years, the Bush administration and the Republican Congress have recieved a big, fat F.
A final report from the former 9/11 Commission on Monday gave Congress and the White House a blistering review of their work to secure the nation, warning that terrorists will strike again and could cause catastrophic destruction with nuclear weapons.
Some of the sharpest criticism of this administration came from the Repubican members of the bi-partisan commission:
"The American people ought to demand answers," said James R. Thompson, a Republican commissioner and a former Illinois governor. "Why aren't our tax dollars being spent to protect our lives? What's the rationale? What's the excuse? There is no excuse."
Wow! Imagine if Al Gore had been president when 9/11 occurred and then three years later we still have no idea where Osama bin Laden is and a report like this comes out. Needless to say, Repubicans would be writing up articles of impeachment as we speak.
A final report from the former 9/11 Commission on Monday gave Congress and the White House a blistering review of their work to secure the nation, warning that terrorists will strike again and could cause catastrophic destruction with nuclear weapons.
Some of the sharpest criticism of this administration came from the Repubican members of the bi-partisan commission:
"The American people ought to demand answers," said James R. Thompson, a Republican commissioner and a former Illinois governor. "Why aren't our tax dollars being spent to protect our lives? What's the rationale? What's the excuse? There is no excuse."
Wow! Imagine if Al Gore had been president when 9/11 occurred and then three years later we still have no idea where Osama bin Laden is and a report like this comes out. Needless to say, Repubicans would be writing up articles of impeachment as we speak.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Abuse of power
Damn right there needs to be an investigation into this!
Why even bother to have staff attorneys at the Department of Justice who are experts in various fields if their opinions ultimately carry no weight?
What I want to know is what does it mean specifically under the 1965 Voting Rights Act for states to get Justice Department approval for redistricting maps? Does it mean that a political flunky can just rubberstamp any old plan that suits the partisan purposes of the party in power without regard to how it effects minority voting rights? I somehow don't think that was the intent of the law.
This is really sad if they can actually get away with this. For people who think our government system is screwed up today, here is a classic example of why.
And let's not forget that this is not an isolated case. There is a clear pattern of this abuse of power happening continuously with this administration:
In recent weeks, developments in the Justice Department and elsewhere in the government have involved instances in which political appointees countermanded the judgment of professional staff experts whose conclusions were not in line with the administration's philosophy.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department lawyer who has led the civil racketeering case against the tobacco industry for five years announced that she was retiring because of disagreements with supervisors.
"I didn't feel like I had the support at all times of the political team," the lawyer, Sharon Y. Eubanks, said.
Last month, the nonpartisan examiners at the Government Accountability Office said that the Food and Drug Administration had relied on politics and ideology rather than science in rejecting over-the-counter sales of the morning-after contraceptive Plan B.
In broadcasting, the inspector general of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting found that its former chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, had repeatedly crossed boundaries in the law intended to protect public television and radio from political interference.
And to think we have three more years of this garbage to contend with. I just hope people get good and sick of it by then.
Why even bother to have staff attorneys at the Department of Justice who are experts in various fields if their opinions ultimately carry no weight?
What I want to know is what does it mean specifically under the 1965 Voting Rights Act for states to get Justice Department approval for redistricting maps? Does it mean that a political flunky can just rubberstamp any old plan that suits the partisan purposes of the party in power without regard to how it effects minority voting rights? I somehow don't think that was the intent of the law.
This is really sad if they can actually get away with this. For people who think our government system is screwed up today, here is a classic example of why.
And let's not forget that this is not an isolated case. There is a clear pattern of this abuse of power happening continuously with this administration:
In recent weeks, developments in the Justice Department and elsewhere in the government have involved instances in which political appointees countermanded the judgment of professional staff experts whose conclusions were not in line with the administration's philosophy.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department lawyer who has led the civil racketeering case against the tobacco industry for five years announced that she was retiring because of disagreements with supervisors.
"I didn't feel like I had the support at all times of the political team," the lawyer, Sharon Y. Eubanks, said.
Last month, the nonpartisan examiners at the Government Accountability Office said that the Food and Drug Administration had relied on politics and ideology rather than science in rejecting over-the-counter sales of the morning-after contraceptive Plan B.
In broadcasting, the inspector general of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting found that its former chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, had repeatedly crossed boundaries in the law intended to protect public television and radio from political interference.
And to think we have three more years of this garbage to contend with. I just hope people get good and sick of it by then.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Bush cronies overruled Justice Department
Wow! Bombshell story in the Washington Post today.
What this memo says essentially is that the U.S. Justice Department had overwhelmingly rejected Tom DeLay's mid-term re-redistricting scheme in 2003 but they were overruled by Bush appointees.
Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.
The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections...
The 73-page memo, dated Dec. 12, 2003, has been kept under tight wraps for two years. Lawyers who worked on the case were subjected to an unusual gag rule.
This is truly disgusting. I really don't know what more there is to be said about it except that this has to be the most corrupt bunch of yahoos to ever hold political office in our nation's history.
What this memo says essentially is that the U.S. Justice Department had overwhelmingly rejected Tom DeLay's mid-term re-redistricting scheme in 2003 but they were overruled by Bush appointees.
Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.
The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections...
The 73-page memo, dated Dec. 12, 2003, has been kept under tight wraps for two years. Lawyers who worked on the case were subjected to an unusual gag rule.
This is truly disgusting. I really don't know what more there is to be said about it except that this has to be the most corrupt bunch of yahoos to ever hold political office in our nation's history.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Keeping track of the corruption
With so many Republican scandals happening all at once it is getting difficult to keep track of which Republican politicians have been indicted, which have pled guilty and which are still under investigation. Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to take advantage of the confusion by claiming falsely that this tsunami of corruption is evenly spread between Republicans and Democrats.
So to help things out a bit I’ve started a list of politicians who have been convicted, indicted or are reportedly under investigation for various crimes in just this past year.
Convicted
Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif.
Michael Scanlon, former aide to Tom DeLay
Former Gov. John Rowland, R-Conn.
Gov. Bob Taft, R-Ohio
Indicted
Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, former House Majority Leader
Lewis “Scooter” Libby, top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney
David Safavian, a former Rove business partner serving as the top White House procurement official
Jack Abramoff, GOP lobbyist
Under Investigation
Karl Rove, top aide to President Bush
Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas (again)
Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio
Rep. John T. Doolittle, R-Calif.
Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.
Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Senate Majority Leader
Rep. William Jefferson, D-La.
Kenneth Tomlinson, former Republican Chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
And there are many more who have been linked to various scandals but are not yet under investigation (as far as we know) including a few Democrats. But as this list should make absolutely clear, the vast, overwhelming majority of the corruption is confined to Republicans and members of the GOP (Greedy Old Party).
So to help things out a bit I’ve started a list of politicians who have been convicted, indicted or are reportedly under investigation for various crimes in just this past year.
Convicted
Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif.
Michael Scanlon, former aide to Tom DeLay
Former Gov. John Rowland, R-Conn.
Gov. Bob Taft, R-Ohio
Indicted
Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, former House Majority Leader
Lewis “Scooter” Libby, top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney
David Safavian, a former Rove business partner serving as the top White House procurement official
Jack Abramoff, GOP lobbyist
Under Investigation
Karl Rove, top aide to President Bush
Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas (again)
Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio
Rep. John T. Doolittle, R-Calif.
Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.
Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Senate Majority Leader
Rep. William Jefferson, D-La.
Kenneth Tomlinson, former Republican Chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
And there are many more who have been linked to various scandals but are not yet under investigation (as far as we know) including a few Democrats. But as this list should make absolutely clear, the vast, overwhelming majority of the corruption is confined to Republicans and members of the GOP (Greedy Old Party).
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Bait and switch
As anyone can tell from his well-researched op-ed in the local paper, my friend Bill Crawford is deeply committed to supporting the war in Iraq. He devotes the bulk of his blog to highlighting the good things that the U.S. military accomplishes in Iraq everyday.
I don’t take issue with the facts that Bill lays out in the article. I will grant that good things are indeed happening in Iraq. And I will acknowledge that they do not always get as prominent of play in the national media as the negative events such as kidnappings and suicide bombings (although not for the reasons that Bill espouses).
Who could be upset by our efforts to “repair the Iraqi education system” and provide textbooks to underprivileged Iraqi schoolchildren? What kind of Scrooge would denounce our work at reparing that nation’s electrical grid, roads, bridges, health system, water system and oil infrastructure?
Surely, these are all good things that are being done. So what is the problem?
The problem is that this whole Iraqi invasion has been one giant bait and switch from the very beginning.
All of these wonderful things that Bill likes to point out each day (while ignoring all the bad things that are happening) are completely superfluous to the reason we invaded Iraq in the first place.
We did not go into Iraq to carry out a massive humanitarian mission and nation building project. If that had been the stated reason, most Republicans I know of would have been opposed to it - including George W. Bush who ridiculed Al Gore during the 2000 campaign over the notion of “nation building” projects. Republicans and conservatives have never been big on foreign aid spending and that is what this misadventure in Iraq amounts to today - a massive foreign aid program.
Imagine if President Clinton or President Gore had proposed sending our troops into some blighted region of the world to help overturn a repressive government and give assistance to the disadvantaged people living there. Republicans would have gone absolutely nuts opposing such an operation. This is the U.S. military, not the Peace Corps, they would say.
We invaded Iraq because the Bush administration insisted that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to U.S. security and the only way to prevent an impending attack was to go in and strike first. I, along with many other Americans, suspected this was a lot of B.S. at the time, but we did not have access to the same intelligence reports that the President did. So many folks, including a lot of Democrats in Congress, felt pressured to give him the benefit of the doubt and support a resolution authorizing military force as a last option. Now we know that a military invasion was the first option for the Bush team almost from day one.
Since then, we have learned that Bush relied on faulty intelligence reports when making his case for launching an unprecedented pre-emptive invasion. Not only were the reports flawed, but other intelligence reports that countered or questioned the ones the Bush administration was touting were either ignored or covered up. We now know that Hussein was a delusional old man who had never fully recovered from the whooping he received during the first Gulf War. Most of the crimes Hussein was accused of were actually committed prior to Gulf War I while he was being supported by the Reagan and Bush I administrations. The U.N. sanctions had been effective in limiting and degrading Iraq’s military structure to the point that Hussein was actually less of a threat to the U.S. by 2003 than he was immediately following the end of Gulf War I.
There was no need to invade Iraq in 2003. I don’t care how many new schools or hospitals we build, it was not worth the cost in blood or dollars that the American people have been forced to make. President Bush should have declared victory and brought our troops home a long time ago. The fact that he is still running around the country making speeches and trying to bone up support for the war three years later is a sure sign that the wheels have fallen off this cart.
I don’t take issue with the facts that Bill lays out in the article. I will grant that good things are indeed happening in Iraq. And I will acknowledge that they do not always get as prominent of play in the national media as the negative events such as kidnappings and suicide bombings (although not for the reasons that Bill espouses).
Who could be upset by our efforts to “repair the Iraqi education system” and provide textbooks to underprivileged Iraqi schoolchildren? What kind of Scrooge would denounce our work at reparing that nation’s electrical grid, roads, bridges, health system, water system and oil infrastructure?
Surely, these are all good things that are being done. So what is the problem?
The problem is that this whole Iraqi invasion has been one giant bait and switch from the very beginning.
All of these wonderful things that Bill likes to point out each day (while ignoring all the bad things that are happening) are completely superfluous to the reason we invaded Iraq in the first place.
We did not go into Iraq to carry out a massive humanitarian mission and nation building project. If that had been the stated reason, most Republicans I know of would have been opposed to it - including George W. Bush who ridiculed Al Gore during the 2000 campaign over the notion of “nation building” projects. Republicans and conservatives have never been big on foreign aid spending and that is what this misadventure in Iraq amounts to today - a massive foreign aid program.
Imagine if President Clinton or President Gore had proposed sending our troops into some blighted region of the world to help overturn a repressive government and give assistance to the disadvantaged people living there. Republicans would have gone absolutely nuts opposing such an operation. This is the U.S. military, not the Peace Corps, they would say.
We invaded Iraq because the Bush administration insisted that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to U.S. security and the only way to prevent an impending attack was to go in and strike first. I, along with many other Americans, suspected this was a lot of B.S. at the time, but we did not have access to the same intelligence reports that the President did. So many folks, including a lot of Democrats in Congress, felt pressured to give him the benefit of the doubt and support a resolution authorizing military force as a last option. Now we know that a military invasion was the first option for the Bush team almost from day one.
Since then, we have learned that Bush relied on faulty intelligence reports when making his case for launching an unprecedented pre-emptive invasion. Not only were the reports flawed, but other intelligence reports that countered or questioned the ones the Bush administration was touting were either ignored or covered up. We now know that Hussein was a delusional old man who had never fully recovered from the whooping he received during the first Gulf War. Most of the crimes Hussein was accused of were actually committed prior to Gulf War I while he was being supported by the Reagan and Bush I administrations. The U.N. sanctions had been effective in limiting and degrading Iraq’s military structure to the point that Hussein was actually less of a threat to the U.S. by 2003 than he was immediately following the end of Gulf War I.
There was no need to invade Iraq in 2003. I don’t care how many new schools or hospitals we build, it was not worth the cost in blood or dollars that the American people have been forced to make. President Bush should have declared victory and brought our troops home a long time ago. The fact that he is still running around the country making speeches and trying to bone up support for the war three years later is a sure sign that the wheels have fallen off this cart.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Moral equivalence
In his Nov. 25 column, Mark Harden takes great exception with a Nov. 18 column by Mansour El-Kikhia. Mark is incensed by what he sees as “anti-Western vitriol” in El-Kikhia’s writing. In particular he cites El Kikhia’s reference of a reported case of canabalism during the Crusades of the 11th Century as being offensive to non-Muslims. He also accuses El-Kikhia of trivializing the Holocaust by comparing it to the Crusades.
While I think Professor El-Kikhia fails to make his point by using these two examples, I do not believe that he intended them as an “insult to the Jewish people” and I think Mark goes way over the line in equating him with Holocaust denier David Irving. El Kikhia’s point is to try and equate the suffering of the Arabs with the Jews and show that they both view themselves today as victims of past wrongs.
What I find most objectionable in El-Kikhia’s column, however, is his assertion that Western societies have forfeited their moral standing in the world due to the past actions of people 50 and 1,000 years ago. If I were to critique El-Kikhia’s column, I would start with this statement:
“...it is strange for Western society to claim to uphold lofty social, religious and political values when its history is replete with valueless adventures that brought misery and injustices to many in the globe.”
So we are not allowed to uphold lofty values today because we still bear the sins of our fathers some 1,000 years later? What kind of nonsense is that? Does he expect me to walk around all day long with my head held in shame because one of my ancestors may have participated in some ancient atrocity? And if that is the case, which nation or culture could possibly live up to that standard with a blemish-free past?
As far as comparing the Holocaust with the Crusades, I think it is a silly and useless excercise. Does the fact that fewer people may have been killed during the Crusades make them any less heinous? Do we consider a mass murderer who butchered 10 people to be 10-times more righteouss and upstanding than someone who killed 100 people? Of course not!
Furthermore, the actual body counts have more to do with the times when these atrocities occurred and not with the moral rectitude of the people responsible for the crimes. You can be sure that fewer people would have died if the Holocaust had occurred in 1096 if for no other reason than fewer people were around back then. Likewise, if the Crusades had occurred in 1944 there would have been far more casualties because of the technological advancements in moving armies great distances and in creating weapons of mass destruction.
I think that El-Kikhia is trying to make a good point by saying that Muslims need to get past their feelings of victimization and “rely on their own power, hard work and intellectual sweat.”
But I also think that he is undermining his own point by focusing on things that happened 1,000 years ago and expecting to draw meaningful corelations from ancient history. I mean, what reaction did he expect to get by raising the specter of canabalism?
I also think he is being unfair to Western societies by expecting them to be totally free of discrimination as waves of immigrants continue to pour into their countries looking for a better life. Certainly, there is room for criticism in the treatment of these immigrants in many cases. But does El-Kikhia really believe that Arab nations would be any better if the situations were reversed? If, for instance, the European nations were poor and the Arab nations were prosperous we would expect to see a flood of European immigrants going in the opposite direction. Would the Arab nations be more accepting of these non-Muslim immigrants and do more to integrate them into their societies? Does El-Kikhia seriously believe there would be no backlash against these immigrants from right-wing nationalists in those countries?
While I think Professor El-Kikhia fails to make his point by using these two examples, I do not believe that he intended them as an “insult to the Jewish people” and I think Mark goes way over the line in equating him with Holocaust denier David Irving. El Kikhia’s point is to try and equate the suffering of the Arabs with the Jews and show that they both view themselves today as victims of past wrongs.
What I find most objectionable in El-Kikhia’s column, however, is his assertion that Western societies have forfeited their moral standing in the world due to the past actions of people 50 and 1,000 years ago. If I were to critique El-Kikhia’s column, I would start with this statement:
“...it is strange for Western society to claim to uphold lofty social, religious and political values when its history is replete with valueless adventures that brought misery and injustices to many in the globe.”
So we are not allowed to uphold lofty values today because we still bear the sins of our fathers some 1,000 years later? What kind of nonsense is that? Does he expect me to walk around all day long with my head held in shame because one of my ancestors may have participated in some ancient atrocity? And if that is the case, which nation or culture could possibly live up to that standard with a blemish-free past?
As far as comparing the Holocaust with the Crusades, I think it is a silly and useless excercise. Does the fact that fewer people may have been killed during the Crusades make them any less heinous? Do we consider a mass murderer who butchered 10 people to be 10-times more righteouss and upstanding than someone who killed 100 people? Of course not!
Furthermore, the actual body counts have more to do with the times when these atrocities occurred and not with the moral rectitude of the people responsible for the crimes. You can be sure that fewer people would have died if the Holocaust had occurred in 1096 if for no other reason than fewer people were around back then. Likewise, if the Crusades had occurred in 1944 there would have been far more casualties because of the technological advancements in moving armies great distances and in creating weapons of mass destruction.
I think that El-Kikhia is trying to make a good point by saying that Muslims need to get past their feelings of victimization and “rely on their own power, hard work and intellectual sweat.”
But I also think that he is undermining his own point by focusing on things that happened 1,000 years ago and expecting to draw meaningful corelations from ancient history. I mean, what reaction did he expect to get by raising the specter of canabalism?
I also think he is being unfair to Western societies by expecting them to be totally free of discrimination as waves of immigrants continue to pour into their countries looking for a better life. Certainly, there is room for criticism in the treatment of these immigrants in many cases. But does El-Kikhia really believe that Arab nations would be any better if the situations were reversed? If, for instance, the European nations were poor and the Arab nations were prosperous we would expect to see a flood of European immigrants going in the opposite direction. Would the Arab nations be more accepting of these non-Muslim immigrants and do more to integrate them into their societies? Does El-Kikhia seriously believe there would be no backlash against these immigrants from right-wing nationalists in those countries?
Confronting the "liberal media"
While I was out, two of my blogging buddies and political sparring partners had back-to-back op-ed pieces published in the local newspaper. Congratulations to both Mark Harden and Bill Crawford for their tenacity in getting their views published. Despite their misgivings about the “liberal media,” both have been willing to work through this medium in a pragmatic way in an effort to affect changes that they deem necessary.
While I may not agree with them about the changes they want to make, I think it is highly commendable that they have chosen a proactive approach rather than withdrawing in disgust like so many other people do - canceling subscriptions and refusing to read newspapers or other media apart from right-wing radio shows.
I will be posting my own thoughts and reactions to Mark’s and Bill’s op-ed pieces later today.
While I may not agree with them about the changes they want to make, I think it is highly commendable that they have chosen a proactive approach rather than withdrawing in disgust like so many other people do - canceling subscriptions and refusing to read newspapers or other media apart from right-wing radio shows.
I will be posting my own thoughts and reactions to Mark’s and Bill’s op-ed pieces later today.
Monday, November 28, 2005
I love a parade
I recorded NBC’s coverage of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York while I watched the coverage on CBS (ABC did not bother to cover the parade at all).
That was fortunate because as it turned out, CBS gave about the same amount of coverage to the parade as ABC did. Instead, they used the parade as a backdrop for their endless promotions of CBS sitcoms and interviews with various celebrities. Throughout the three hours of their parade broadcast I would guess you might have seen about 10 minutes of actual parade coverage, and that was mostly the brief snippets as they were fading to or coming back from a commercial.
NBC did slightly better in their coverage, although it was mostly confined to watching actors dance and lip-synch to current Broadway show tunes. The only way to get the TV cameras to pay attention to any of the floats was to have some current pop star onboard ready to lip-synch on cue to their latest “hit.” Funny how I had never heard any of these songs before and they all sounded the same. I guess that means I’m getting old.
I always loved watching the Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day parades when I was growing up so it is really upsetting to see them get such short shrift today. I don’t particularly like big crowds, so the thought of actually going to a big parade is not high on my list of things I want to do, but it looks like that is what I may have to do if I want my children to ever see a real parade.
Here is what I would like to see a network do with its parade coverage: Set up a camera in one spot and show the floats and bands and balloons as they pass by. That’s it. If the announcers don’t have anything interesting to say about the particular float or band that is on camera at that moment, then have them put a sock in it because I could really care less about whatever it is they were gaggling about the other day.
That was fortunate because as it turned out, CBS gave about the same amount of coverage to the parade as ABC did. Instead, they used the parade as a backdrop for their endless promotions of CBS sitcoms and interviews with various celebrities. Throughout the three hours of their parade broadcast I would guess you might have seen about 10 minutes of actual parade coverage, and that was mostly the brief snippets as they were fading to or coming back from a commercial.
NBC did slightly better in their coverage, although it was mostly confined to watching actors dance and lip-synch to current Broadway show tunes. The only way to get the TV cameras to pay attention to any of the floats was to have some current pop star onboard ready to lip-synch on cue to their latest “hit.” Funny how I had never heard any of these songs before and they all sounded the same. I guess that means I’m getting old.
I always loved watching the Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day parades when I was growing up so it is really upsetting to see them get such short shrift today. I don’t particularly like big crowds, so the thought of actually going to a big parade is not high on my list of things I want to do, but it looks like that is what I may have to do if I want my children to ever see a real parade.
Here is what I would like to see a network do with its parade coverage: Set up a camera in one spot and show the floats and bands and balloons as they pass by. That’s it. If the announcers don’t have anything interesting to say about the particular float or band that is on camera at that moment, then have them put a sock in it because I could really care less about whatever it is they were gaggling about the other day.
Isn’t She Lovely
When the nurse handed me my daughter just moments after her birth last week the radio in the operating room was playing “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder .
I really can’t think of a more appropriate song for the occasion.
I remember about two years ago in that same room when they handed me my son for the first time the radio was playing “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police. That just happens to be one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands and one that I included on a tape of music that I recorded for my wife when we first started dating.
She is lovely, indeed. And everything about the birth of my son and daughter has been magic.
I did not intend to be absent from blogging for this long but with the combination of a new baby in the house, lots of friends and family coming by and the Thanksgiving holidays upon us, the time just kept slipping by. And then my computer crashed.
Last night we reformatted the computer and after long struggles with uncooperative software it seems to be stable once again. I have much that I would like to blog about during the next few days as I can get to it.
I really can’t think of a more appropriate song for the occasion.
I remember about two years ago in that same room when they handed me my son for the first time the radio was playing “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police. That just happens to be one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands and one that I included on a tape of music that I recorded for my wife when we first started dating.
She is lovely, indeed. And everything about the birth of my son and daughter has been magic.
I did not intend to be absent from blogging for this long but with the combination of a new baby in the house, lots of friends and family coming by and the Thanksgiving holidays upon us, the time just kept slipping by. And then my computer crashed.
Last night we reformatted the computer and after long struggles with uncooperative software it seems to be stable once again. I have much that I would like to blog about during the next few days as I can get to it.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Happy Birthday!
My wife woke me up at 4 a.m. on Thursday because she was starting to have contractions. Fortunately, we were planning to go to the hospital at 5 a.m. anyway for her scheduled c-section, so we just went in an hour early.
Everything went fine with the delivery and mother and baby are doing well.
Isabel Grace Thomas was born at 7:30 a.m. weighing 7 lbs. and 2.7 oz. and was 19 3/4 inches long.
Blogging will be light for the next few days as we adjust to the new addition to our family.
Everything went fine with the delivery and mother and baby are doing well.
Isabel Grace Thomas was born at 7:30 a.m. weighing 7 lbs. and 2.7 oz. and was 19 3/4 inches long.
Blogging will be light for the next few days as we adjust to the new addition to our family.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
More bad news for Bush
I bet the Bush administration just hates getting out of bed these days. Everyday it seems they get hit with a flood of more bad news for Bush and his team.
The latest polling has Bush at an all-time low of 37 percent approval rating. The remarkable thing about that is that they can still find that many people who say that Bush is doing a good job.
Yesterday the Senate rebuffed the administration over its Iraq policy by demanding more oversight and passing a resolution saying that there should be a drastic reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq in 2006. It is clear that the Republicans have lost control of their agenda in the Congress and are now being forced to put up watered-down Democratic proposals to try and make it look like they are still in charge of things.
The New York Times is reporting a new torture scandal in Iraq.
173 detainees American troops discovered over the weekend in the basement of an Interior Ministry building in a Baghdad suburb had been tortured by their Iraqi captors. A senior Iraqi official who visited the detainees said two appeared paralyzed and others had some of the skin peeled off their bodies by their abusers.
Hopefully, the new Iraqi government will deal with this promptly and decisively rather than trying to cover it up and stonewalling it like their political benefactors are apt to do.
But the big news today is in the Washington Post where we finally get hard evidence about which oil companies met with Vice President Cheney’s secret task force that devised our current energy policies. Apparently, oil company executives were still lying to Congress about those meetings as recently as last week.
Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee, may have been privvy to that deception because he conveniently (over Democratic objections) refused to put the oil execs under oath when they testified before his committee and swore they were not involved in any secret task force meetings. That effectively shielded them from any perjury charges, but it is still supposed to be a crime to lie to Congress anyway.
And finally, the Washington Post has the bombshell story about Bob Woodward of Watergate fame testifying to the grand jury investigating the CIA Leak scandal. It turns out that someone in the Bush administration had blabbed about Valerie Plame to Woodward more than two months before her identity was exposed to the world in Bob Novak’s column. What does this mean?
It means that Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation is alive and well and continuing to overturn more rocks in this seedy look at the underbelly of power politics in Washington.
The latest polling has Bush at an all-time low of 37 percent approval rating. The remarkable thing about that is that they can still find that many people who say that Bush is doing a good job.
Yesterday the Senate rebuffed the administration over its Iraq policy by demanding more oversight and passing a resolution saying that there should be a drastic reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq in 2006. It is clear that the Republicans have lost control of their agenda in the Congress and are now being forced to put up watered-down Democratic proposals to try and make it look like they are still in charge of things.
The New York Times is reporting a new torture scandal in Iraq.
173 detainees American troops discovered over the weekend in the basement of an Interior Ministry building in a Baghdad suburb had been tortured by their Iraqi captors. A senior Iraqi official who visited the detainees said two appeared paralyzed and others had some of the skin peeled off their bodies by their abusers.
Hopefully, the new Iraqi government will deal with this promptly and decisively rather than trying to cover it up and stonewalling it like their political benefactors are apt to do.
But the big news today is in the Washington Post where we finally get hard evidence about which oil companies met with Vice President Cheney’s secret task force that devised our current energy policies. Apparently, oil company executives were still lying to Congress about those meetings as recently as last week.
Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee, may have been privvy to that deception because he conveniently (over Democratic objections) refused to put the oil execs under oath when they testified before his committee and swore they were not involved in any secret task force meetings. That effectively shielded them from any perjury charges, but it is still supposed to be a crime to lie to Congress anyway.
And finally, the Washington Post has the bombshell story about Bob Woodward of Watergate fame testifying to the grand jury investigating the CIA Leak scandal. It turns out that someone in the Bush administration had blabbed about Valerie Plame to Woodward more than two months before her identity was exposed to the world in Bob Novak’s column. What does this mean?
It means that Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation is alive and well and continuing to overturn more rocks in this seedy look at the underbelly of power politics in Washington.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Manipulation by omission
Kevin Drum has compiled a list of misleading claims made by the Bush administration prior to the invasion of Iraq along with details of the dissenting opinions in the intelligence community that were kept hidden from the public. Click through to the original post to access all the links to the supporting material.
1. The Claim: Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al-Qaeda prisoner captured in 2001, was the source of intelligence that Saddam Hussein had trained al-Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons. This information was used extensively by Colin Powell in his February 2003 speech to the UN.
What We Know Now: As early as February 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency circulated a report, labeled DITSUM No. 044-02, saying that it was "likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers." Link. This assessment was hidden from the public until after the war.
2. The Claim: An Iraqi defector codenamed "Curveball" was the source of reporting that Saddam Hussein had built a fleet of mobile biowarfare labs. Curveball's claims of mobile bio labs were repeated by many administration figures during the runup to war.
What We Know Now: The only American agent to actually meet with Curveball before the war warned that he appeared to be an alcoholic and was unreliable. However, his superior in the CIA told him it was best to keep quiet about this: "Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about." Link. This dissent was not made public until 2004, in a response to the SSCI report that was written by Senator Dianne Feinstein. Link.
3. The Claim: Iraq had purchased thousands of aluminum tubes to act as centrifuges for the creation of bomb grade uranium. Dick Cheney said they were "irrefutable evidence" of an Iraqi nuclear program and George Bush cited them in his 2003 State of the Union address.
What We Know Now: Centrifuge experts at the Oak Ridge Office of the Department of Energy had concluded long before the war that the tubes were unsuitable for centrifuge work and were probably meant for use in artillery rockets. The State Department concurred. Link. Both of these dissents were omitted from the CIA's declassified National Intelligence Estimate, released on October 4, 2002. Link. They were subsequently made public after the war, on July 18, 2003. Link.
4. The Claim: Saddam Hussein attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa as part of his attempt to reconstitute his nuclear program. President Bush cited this publicly in his 2003 State of the Union address.
What We Know Now: The primary piece of evidence for this claim was a document showing that Iraq had signed a contract to buy yellowcake from Niger. However, the CIA specifically told the White House in October 2002 that the "reporting was weak" and that they disagreed with the British about the reliability of this intelligence. Link. At the same time, the State Department wrote that the documents were "completely implausible." Link.
Three months later, in January 2003, Alan Foley, head of the CIA's counterproliferation effort, tried to persuade the White House not to include the claim in the SOTU because the information wasn't solid enough, but was overruled. Link. Five weeks later, the documents were conclusively shown to be forgeries. Link. In July 2003, after the war had ended, CIA Director George Tenet admitted publicly that that the claim should never have been made. Link.
5. The Claim: Saddam Hussein was developing long range aerial drones capable of attacking the continental United States with chemical or biological weapons. President Bush made this claim in a speech in October 2002 and Colin Powell repeated it during his speech to the UN in February 2003.
What We Know Now: The Iraqi drones had nowhere near the range to reach the United States, and Air Force experts also doubted that they were designed to deliver WMD. However, their dissent was left out of the October 2002 NIE and wasn't made public until July 2003. Link.
As Kevin notes today in a follow-up post, this was a clear abuse of power by the Bush administration for which they should rightfully be held accountable.
And all these protestations noting that Democrats shared Republican concerns about the threat posed by Hussein’s regime completely miss the point that the argument was about how to respond to that threat, not whether or not the threat existed. I don’t blame Bush because there were no WMDs in Iraq. I blame him for blowing that threat all out of proportion and making it the overriding concern of our military when we should have been more concerned with tracking and countering al-Qaeda operations.
1. The Claim: Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al-Qaeda prisoner captured in 2001, was the source of intelligence that Saddam Hussein had trained al-Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons. This information was used extensively by Colin Powell in his February 2003 speech to the UN.
What We Know Now: As early as February 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency circulated a report, labeled DITSUM No. 044-02, saying that it was "likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers." Link. This assessment was hidden from the public until after the war.
2. The Claim: An Iraqi defector codenamed "Curveball" was the source of reporting that Saddam Hussein had built a fleet of mobile biowarfare labs. Curveball's claims of mobile bio labs were repeated by many administration figures during the runup to war.
What We Know Now: The only American agent to actually meet with Curveball before the war warned that he appeared to be an alcoholic and was unreliable. However, his superior in the CIA told him it was best to keep quiet about this: "Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about." Link. This dissent was not made public until 2004, in a response to the SSCI report that was written by Senator Dianne Feinstein. Link.
3. The Claim: Iraq had purchased thousands of aluminum tubes to act as centrifuges for the creation of bomb grade uranium. Dick Cheney said they were "irrefutable evidence" of an Iraqi nuclear program and George Bush cited them in his 2003 State of the Union address.
What We Know Now: Centrifuge experts at the Oak Ridge Office of the Department of Energy had concluded long before the war that the tubes were unsuitable for centrifuge work and were probably meant for use in artillery rockets. The State Department concurred. Link. Both of these dissents were omitted from the CIA's declassified National Intelligence Estimate, released on October 4, 2002. Link. They were subsequently made public after the war, on July 18, 2003. Link.
4. The Claim: Saddam Hussein attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa as part of his attempt to reconstitute his nuclear program. President Bush cited this publicly in his 2003 State of the Union address.
What We Know Now: The primary piece of evidence for this claim was a document showing that Iraq had signed a contract to buy yellowcake from Niger. However, the CIA specifically told the White House in October 2002 that the "reporting was weak" and that they disagreed with the British about the reliability of this intelligence. Link. At the same time, the State Department wrote that the documents were "completely implausible." Link.
Three months later, in January 2003, Alan Foley, head of the CIA's counterproliferation effort, tried to persuade the White House not to include the claim in the SOTU because the information wasn't solid enough, but was overruled. Link. Five weeks later, the documents were conclusively shown to be forgeries. Link. In July 2003, after the war had ended, CIA Director George Tenet admitted publicly that that the claim should never have been made. Link.
5. The Claim: Saddam Hussein was developing long range aerial drones capable of attacking the continental United States with chemical or biological weapons. President Bush made this claim in a speech in October 2002 and Colin Powell repeated it during his speech to the UN in February 2003.
What We Know Now: The Iraqi drones had nowhere near the range to reach the United States, and Air Force experts also doubted that they were designed to deliver WMD. However, their dissent was left out of the October 2002 NIE and wasn't made public until July 2003. Link.
As Kevin notes today in a follow-up post, this was a clear abuse of power by the Bush administration for which they should rightfully be held accountable.
And all these protestations noting that Democrats shared Republican concerns about the threat posed by Hussein’s regime completely miss the point that the argument was about how to respond to that threat, not whether or not the threat existed. I don’t blame Bush because there were no WMDs in Iraq. I blame him for blowing that threat all out of proportion and making it the overriding concern of our military when we should have been more concerned with tracking and countering al-Qaeda operations.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Liar, Liar
The WaPo today pokes holes in Bush's speech that tries to refute his critics over the Iraq war.
President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.
Neither assertion is wholly accurate.
In other words, LIARS!!!!
The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.
But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday, countered "the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the intelligence." He said that "those people who have looked at that issue, some committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission, have concluded it did not happen."
But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."
How convenient. Set up several investigative committees and tell them they are not authorized to look into how the administration used the intelligence, and then claim afterwards that those same investigations have exonerated you.
President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.
Neither assertion is wholly accurate.
In other words, LIARS!!!!
The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.
But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday, countered "the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the intelligence." He said that "those people who have looked at that issue, some committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission, have concluded it did not happen."
But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."
How convenient. Set up several investigative committees and tell them they are not authorized to look into how the administration used the intelligence, and then claim afterwards that those same investigations have exonerated you.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Inept Republicans giving up on budget bill
Wow! The Republicans are really starting to miss The Hammer up on the Hill.
WASHINGTON -- House Republican leaders scuttled a vote Thursday on a $51 billion budget-cut package in the face of a revolt by lawmakers over scaling back Medicaid, food stamp and student loan programs.
The development was a major setback for the GOP on Capitol Hill and for President Bush, who has made cuts to benefit programs a central pillar in his budget plan.
What a mess. Hopefully, by this time next year we will be able to see things set right again after the gavel is passed to Speaker Pelosi.
WASHINGTON -- House Republican leaders scuttled a vote Thursday on a $51 billion budget-cut package in the face of a revolt by lawmakers over scaling back Medicaid, food stamp and student loan programs.
The development was a major setback for the GOP on Capitol Hill and for President Bush, who has made cuts to benefit programs a central pillar in his budget plan.
What a mess. Hopefully, by this time next year we will be able to see things set right again after the gavel is passed to Speaker Pelosi.
Frist’s values
This is really shameful.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he is more concerned about the leak of information regarding secret CIA detention centers than activity in the prisons themselves.
No wonder Republicans are losing support all over the country. By embracing torture and secret prisons they have essentially abandoned the basic principles that underlie the U.S. system of justice. In other words, they don’t share our values.
The New York Times in today’s editorial gets it about right on the hypocricy of the GOP leadership suddenly demanding a new leak investigation.
In the last couple of days, the Republican leaders of Congress have been piously demanding a full investigation into the sources of a Washington Post article about the Central Intelligence Agency's chain of secret prison camps. These same leaders have spent 18 months crushing any serious look at the actual abuse of prisoners at those camps, and at camps run by the American military. And for more than two years, they have expressed no interest in whether the White House leaked the name of a covert C.I.A. operative to punish a critic of the Iraq war.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he is more concerned about the leak of information regarding secret CIA detention centers than activity in the prisons themselves.
No wonder Republicans are losing support all over the country. By embracing torture and secret prisons they have essentially abandoned the basic principles that underlie the U.S. system of justice. In other words, they don’t share our values.
The New York Times in today’s editorial gets it about right on the hypocricy of the GOP leadership suddenly demanding a new leak investigation.
In the last couple of days, the Republican leaders of Congress have been piously demanding a full investigation into the sources of a Washington Post article about the Central Intelligence Agency's chain of secret prison camps. These same leaders have spent 18 months crushing any serious look at the actual abuse of prisoners at those camps, and at camps run by the American military. And for more than two years, they have expressed no interest in whether the White House leaked the name of a covert C.I.A. operative to punish a critic of the Iraq war.
More happy news
The Alaskan Wildlife Refuge gets a last-minute reprieve.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing it would jeopardize approval of a sweeping budget bill Thursday.
They also dropped from the budget document plans to allow states to authorize oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts -- regions currently under a drilling moratorium.
The actions were a stunning setback for those who have tried for years to open a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil development, and a victory for environmentalists, who have lobbied hard against the drilling provisions.
President Bush has made drilling in the Alaska refuge one of his top energy priorities.
Bush’s unpopularity is starting to drag down his right-wing political agenda, just like it drug down Republicans in yesterday’s election.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing it would jeopardize approval of a sweeping budget bill Thursday.
They also dropped from the budget document plans to allow states to authorize oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts -- regions currently under a drilling moratorium.
The actions were a stunning setback for those who have tried for years to open a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil development, and a victory for environmentalists, who have lobbied hard against the drilling provisions.
President Bush has made drilling in the Alaska refuge one of his top energy priorities.
Bush’s unpopularity is starting to drag down his right-wing political agenda, just like it drug down Republicans in yesterday’s election.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Happy election news
The Democrats took home most all of the electoral prizes the other day including the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey.
President Bush proved to be so unpopular that a Democratic Mayor in St. Paul, Minnesota was soundly defeated (by another Democrat) because he had crossed party lines to endorse Bush in the last election.
And out in California, Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger was rebuffed on every one of his political initiatives and now it looks like the one-time GOP rising star’s political fortunes may be taking a dive. Some folks have already taken to calling him the One-Term-inator.
Republicans really had very little to cheer about Tuesday unless you count Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s re-election in New York City. Of course, anywhere outside of New York City and Bloomberg would be mistaken for a Democrat anyway.
Here in Texas, there are some GOPers who will no doubt try to console themselves with the lopsided approval of Prop. 2, the anti-gay marriage amendment. But this was in reality a strategic mistake by the right-wing. Prop. 2 is absolutely meaningless. Gay marriage is already illegal in Texas and the only way it would ever become legal here is if it is handed down through a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which would overrule the Texas Constitution anyway.
The only reason for these anti-gay amendments is to rally the religious right and get them out to the polls. But it is a one-shot deal and they used it here in Texas during an off-year election when there were no big races that could be affected by it. So next year, when we have a governor’s race they will not be able to use it and that is just as well.
The main reason I ventured to the polls yesterday was to support the Alamo Community College District (ACCD) bond initiative and I was happy to see that it passed this time.
President Bush proved to be so unpopular that a Democratic Mayor in St. Paul, Minnesota was soundly defeated (by another Democrat) because he had crossed party lines to endorse Bush in the last election.
And out in California, Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger was rebuffed on every one of his political initiatives and now it looks like the one-time GOP rising star’s political fortunes may be taking a dive. Some folks have already taken to calling him the One-Term-inator.
Republicans really had very little to cheer about Tuesday unless you count Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s re-election in New York City. Of course, anywhere outside of New York City and Bloomberg would be mistaken for a Democrat anyway.
Here in Texas, there are some GOPers who will no doubt try to console themselves with the lopsided approval of Prop. 2, the anti-gay marriage amendment. But this was in reality a strategic mistake by the right-wing. Prop. 2 is absolutely meaningless. Gay marriage is already illegal in Texas and the only way it would ever become legal here is if it is handed down through a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which would overrule the Texas Constitution anyway.
The only reason for these anti-gay amendments is to rally the religious right and get them out to the polls. But it is a one-shot deal and they used it here in Texas during an off-year election when there were no big races that could be affected by it. So next year, when we have a governor’s race they will not be able to use it and that is just as well.
The main reason I ventured to the polls yesterday was to support the Alamo Community College District (ACCD) bond initiative and I was happy to see that it passed this time.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Leaky Republicans
You just can’t trust those Republicans with classified information.
Earlier today, Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leaker Bill Frist announced plans to probe an alleged leak of classified information that resulted in a Washington Post story about secret CIA-operated prisons where terrorism suspects are disappeared to.
But now it looks like they may have spoke too soon.
Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) told CNN's Ed Henry Tuesday afternoon that he believed it was a Republican senator who gave information about secret CIA jails abroad to the Washington Post, RAW STORY can report.
Lott said that much of the information contained in the Post report -- which stated that the U.S. was holding terrorist suspects in secret CIA jails overseas -- was discussed at a meeting of Republican senators last Tuesday.
So by all means let’s get this investigation going!
Earlier today, Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leaker Bill Frist announced plans to probe an alleged leak of classified information that resulted in a Washington Post story about secret CIA-operated prisons where terrorism suspects are disappeared to.
But now it looks like they may have spoke too soon.
Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) told CNN's Ed Henry Tuesday afternoon that he believed it was a Republican senator who gave information about secret CIA jails abroad to the Washington Post, RAW STORY can report.
Lott said that much of the information contained in the Post report -- which stated that the U.S. was holding terrorist suspects in secret CIA jails overseas -- was discussed at a meeting of Republican senators last Tuesday.
So by all means let’s get this investigation going!
Monday, November 07, 2005
Hoist on his own petard
One of Josh Marshall's readers makes an excellent point about Tom DeLay's efforts to have his trial moved out of "liberal" Travis County.
Ronnie Earle should simply ask the judge, "If Travis County is too liberal for DeLay to get a fair trial, then why is it that 2 of 3 U.S. Representatives representing Travis County are Republicans? Why are both state school board members representing Travis County Republicans? If you lump in State Senators and State Reps, too, you get a total of 7 Republicans and 6 Democrats." I'd say it looks more than fair to Republicans.
Hoist him on his own petard, perhaps...
Ronnie Earle should simply ask the judge, "If Travis County is too liberal for DeLay to get a fair trial, then why is it that 2 of 3 U.S. Representatives representing Travis County are Republicans? Why are both state school board members representing Travis County Republicans? If you lump in State Senators and State Reps, too, you get a total of 7 Republicans and 6 Democrats." I'd say it looks more than fair to Republicans.
Hoist him on his own petard, perhaps...
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Gurwitz flails and falls flat
Jonathan Gurwitz is really flailing around wildly in his latest column as he desperately tries to dismiss the ever escalating CIA Leak scandal that has landed squarely on the back of the Bush administration.
Gurwitz is usually pretty good about sticking to the facts when trying to make his case, but this time he falls flat and makes some blatantly false assertions in his column. For instance, take this passage:
The saga begins more than two years ago when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson mounted a public relations campaign against the Bush administration and its rationale to go to war in Iraq. Wilson also happened to be an adviser to presidential candidate John Kerry.
Reading this, one would assume that Wilson was working for the Kerry campaign when he "mounted his public relations campaign against the Bush administration" which consisted of writing one op-ed piece for the New York Times. But as you can see
here, Wilson did not sign on with the Kerry campaign until long after he authored the NYTimes article. In fact, you could say it was probably the Bush administration's vicious attacks on Wilson (that resulted in exposing his wife's role as a covert CIA agent) that drove him to join the Kerry campaign.
Gurwitz compounds this error later in the article stating:
That includes Wilson's own report from 2002, which — contrary to his later statements in the service of the Kerry campaign — tended to support the existence of uranium dealings.
No, Mr. Gurwitz. Wilson was not "in the service of the Kerry campaign" at the time that he first made those statements. Futhermore, only a warped reading of Wilson's report would lead anyone to conclude that it was supporting Iraqi uranium dealings with Niger.
I will compliment Gurwitz in that at least when he quotes from the section of additional comments by three Republican senators on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee he does not make the mistake of attributing it to the final report as so many other right-wing pundits have done. But that Republican slander against Joseph Wilson has nothing to do with the crime of exposing a covert CIA operation.
Neither does this ballyhoo the GOP has made that Valerie Wilson "proffered her husband for the Niger assignment."
There was absolutely nothing wrong with that! Nothing!! The CIA did not have to accept her suggestion if they did not want to. And, unlike Michael Brown, Harriet Miers, and half the flunkies populating the Bush administration, Joseph Wilson was extremely qualified for the assignment having served as ambassador to Iraq and having extensive contacts in Africa and Niger. Jeez!! What a ridiculous red herring this is! But the right-wingers keep bringing it up over and over again as if it were some kind of scandal. Are they just stupid? Or are they trying to intentionally throw up a smokescreen to distract people from the real crime that was committed here?
At least Gurwitz grudgingly acknowledges that the charges against Scooter Libby are serious.
..members of the intelligence community must know that the law will protect them when or if political functionaries do not.
I agree wholeheartedly.
But then Gurwitz goes off on an unrelated tangent against the media for first supporting NYTimes lier, I mean reporter, Judith Miller for her efforts to cover up for the lying Libby.
Then he tops it off with this outrageously slanderous statement:
For partisan purposes, liberals who don't care a whit for the CIA, its people, its front companies or its mission are now duplicitously arguing for an outrageously broad interpretation of statutes that protect its clandestine operations.
Excuse me!?!? I happen to care more than just a whit for the people who risk their lives everyday to keep our nation secure. I am outraged because it was the Bush administration, for partisan purposes, that ruined the career of one of those agents, exposed a covert operation and a CIA front company and may have done untold damage to our ability to gather vital intelligence information in the future.
Outrageously broad interpretation?? How about an interpretation that simply does what it is supposed to do and protects our covert agents by punishing officials who are trusted with classified information and then cavalierly misuse that information?
This was a truly sad column coming from Mr. Gurwitz. I usually expect better of him. I would have to say that the quote he borrowed from the Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would best summarize this particular column:
"(He) gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated and misleading."
Gurwitz is usually pretty good about sticking to the facts when trying to make his case, but this time he falls flat and makes some blatantly false assertions in his column. For instance, take this passage:
The saga begins more than two years ago when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson mounted a public relations campaign against the Bush administration and its rationale to go to war in Iraq. Wilson also happened to be an adviser to presidential candidate John Kerry.
Reading this, one would assume that Wilson was working for the Kerry campaign when he "mounted his public relations campaign against the Bush administration" which consisted of writing one op-ed piece for the New York Times. But as you can see
here, Wilson did not sign on with the Kerry campaign until long after he authored the NYTimes article. In fact, you could say it was probably the Bush administration's vicious attacks on Wilson (that resulted in exposing his wife's role as a covert CIA agent) that drove him to join the Kerry campaign.
Gurwitz compounds this error later in the article stating:
That includes Wilson's own report from 2002, which — contrary to his later statements in the service of the Kerry campaign — tended to support the existence of uranium dealings.
No, Mr. Gurwitz. Wilson was not "in the service of the Kerry campaign" at the time that he first made those statements. Futhermore, only a warped reading of Wilson's report would lead anyone to conclude that it was supporting Iraqi uranium dealings with Niger.
I will compliment Gurwitz in that at least when he quotes from the section of additional comments by three Republican senators on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee he does not make the mistake of attributing it to the final report as so many other right-wing pundits have done. But that Republican slander against Joseph Wilson has nothing to do with the crime of exposing a covert CIA operation.
Neither does this ballyhoo the GOP has made that Valerie Wilson "proffered her husband for the Niger assignment."
There was absolutely nothing wrong with that! Nothing!! The CIA did not have to accept her suggestion if they did not want to. And, unlike Michael Brown, Harriet Miers, and half the flunkies populating the Bush administration, Joseph Wilson was extremely qualified for the assignment having served as ambassador to Iraq and having extensive contacts in Africa and Niger. Jeez!! What a ridiculous red herring this is! But the right-wingers keep bringing it up over and over again as if it were some kind of scandal. Are they just stupid? Or are they trying to intentionally throw up a smokescreen to distract people from the real crime that was committed here?
At least Gurwitz grudgingly acknowledges that the charges against Scooter Libby are serious.
..members of the intelligence community must know that the law will protect them when or if political functionaries do not.
I agree wholeheartedly.
But then Gurwitz goes off on an unrelated tangent against the media for first supporting NYTimes lier, I mean reporter, Judith Miller for her efforts to cover up for the lying Libby.
Then he tops it off with this outrageously slanderous statement:
For partisan purposes, liberals who don't care a whit for the CIA, its people, its front companies or its mission are now duplicitously arguing for an outrageously broad interpretation of statutes that protect its clandestine operations.
Excuse me!?!? I happen to care more than just a whit for the people who risk their lives everyday to keep our nation secure. I am outraged because it was the Bush administration, for partisan purposes, that ruined the career of one of those agents, exposed a covert operation and a CIA front company and may have done untold damage to our ability to gather vital intelligence information in the future.
Outrageously broad interpretation?? How about an interpretation that simply does what it is supposed to do and protects our covert agents by punishing officials who are trusted with classified information and then cavalierly misuse that information?
This was a truly sad column coming from Mr. Gurwitz. I usually expect better of him. I would have to say that the quote he borrowed from the Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would best summarize this particular column:
"(He) gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated and misleading."
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