Did you know that Republicans are 10-times worse than Democrats when it comes to filling up the budget with pork-barrel projects? That’s right, 10-times worse.
The Wall Street Journal spelled it all out the other day (Jan. 24) in an excellent story on Page A4 about the Expanding Bush Budgets.
According to the WSJ, there has been a “tenfold increase in Congress’s appropriations ‘earmarks’ for special projects — numbering more than 14,000 last year — since Republicans took over Congress in 1995.”
Wow! That still just floors me. How do they get away with it? The Republicans came to power by attacking Democrats as porkbarrell spenders wasting taxpayers’ money, and yet they have increased the practice tenfold since they took over control of the budget process. Incredible.
The other thing Republicans did besides expanding porkbarrel spending 10-fold, was to redirect it away from the poor and the needy and towards their wealthy financial backers. It’s been party time in Washington ever since, with Tom DeLay flying all over the world in corporate jets to exotic luxury resorts where he plays golf and dines with the fat cats of the world.
Oh, but don’t worry. G. William Hoagland, budget adviser to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, assures us that these earmarks aren’t the real problem. After all, “relative to the total budget, such pork spending is the size of a rounding error.”
The real problem is the run-away cost of health care which has made federal spending on mandatory entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid balloon out of control. Bill and Hillary tried to warn us back in the early ‘90s, but did the Republicans listen? Noooooo.
Here is the big picture of the federal budget, according to the WSJ:
When Bush came to office in 2001, the federal budget request totaled $1.8 trillion. The expected budget request for 2007 will be $2.7 trillion. Total spending from 2001 to 2005 has risen by an average of 7 percent annually, double the pace of the previous 5 years (the Clinton years), and nearly triple the average inflation rate.
“Mandatory spending for entitlement programs with benefits set by law accounts for more than half the total budget. Last year, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security cost more than $1 trillion...
Medicare has been growing twice as fast as Social Security amid rising health costs – and that is before the tab for Mr. Bush’s new prescription-drug benefit. Entitlement spending is projected to explode as baby boomers retire.”
Then there is the interest on the U.S. debt, which jumped a near-record 14.2 percent in 2005. Spending on the debt is now roughly half the size of all domestic discretionary spending or “more than the entire budgets of the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice and Labor combined.”
And, of course, defense spending has ballooned thanks largely to Bush’s quagmire in Iraq. But even when you take out the increases in Defense and Homeland Security spending tied to 9/11, we are still seeing record levels of spending, according to Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation. “The brakes are off everywhere,” he says.
That’s because Republican policy is to engorge themselves today and not worry about tomorrow. It’s OK if they leave the government broken and bogged down in debt, because they never believed it could work anyway.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Just a coincidence
Of course, we don’t ever negotiate with terrorists. I’m sure this was just a coincidence, like they say.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. military released five Iraqi women detainees Thursday, a move demanded by the kidnappers of an American reporter to spare her life, but an official said the release was coincidental.
Yeah, sure. Let’s just hope it works and the reporter is freed.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. military released five Iraqi women detainees Thursday, a move demanded by the kidnappers of an American reporter to spare her life, but an official said the release was coincidental.
Yeah, sure. Let’s just hope it works and the reporter is freed.
Democracy in action
How ‘bout those Palestinian elections, huh! Hamas in a landslide! If you give the people a choice, you might not always like the outcome. It’s one of the drawbacks of democracy.
So the question now is do we still support democracy in principle, even when it does not produce the results that we want?
It really is unfortunate, though not surprising. Israel, through its hard-line stance in recent years, is as much to blame for Hamas’ political ascendency as Hamas was for the rise of the right-wing Likud Party. People have a tendency to get more militant the more they are attacked. It’s a vicious circle.
The prospects for peace would be much better if we had a Fatah-led coalition in Palestine and a Labor government in Jerusalem. Instead we have the two hard-line factions from boths sides in power and a virtual powder keg ready to go off in the Middle East. Is the Bush administration prepared to deal with this? Fat chance.
Let’s hope everybody will step back now and take a deep breath before everything is thrown into turmoil.
So the question now is do we still support democracy in principle, even when it does not produce the results that we want?
It really is unfortunate, though not surprising. Israel, through its hard-line stance in recent years, is as much to blame for Hamas’ political ascendency as Hamas was for the rise of the right-wing Likud Party. People have a tendency to get more militant the more they are attacked. It’s a vicious circle.
The prospects for peace would be much better if we had a Fatah-led coalition in Palestine and a Labor government in Jerusalem. Instead we have the two hard-line factions from boths sides in power and a virtual powder keg ready to go off in the Middle East. Is the Bush administration prepared to deal with this? Fat chance.
Let’s hope everybody will step back now and take a deep breath before everything is thrown into turmoil.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Disnar or Pixney
I was glad to see that Disney and Pixar took my advice from two years ago and decided to combine forces once again.
Alas, I say this only as a fan and not an investor.
Alas, I say this only as a fan and not an investor.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Willie and the Rangers
John McCormack has one of his typically good stories in today’s paper.
It seems that a group of high-level Texas Rangers are objecting to having their esteemed organization associated in anyway with some long-haired, pot-smoking, hell-raising, liberal outlaw country singer. Never mind the fact that Willie Nelson has long been a strong supporter of law enforcement groups in Texas. They threw a hissy fit after learning that the past chairman of the Former Texas Rangers Foundation of Kerrville had posed for a picture with Nelson and sent it out as a Christmas card in an effort to promote the organization’s fundraising efforts.
"We just have a real problem with Willie Nelson for a lot of reasons," said Capt. Barry Caver of Midland, one of nine top-ranking Rangers to complain.
"Knowing Willie's past, we would be violating department policy by being around someone like that...
I don’t want to have to be too hard on the Texas Rangers, but c’mon guys, Grow Up! You sound like a bunch of whiny little girly men. Eeewwww! He smoked marijuana once! Don’t let him touch me!!!
How sad. Already, this group’s pathetic whining has achieved results. Nelson has sent a letter stating that in order to avoid any controversy, he wished to withdraw his offer to perform at their July private gathering. Just as well. Let Willie play some where he will be appreciated and let the Rangers try and get someone who meets their high moral standards to come and perform at their party. I would suggest John Ashcroft and/or Orrin Hatch.
Incompetence and corruption
These are the hallmarks of the Republican Party today. Each day there is fresh evidence of such shocking malfeasance and I am continually amazed that so many people can be so ignorant or so indifferent to it that they would continue to support this party and this administration.
First up today, Incompetence:
The first official history of the $25 billion American reconstruction effort in Iraq depicts a program hobbled from the outset by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and constantly increasing security costs...
In the document, the paralyzing effect of staffing shortfalls and contracting battles between the State Department and the Pentagon, creating delays of months at a stretch, are described...
Seemingly odd decisions on dividing the responsibility for various sectors of the reconstruction crop up repeatedly in the document...
"It almost looks like a spoils system between various agencies," said Steve Ellis, a vice president and an authority on the Army corps at Taxpayers for Common Sense, an organization in Washington, who read a copy of the document. "You had various fiefdoms established in the contracting process."
"The impression you get is of an organization that had too little structure on the ground over there, that it had conflicting guidance from the United States," said John J. Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
As I said earlier,
Bush gets a lot of credit for spreading freedom and democracy in Iraq that is wholly undeserved because he is unwilling to put his money (or our money, as the case may be) where his mouth is. By cutting off funds for reconstruction in Iraq, Bush has effectively thrown in the towel on this war, he just won’t admit it.
As Paul Krugman noted the other day, “this administration refuses to admit defeat but has given up even trying to win.” He then goes on to relate another sad tale of Bushian incompetence relating to the persistent lack of progress in repairing Iraq’s electricity infrastructure.
So why is power scarcer than ever, almost three years after Saddam's fall? Sabotage by insurgents is one factor. But as an analysis of Iraq's electricity shortage in The Los Angeles Times last month showed, the blackouts are also the result of some incredible missteps by U.S. officials.
Most notably, during the period when Iraq was run by U.S. officials, they decided to base their electricity plan on natural gas: in order to boost electrical output, American companies were hired to install gas-fired generators in power plants across Iraq. But, as The Los Angeles Times explains, "pipelines needed to transport the gas" - that is, to supply gas to the new generators - "weren't built because Iraq's Oil Ministry, with U.S. encouragement, concentrated instead on boosting oil production." Whoops.
More incompetence. What a surprise.
And remember that President Bush was touted as the CEO president who’s Harvard education and business acumen meant he would manage the government as a tightly run ship and make sure all the trains would run on time.
Now on to the Corruption:
House and Senate GOP negotiators, meeting behind closed doors last month to complete a major budget-cutting bill, agreed on a change to Senate-passed Medicare legislation that would save the health insurance industry $22 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The Senate version would have targeted private HMOs participating in Medicare by changing the formula that governs their reimbursement, lowering payments $26 billion over the next decade. But after lobbying by the health insurance industry, the final version made a critical change that had the effect of eliminating all but $4 billion of the projected savings, according to CBO and other health policy experts.
In November, as part of a broad budget-cutting bill, the Senate approved a measure to save billions of dollars by reducing Medicare reimbursements to private insurers. Most of those savings disappeared after the final bill emerged from House and Senate negotiations last month.
That change was made in mid-December during private negotiations involving House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and the staffs of those committees as well as the House Energy and Commerce Committee. House and Senate Democrats were excluded from the meeting.
It’s hard to know where to begin here. Suffice to say that you and I, average Joe and Jane Taxpayer, have been stuck with an additional $22 billion in Medicare expenses over the next decade because Republicans are too cozy with those K Street lobbyists. And they did it all behind closed doors, away from the public and with no Democrats around to cry foul.
So please tell me again how the Republicans are the ones who are looking out for our pocketbooks as we watch the national debt continue to pile up higher and higher for the forseeable future. The truth is, the only pocketbooks they are looking out for are their own.
The only way to change things is to vote the Republicans out of office as soon as possible. But then, as we saw in 2000, that doesn’t always work either.
First up today, Incompetence:
The first official history of the $25 billion American reconstruction effort in Iraq depicts a program hobbled from the outset by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and constantly increasing security costs...
In the document, the paralyzing effect of staffing shortfalls and contracting battles between the State Department and the Pentagon, creating delays of months at a stretch, are described...
Seemingly odd decisions on dividing the responsibility for various sectors of the reconstruction crop up repeatedly in the document...
"It almost looks like a spoils system between various agencies," said Steve Ellis, a vice president and an authority on the Army corps at Taxpayers for Common Sense, an organization in Washington, who read a copy of the document. "You had various fiefdoms established in the contracting process."
"The impression you get is of an organization that had too little structure on the ground over there, that it had conflicting guidance from the United States," said John J. Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
As I said earlier,
Bush gets a lot of credit for spreading freedom and democracy in Iraq that is wholly undeserved because he is unwilling to put his money (or our money, as the case may be) where his mouth is. By cutting off funds for reconstruction in Iraq, Bush has effectively thrown in the towel on this war, he just won’t admit it.
As Paul Krugman noted the other day, “this administration refuses to admit defeat but has given up even trying to win.” He then goes on to relate another sad tale of Bushian incompetence relating to the persistent lack of progress in repairing Iraq’s electricity infrastructure.
So why is power scarcer than ever, almost three years after Saddam's fall? Sabotage by insurgents is one factor. But as an analysis of Iraq's electricity shortage in The Los Angeles Times last month showed, the blackouts are also the result of some incredible missteps by U.S. officials.
Most notably, during the period when Iraq was run by U.S. officials, they decided to base their electricity plan on natural gas: in order to boost electrical output, American companies were hired to install gas-fired generators in power plants across Iraq. But, as The Los Angeles Times explains, "pipelines needed to transport the gas" - that is, to supply gas to the new generators - "weren't built because Iraq's Oil Ministry, with U.S. encouragement, concentrated instead on boosting oil production." Whoops.
More incompetence. What a surprise.
And remember that President Bush was touted as the CEO president who’s Harvard education and business acumen meant he would manage the government as a tightly run ship and make sure all the trains would run on time.
Now on to the Corruption:
House and Senate GOP negotiators, meeting behind closed doors last month to complete a major budget-cutting bill, agreed on a change to Senate-passed Medicare legislation that would save the health insurance industry $22 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The Senate version would have targeted private HMOs participating in Medicare by changing the formula that governs their reimbursement, lowering payments $26 billion over the next decade. But after lobbying by the health insurance industry, the final version made a critical change that had the effect of eliminating all but $4 billion of the projected savings, according to CBO and other health policy experts.
In November, as part of a broad budget-cutting bill, the Senate approved a measure to save billions of dollars by reducing Medicare reimbursements to private insurers. Most of those savings disappeared after the final bill emerged from House and Senate negotiations last month.
That change was made in mid-December during private negotiations involving House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and the staffs of those committees as well as the House Energy and Commerce Committee. House and Senate Democrats were excluded from the meeting.
It’s hard to know where to begin here. Suffice to say that you and I, average Joe and Jane Taxpayer, have been stuck with an additional $22 billion in Medicare expenses over the next decade because Republicans are too cozy with those K Street lobbyists. And they did it all behind closed doors, away from the public and with no Democrats around to cry foul.
So please tell me again how the Republicans are the ones who are looking out for our pocketbooks as we watch the national debt continue to pile up higher and higher for the forseeable future. The truth is, the only pocketbooks they are looking out for are their own.
The only way to change things is to vote the Republicans out of office as soon as possible. But then, as we saw in 2000, that doesn’t always work either.
Worst dictators
Parade Magazine, which comes in the Sunday paper, has published its annual list of The World's 10 Worst Dictators.
1) Omar al-Bashir, Sudan
2) Kim Jong-il, North Korea
3) Than Shwe, Burma (Myanmar)
4) Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe
5) Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan
6) Hu Jintao, China
7) King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia
8) Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan
9) Seyed Ali Khamane’i, Iran
10) Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Equatorial Guinea
I always find it interesting because it helps put into perspective how out of synch our foreign policy efforts are with our stated goals of spreading democracy around the globe. You have to go all the way down to No. 9 to find a country that this administration has bothered to rattle a saber at. Many of the leaders on this list and the runners-up who take up the 11-20 slots are considered our allies. That or we are indifferent to them.
1) Omar al-Bashir, Sudan
2) Kim Jong-il, North Korea
3) Than Shwe, Burma (Myanmar)
4) Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe
5) Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan
6) Hu Jintao, China
7) King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia
8) Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan
9) Seyed Ali Khamane’i, Iran
10) Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Equatorial Guinea
I always find it interesting because it helps put into perspective how out of synch our foreign policy efforts are with our stated goals of spreading democracy around the globe. You have to go all the way down to No. 9 to find a country that this administration has bothered to rattle a saber at. Many of the leaders on this list and the runners-up who take up the 11-20 slots are considered our allies. That or we are indifferent to them.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Incompetent and wasteful
What a worthless waste of skin this David Barrett guy is! After 12 years and $23 million of taxpayer’s money, the best he can do is give us this whiny, lame excuse for why he came up empty-handed:
"In the end enough high-ranking officials with enough power were able to blunt any effort to bring about a full and independent examination of Cisneros' possible tax offenses in the face of what seemed to many to be obvious grounds for such an inquiry"
What the hell is that all about?? If high-level officials are impeding the investigation then you do what Patrick Fitzgerald did and you charge them with obstruction of justice. Otherwise, you shut your mouth about it. You don’t issue a report 12 years after the fact that seeks to defame them based on zero evidence. That is outrageous!
I have to say the best part of Barrett’s report are the addendum’s by the people in the IRS and the Justice Department who had to put up with his foolishness all these years:
"The inaccurate statements and unfair insinuations contained in this final report are too numerous to catalogue," said the former deputy chief of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. The report is "misleading, incomplete and an abuse of prosecutorial discretion," wrote the former assistant chief counsel for criminal tax matters at the IRS.
Robert S. Litt, one of the Justice Department officials involved, called Barrett's suggestions of obstruction "a scurrilous falsehood," adding that the report was "a fitting conclusion to one of the most embarrassingly incompetent and wasteful episodes in the history of American law enforcement."
Hmmm. Incompetent and wasteful. Sounds like Barrett is ready to take a job in the Bush administration.
Heck of a job, Barrie!!
"In the end enough high-ranking officials with enough power were able to blunt any effort to bring about a full and independent examination of Cisneros' possible tax offenses in the face of what seemed to many to be obvious grounds for such an inquiry"
What the hell is that all about?? If high-level officials are impeding the investigation then you do what Patrick Fitzgerald did and you charge them with obstruction of justice. Otherwise, you shut your mouth about it. You don’t issue a report 12 years after the fact that seeks to defame them based on zero evidence. That is outrageous!
I have to say the best part of Barrett’s report are the addendum’s by the people in the IRS and the Justice Department who had to put up with his foolishness all these years:
"The inaccurate statements and unfair insinuations contained in this final report are too numerous to catalogue," said the former deputy chief of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. The report is "misleading, incomplete and an abuse of prosecutorial discretion," wrote the former assistant chief counsel for criminal tax matters at the IRS.
Robert S. Litt, one of the Justice Department officials involved, called Barrett's suggestions of obstruction "a scurrilous falsehood," adding that the report was "a fitting conclusion to one of the most embarrassingly incompetent and wasteful episodes in the history of American law enforcement."
Hmmm. Incompetent and wasteful. Sounds like Barrett is ready to take a job in the Bush administration.
Heck of a job, Barrie!!
Defending public education
We are having a great debate on the merits of public education over at Ranten N. Raven’s site.
Come check it out!
Come check it out!
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Castro to Bush: Chicken!!! Bock, bock, bock, bock!
The Bush administration is refusing to let the Cuban baseball squad take part in the inaugural World Baseball Classic, a 16-team tournament scheduled for March 3-20 and organized by Major League Baseball and its players' union.
So now Castro is calling them on it.
HAVANA (AP) -- Fidel Castro suggested the United States doesn't want to play Cuba in the World Baseball Classic, which is awaiting word on whether the U.S. government will let the island's players take part.
"We aren't afraid of anything," Castro said in a wide-ranging speech late Tuesday. "It's very difficult to compete against us in any area ... not even in baseball do they want to compete with Cuba."
Bush insists that as a matter of principal we will not allow any team from a communist country into the tournament - unless of course they are big enough to kick our ass, like China.
Thanks, President Bush, for making us all look petty and small.
So now Castro is calling them on it.
HAVANA (AP) -- Fidel Castro suggested the United States doesn't want to play Cuba in the World Baseball Classic, which is awaiting word on whether the U.S. government will let the island's players take part.
"We aren't afraid of anything," Castro said in a wide-ranging speech late Tuesday. "It's very difficult to compete against us in any area ... not even in baseball do they want to compete with Cuba."
Bush insists that as a matter of principal we will not allow any team from a communist country into the tournament - unless of course they are big enough to kick our ass, like China.
Thanks, President Bush, for making us all look petty and small.
Smearing Cisneros again
I opened up my local paper this morning and saw this story
splashed on the front page.
A special prosecutor's long-delayed report charges that a coverup at senior levels of the Clinton administration killed a tax fraud case against ex-cabinet member Henry Cisneros.
Oddly enough, I couldn’t find any other references to the story which is very thin on details. It turns out the piece is an “exclusive” from the New York Daily News, which the E-N picked up and reprinted. I did eventually find one other report in the right-wing New York Sun which has more details, although the co-author of the story is right-wing publisher and Clinton-hater extrordinaire R. Emmett Tyrell Jr.
It is unfortunate that the E-N chose to run this piece because it is a very poorly reported story that leaves a lot of questions unanswered and even unasked.
They call it a “long-delayed” report. No kidding! It was the never ending special prosecution from Hell that took more than 11 years and cost the taxpayers $23 million to look into a case where the subject of the investigation had long ago pleaded guilty, paid a $10,000 fine and then received a presidential pardon.
But now it turns out, according to the NY Daily News, that David Barrett, the last of the old Independent Counsels, was really looking into a “scandal” that was going all the way to the top to implicate the Clinton’s, but which was successfully thwarted.
David Barrett's 11-year, $23 million probe, which will be released tomorrow, states in stinging terms that this Clinton coverup succeeded.
Uh Huh. So it was a successful coverup of what exactly? Tax fraud by the former Housing Commissioner? Well, no. They never actually found evidence that Cisneros committed tax fraud. But they claim that was because higher-ups in the Clinton administration did not let them expand their investigation to cover multiple years beyond the one when he was making the payments to Linda Medlar.
From the NY Sun:
The Barrett report is said to show that (Attorney General Janet) Reno hampered Mr. Barrett's efforts at demonstrating tax violations on the part of Mr. Cisneros by limiting his investigation to one year of tax records. Successful tax evasion prosecution typically requires establishing a pattern of behavior over several years.
So they couldn’t find anything to implicate Mr. Cisneros with one year of tax records and wanted to expand their fishing expedition.
The Daily News then has this nugget:
Then-IRS Commissioner Peggy Richardson, a close friend of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), was involved in efforts to quash the probe, a source close to the case alleged.
But Richardson's role was cut from Barrett's report, which went through 26 drafts, because Democratic law firm Williams & Connolly successfully pressured Barrett to remove a section of the report naming her, a source said.
They “pressured” him to remove her from the report? How do you suppose they did that? Perhaps by threatening to sue his butt for defamation because he didn’t have squat on her?
The Sun article then adds this helpful graph that gives context to the timing of the report’s release:
Republicans have suffered from a cascade of scandals in the past year and are now bracing for the testimony of a lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, who agreed to name names in a plea deal surrounding his indictment on fraud charges earlier this month. Allegations of a coordinated effort during the Clinton administration to block the appointment of an independent counsel and then limit his scope could raise questions about the Clinton years at a time when many Democrats are pressing the former first lady, Senator Clinton, to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.
The Barrett report, which was completed in August 2004, does not appear to contain the bombshell evidence of a conspiracy directly involving President Clinton and his wife for that some conservatives had been hoping for, sources familiar with its contents said. But its detailed account of efforts by Messrs. Radek and Finkelstein to block and limit the inquiry could strengthen the hand of Republicans.
So Barrett is finally releasing his long-delayed report now with lots of specious and unproven charges smearing Henry Cisneros and the Clintons - all timed to help “strengthen Republicans” as they suffer from a cascade of scandals of their own making.
Let me just say that this so-called scandal and cover-up involving Cisneros, by the standards set by the Culture of Corruption Republicans today, would never have been investigated in the first place.
I look forward to some real journalists doing some real reporting on this story when the report is supposedly released tomorrow.
splashed on the front page.
A special prosecutor's long-delayed report charges that a coverup at senior levels of the Clinton administration killed a tax fraud case against ex-cabinet member Henry Cisneros.
Oddly enough, I couldn’t find any other references to the story which is very thin on details. It turns out the piece is an “exclusive” from the New York Daily News, which the E-N picked up and reprinted. I did eventually find one other report in the right-wing New York Sun which has more details, although the co-author of the story is right-wing publisher and Clinton-hater extrordinaire R. Emmett Tyrell Jr.
It is unfortunate that the E-N chose to run this piece because it is a very poorly reported story that leaves a lot of questions unanswered and even unasked.
They call it a “long-delayed” report. No kidding! It was the never ending special prosecution from Hell that took more than 11 years and cost the taxpayers $23 million to look into a case where the subject of the investigation had long ago pleaded guilty, paid a $10,000 fine and then received a presidential pardon.
But now it turns out, according to the NY Daily News, that David Barrett, the last of the old Independent Counsels, was really looking into a “scandal” that was going all the way to the top to implicate the Clinton’s, but which was successfully thwarted.
David Barrett's 11-year, $23 million probe, which will be released tomorrow, states in stinging terms that this Clinton coverup succeeded.
Uh Huh. So it was a successful coverup of what exactly? Tax fraud by the former Housing Commissioner? Well, no. They never actually found evidence that Cisneros committed tax fraud. But they claim that was because higher-ups in the Clinton administration did not let them expand their investigation to cover multiple years beyond the one when he was making the payments to Linda Medlar.
From the NY Sun:
The Barrett report is said to show that (Attorney General Janet) Reno hampered Mr. Barrett's efforts at demonstrating tax violations on the part of Mr. Cisneros by limiting his investigation to one year of tax records. Successful tax evasion prosecution typically requires establishing a pattern of behavior over several years.
So they couldn’t find anything to implicate Mr. Cisneros with one year of tax records and wanted to expand their fishing expedition.
The Daily News then has this nugget:
Then-IRS Commissioner Peggy Richardson, a close friend of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), was involved in efforts to quash the probe, a source close to the case alleged.
But Richardson's role was cut from Barrett's report, which went through 26 drafts, because Democratic law firm Williams & Connolly successfully pressured Barrett to remove a section of the report naming her, a source said.
They “pressured” him to remove her from the report? How do you suppose they did that? Perhaps by threatening to sue his butt for defamation because he didn’t have squat on her?
The Sun article then adds this helpful graph that gives context to the timing of the report’s release:
Republicans have suffered from a cascade of scandals in the past year and are now bracing for the testimony of a lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, who agreed to name names in a plea deal surrounding his indictment on fraud charges earlier this month. Allegations of a coordinated effort during the Clinton administration to block the appointment of an independent counsel and then limit his scope could raise questions about the Clinton years at a time when many Democrats are pressing the former first lady, Senator Clinton, to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.
The Barrett report, which was completed in August 2004, does not appear to contain the bombshell evidence of a conspiracy directly involving President Clinton and his wife for that some conservatives had been hoping for, sources familiar with its contents said. But its detailed account of efforts by Messrs. Radek and Finkelstein to block and limit the inquiry could strengthen the hand of Republicans.
So Barrett is finally releasing his long-delayed report now with lots of specious and unproven charges smearing Henry Cisneros and the Clintons - all timed to help “strengthen Republicans” as they suffer from a cascade of scandals of their own making.
Let me just say that this so-called scandal and cover-up involving Cisneros, by the standards set by the Culture of Corruption Republicans today, would never have been investigated in the first place.
I look forward to some real journalists doing some real reporting on this story when the report is supposedly released tomorrow.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Golden Globes
I’m probably never going to see Brokeback Mountain, the big winner at yesterday’s Golden Globe awards.
Not because of the gay theme, but because it just sounds depressing. I don’t want to go see a movie about a guy cheating on his wife. I don’t care if he is cheating with a woman or another man, either way the end result is depressing. I’ve never seen American Beauty either for much the same reason.
Nor do I have any interest in seeing The Squid and the Whale, or Crash, or any number of other critically raved but depressing films this year.
It’s not that all my films have to be upbeat, happy, feel-good stories, but there is a degree of escapism one expects when going to the theater and an up close and personal view of someone else’s miserable life is not my idea of a good time.
I don’t really care if Brokeback Mountain wins the Oscar this year. I’m rather indifferent to it. But when it comes to spending my time and money I’ll be seeing Walk the Line or Good Night, Good Luck or King Kong when I get the chance.
Not because of the gay theme, but because it just sounds depressing. I don’t want to go see a movie about a guy cheating on his wife. I don’t care if he is cheating with a woman or another man, either way the end result is depressing. I’ve never seen American Beauty either for much the same reason.
Nor do I have any interest in seeing The Squid and the Whale, or Crash, or any number of other critically raved but depressing films this year.
It’s not that all my films have to be upbeat, happy, feel-good stories, but there is a degree of escapism one expects when going to the theater and an up close and personal view of someone else’s miserable life is not my idea of a good time.
I don’t really care if Brokeback Mountain wins the Oscar this year. I’m rather indifferent to it. But when it comes to spending my time and money I’ll be seeing Walk the Line or Good Night, Good Luck or King Kong when I get the chance.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Mallard Fillmore is lying again
Two letters in today’s Express-News take the noxious comic strip Mallard Fillmore to task. The first writer scolds the strip’s author Bruce Tinsley for his “junior high cruelty” in taking cheap shots at Sen. Edward Kennedy relating to the Alito Hearings.
I’ve said before that Tinley, like Rush Limbaugh, relies on crude junior high level schoolyard bullying techniques for most of what presumably is supposed to be humorous in his strip.
But today’s strip is just flat-out false, lying propaganda of the worst kind. He throws out the following statement as it if was an accepted or demonstrable fact:
The “Bush tax cuts” have brought in more money to the treasury than ever before...
And then claims that the media is involved in some kind of conspiracy to hide or coverup this information.
First off, the sentence makes no sense as tax cuts by definition reduce the amount of money going to the treasury. What I’m sure he is trying to refer to is the one-time jump in corporate tax revenues that occurred last year which helped to temporarily reduce the size of the deficit. It was debatable then whether Bush’s tax cuts had anything to do with it, but none-the-less it is old news today as the deficit is now expected to shoot back up to record levels later this year.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 - The White House acknowledged on Thursday that the budget deficit would climb back above $400 billion this year, erasing the brief improvement last year and complicating President Bush's vow to cut the deficit in half by 2009....
The Times article explains the earlier bump in revenues this way:
Since President Bush took office in 2001, the federal budget has swung from a surplus of more than $100 billion to deficits as high as $412 billion in 2004. Last year, the deficit narrowed unexpectedly to $319 billion, mainly because of a surge in corporate tax revenues and taxes on stock-market gains.
Mr. Bush has attributed much if not most of the rising deficit to several unforeseen shocks: a recession in 2001, the collapse of the stock market bubble, huge new spending on domestic security after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the cost of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But budget analysts outside the administration have long argued that the government spending has been very high under Mr. Bush while tax cuts have chipped away at revenues.
As a percentage of gross domestic product, a measure that economists prefer over simple dollar amounts, government spending has climbed sharply, from 18.5 percent in 2001 to nearly 20 percent for each of the past three years.
By contrast, tax revenues plunged to as little as 16.3 percent of the nation's economy from 19.8 percent in 2001.
In other words, we are spending more while taking in less money - the height of fiscal irresponsibility. Bush wants to blame Hurricane Katrina, but he is not willing to suck it up and deal with the crisis today. No, instead he puts it all on the government’s credit card for our children and grandchildren to have to deal with one day, while continuing to press for ever more and deeper tax cuts for the rich.
And the sad fact is that far more people are likely to read the lies in this Mallard Fillmore cartoon than will read the truth in the NYTimes article.
What I would like to know is why do the newspapers allow Tinsley to get away with this? Whenever there has been anything even slightly questionable in a Doonesbury strip there is always a hue and cry from the far-right and the strip is pulled and replaced by editors all over the country. And yet they let Tinsley lie on a regular basis with no comment.
Interesting stats on the Baseball HoF
Counting Bruce Sutter, there are now 261 people in the Baseball Hall of Fame. That includes 195 players, 24 pioneers/executives, 16 managers, 8 umpires and 17 Negro League players.
Of the players, 103 have been selected by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) and 92 were selected by the Veteran’s Committee.
Is that too many? That comes out to less than two inductees per year since baseball began.
Recently, the Veterans Committee was reformatted to make it more difficult for them to put players in the HoF. I think that was a reaction to the group’s overenthusiasm for selecting folks during the 1990s. During that decade, the Veterans group selected 25 new members for the HoF, while the BBWAA chose just 15. During the 1980s, the group had been more restrained, picking just 17 players to the BBWAA’s 18.
How representative is the HoF today?
Currently there are 12 states that have never produced a Hall of Famer:
Oregon; Nevada; Montana; Utah; North Dakota; South Dakota; Wyoming; Colorado; Arizona; Maine; Hawaii; and Alaska.
Texas has produced 13 hall of famers including Rogers Hornsby, Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan and Nolan Ryan.
There are just two teams that have never had any affiliation with a Hall of Famer playing for them or managing them at any time - Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.
There are nine teams, including the two above, who have yet to have a Hall of Famer choose their team’s logo to represent them in the HoF. The other seven are Anaheim Angels, Houston Astros, Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Florida Marlins and the Washington Nationals. The two oldest teams on the list - the Angels and the Astros - could have both been represented by Nolan Ryan, but he chose to wear the Texas Rangers’ cap instead.
Of the players, 103 have been selected by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) and 92 were selected by the Veteran’s Committee.
Is that too many? That comes out to less than two inductees per year since baseball began.
Recently, the Veterans Committee was reformatted to make it more difficult for them to put players in the HoF. I think that was a reaction to the group’s overenthusiasm for selecting folks during the 1990s. During that decade, the Veterans group selected 25 new members for the HoF, while the BBWAA chose just 15. During the 1980s, the group had been more restrained, picking just 17 players to the BBWAA’s 18.
How representative is the HoF today?
Currently there are 12 states that have never produced a Hall of Famer:
Oregon; Nevada; Montana; Utah; North Dakota; South Dakota; Wyoming; Colorado; Arizona; Maine; Hawaii; and Alaska.
Texas has produced 13 hall of famers including Rogers Hornsby, Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan and Nolan Ryan.
There are just two teams that have never had any affiliation with a Hall of Famer playing for them or managing them at any time - Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.
There are nine teams, including the two above, who have yet to have a Hall of Famer choose their team’s logo to represent them in the HoF. The other seven are Anaheim Angels, Houston Astros, Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Florida Marlins and the Washington Nationals. The two oldest teams on the list - the Angels and the Astros - could have both been represented by Nolan Ryan, but he chose to wear the Texas Rangers’ cap instead.
Mickey's M-O-N-E-Y
This just blows me away:
Michael Eisner, former chief executive of The Walt Disney Co., received $10.1 million in compensation last year, including a $9.1 million cash bonus...
That's pretty good for a guy who nearly ran the company into the ground and then got canned half-way through the year. But that's not all he's got coming to him!
He will also continue to receive an annual bonus of $7.5 million through 2008, in accordance with the terms of his employment agreement...
He gets a $7.5 million bonus every year for the next three years! What a deal!!!
I'll bet the shareholders are loving that. What a great use of company resources. I wonder how many poor schleps working minimum wage jobs at the Disney theme parks are going to get laid off in the next three years?
Oh, and all of this is in addition to his $300,000 annual pension.
And don't forget that Disney had to hire a new CEO during this time and they are currently paying him $9.7 million. They had just better not fire him. I doubt they could afford it.
Michael Eisner, former chief executive of The Walt Disney Co., received $10.1 million in compensation last year, including a $9.1 million cash bonus...
That's pretty good for a guy who nearly ran the company into the ground and then got canned half-way through the year. But that's not all he's got coming to him!
He will also continue to receive an annual bonus of $7.5 million through 2008, in accordance with the terms of his employment agreement...
He gets a $7.5 million bonus every year for the next three years! What a deal!!!
I'll bet the shareholders are loving that. What a great use of company resources. I wonder how many poor schleps working minimum wage jobs at the Disney theme parks are going to get laid off in the next three years?
Oh, and all of this is in addition to his $300,000 annual pension.
And don't forget that Disney had to hire a new CEO during this time and they are currently paying him $9.7 million. They had just better not fire him. I doubt they could afford it.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Eye on the prize
My friend Michael Gaffney (in comments) is anxious for the Democrats to filibuster Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Given the vaporous, non-responsive answers Alito gave the committee, I would say that a filibuster is in order, and if the Dems don't have the balls to stand up for the principles they claim are dear to America's political system, then the perception that today's Democratic political machine is spineless is, in fact, the truth! I know that the Republicans have threatened to overturn the rule that provides the filibuster to the weaker party, but I say get it on! It's time to fish or cut bait and quit this appeasement crap. When will a Dem back up his/her position with action? If not now, when? If not here, where? If not Schumer, who?
I’ve been reluctant to talk about the Alito hearings just because they are so damn depressing. But I’ll go ahead and say that my position on a filibuster is that if the Democrats want to do it then that’s great and I’m all for it. I think Alito is an appalling bad choice for the high court.
But at the same time, if they decide it is not worth it, I am not going to criticize them.
I believe the most important thing right now is the 2006 mid-term elections and the fight to regain the House and/or Senate. If filibustering Alito will not ultimately prevent him from reaching the Supreme Court, (Remeber that the Republicans aren’t exactly playing by the rules these days) and only serves to give Republicans and their media cheerleaders more ammunition (Bad Democrats! Look how they made Mrs. Alito cry!) then perhaps it is not worth it. After all, the ideological divide between O’Connor and Alito, while significant, isn’t going to mean the end of the world. And I believe that if the Republicans finally do succeed in rolling back Roe vs. Wade, there is going to be a backlash at the polls that will stick them back in the minority for years to come.
So my advice to the Democrats is to keep your eye on the prize and don’t go spinning off course in pursuit of meaningless short-term gains.
Update
It looks like Matthew Yglesias and I are on the same wavelength with regard to the Alito confirmation.
Realistically, hopes of keeping Alito off the bench were lost in late fall 2004, when George W. Bush was re-elected and the GOP expanded its Senate majority.... the question facing the Alito nomination has always been whether Alito will be confirmed and the nuclear option implemented or whether Alito will be confirmed without the GOP needing to break a filibuster. But a congressional minority can't actually stop the Republicans from doing what they want to do.
...it's wrong to blame liberal interest groups, Democratic senators, progressive bloggers, or anyone else's insufficient savvy or zeal for the problem.... the only remedy is better performance on Election Day.
Given the vaporous, non-responsive answers Alito gave the committee, I would say that a filibuster is in order, and if the Dems don't have the balls to stand up for the principles they claim are dear to America's political system, then the perception that today's Democratic political machine is spineless is, in fact, the truth! I know that the Republicans have threatened to overturn the rule that provides the filibuster to the weaker party, but I say get it on! It's time to fish or cut bait and quit this appeasement crap. When will a Dem back up his/her position with action? If not now, when? If not here, where? If not Schumer, who?
I’ve been reluctant to talk about the Alito hearings just because they are so damn depressing. But I’ll go ahead and say that my position on a filibuster is that if the Democrats want to do it then that’s great and I’m all for it. I think Alito is an appalling bad choice for the high court.
But at the same time, if they decide it is not worth it, I am not going to criticize them.
I believe the most important thing right now is the 2006 mid-term elections and the fight to regain the House and/or Senate. If filibustering Alito will not ultimately prevent him from reaching the Supreme Court, (Remeber that the Republicans aren’t exactly playing by the rules these days) and only serves to give Republicans and their media cheerleaders more ammunition (Bad Democrats! Look how they made Mrs. Alito cry!) then perhaps it is not worth it. After all, the ideological divide between O’Connor and Alito, while significant, isn’t going to mean the end of the world. And I believe that if the Republicans finally do succeed in rolling back Roe vs. Wade, there is going to be a backlash at the polls that will stick them back in the minority for years to come.
So my advice to the Democrats is to keep your eye on the prize and don’t go spinning off course in pursuit of meaningless short-term gains.
Update
It looks like Matthew Yglesias and I are on the same wavelength with regard to the Alito confirmation.
Realistically, hopes of keeping Alito off the bench were lost in late fall 2004, when George W. Bush was re-elected and the GOP expanded its Senate majority.... the question facing the Alito nomination has always been whether Alito will be confirmed and the nuclear option implemented or whether Alito will be confirmed without the GOP needing to break a filibuster. But a congressional minority can't actually stop the Republicans from doing what they want to do.
...it's wrong to blame liberal interest groups, Democratic senators, progressive bloggers, or anyone else's insufficient savvy or zeal for the problem.... the only remedy is better performance on Election Day.
Where’s Alamo City Commando when we need him!
My friend Bill Crawford takes some time off from his All Things Conservative blog where he consistently highlights good news coming out of Iraq and look what happens!
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Americans overwhelmingly lack confidence that Iraq will have a stable government in place within the next year, and more than half say that the war has not been worth its cost, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Wednesday.
Obviously, without Bill there to counter them, the liberal MSM has successfully dragged down U.S. public opinion with its non-stop focus on the negative aspects of the war.
Come back soon, Bill! We need you!
In all seriousness, though, I want to wish Bill Godspeed as he deals with some important personal and family matters.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Americans overwhelmingly lack confidence that Iraq will have a stable government in place within the next year, and more than half say that the war has not been worth its cost, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Wednesday.
Obviously, without Bill there to counter them, the liberal MSM has successfully dragged down U.S. public opinion with its non-stop focus on the negative aspects of the war.
Come back soon, Bill! We need you!
In all seriousness, though, I want to wish Bill Godspeed as he deals with some important personal and family matters.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Separated at birth
I was watching the old James Bond movie "Octopussy" the other night and was struck by the striking resemblance between the show's villian and a particular Texas Congressman
who has recently found himself in trouble with the law.
Hall of Fame 2006
I just can't drum up any enthusiasm about the dreadfully depressing Alito hearings, so I'm going to talk about baseball instead.
Congratulations to Bruce Sutter for getting the golden ticket to Cooperstown this year. They say he is only the fourth relief pitcher to make the Hall of Fame and the first to have never started a game during his career.
It was his 12th shot at being elected and you only get 15 tries before they kick you over to the Veteran's Committee (which hasn't elected anyone since 2000 and has been reformatted so as to make it almost impossible).
When it comes to the Hall of Fame, I'm a populist. I generally agree with this guy.
...the selection process needs to be changed. Writers should have a say, but so should fans and so should players (though the veterans committee's record hasn't exactly been spotless). The Hall belongs to the game, the fans and the players as well as the writers. It's our gift to future generations of fans, and it'd be a shame to leave it in the hands of a people who don't seem to appreciate that.
If it were up to me, there would be a whole lot more players in the Hall of Fame starting with this guy.
So I'm apalled when I read articles like this by people who want to make the Hall even more exclusive than it already is.
When I see situations like this where only one guy manages to squeak by with more than 75 percent of the vote, I know it is not because all the writers are just disbursing their votes randomly, but because about 25 percent of them have this same arrogant nobody-is-good-enough-for-me attitude and are turning their ballots in blank.
As it is, we are letting people into the Hall at a bare trickle, just one or two per year. (Next year is guaranteed to have at least two with Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn on the ballot for the first time.)
So while I'm happy for Sutter making the cut, I think there are quite a few more players who deserve admittance as well. As they point out over at Off the Kuff, Goose Gossage is arguably more deserving than Sutter so maybe that will work in his favor on future ballots.
Finally, I will just note with no little bitterness that this was technically the last year of eligibility for Pete Rose, the all-time Hits leader and one of the greatest ballplayers of all time. Unfortunately, the current baseball commissioner stubbornly refused to act on Rose's request for readmittance to baseball even after making his public apology and everything else that was demanded of him.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
And Justice For All...
Poor Jonathan Gurwitz.
The timing couldn’t have been worse for his opinion column in the Wall Street Journal (subscription only) yesterday.
Here is how the piece starts off:
Poor Ronnie Earle. For more than three years the Democratic district attorney from Travis County has waged a prosecutorial campaign to bring down Tom DeLay. After strong-arming three different grand juries in Austin last fall, Mr. Earle was finally able to obtain a rickety, three-count indictment of Mr. DeLay for violations of state campaign finance laws.
Judge Pat Priest has already dismissed one count against Mr. DeLay, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has yet to decide whether it will consider Mr. DeLay’s motion to dismiss the remaining charges, which in any case have yet to be presented to a jury in district court.
If only the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had dismissed the money laundering charges against DeLay, as Gurwitz was expecting. But instead, on the day that Gurwitz’ column appeared, the all-Republican court decided to allow the “rickety” case to move forward.
“Meager as it is,” Earle’s “political vendetta” against DeLay is apparently moving along at a steady pace, throwing a big monkey wrench into GOP plans to have The Hammer re-enshrined into his leadership post in time for the next Legislative session in Washington. Perhaps Earle has been “strong-arming” those Republican judges the same way he has those feeble-minded Texans who sit on grand juries.
But Gurwitz insists that Earle never had the goods on DeLay and that his downfall will be due entirely to the Abramoff scandal currently sending shockwaves through Washington, D.C.
In that way, he reminds me of the Al Pacino character in “And Justice For All...” where Pacino is a lawyer forced to defend a corrupt politician who he knows is guilty. In the climactic scene, Pacino gives an opening statement at the trial in which he taunts the district attorney saying he doesn’t have a case against his client:
The prosecution is not going to get that man today ... cause I'm gonna get him!
Pacino then turns on his client and viciously denounces him to the jury before being dragged away screaming You're out of order! He's out of order! This whole trial is out of order!
Likewise, after spending the first part of the column dismissing the money laundering charges as little more than a “money-shuffling technique” that was employed with equal finesse by Democrats, Gurwitz suddenly turns on DeLay and accuses him of “spectacularly violating a pact he and his Republican colleagues made with the American people when they assumed leadership in 1994.”
The problem here is that it is highly unlikely that DeLay would have confined his corruption to Washington, while always playing it straight back in Texas. The more likely case is that Earle got a hold of one piece of DeLay’s corrupt empire long before it was uncovered in Washington for all to see.
The timing couldn’t have been worse for his opinion column in the Wall Street Journal (subscription only) yesterday.
Here is how the piece starts off:
Poor Ronnie Earle. For more than three years the Democratic district attorney from Travis County has waged a prosecutorial campaign to bring down Tom DeLay. After strong-arming three different grand juries in Austin last fall, Mr. Earle was finally able to obtain a rickety, three-count indictment of Mr. DeLay for violations of state campaign finance laws.
Judge Pat Priest has already dismissed one count against Mr. DeLay, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has yet to decide whether it will consider Mr. DeLay’s motion to dismiss the remaining charges, which in any case have yet to be presented to a jury in district court.
If only the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had dismissed the money laundering charges against DeLay, as Gurwitz was expecting. But instead, on the day that Gurwitz’ column appeared, the all-Republican court decided to allow the “rickety” case to move forward.
“Meager as it is,” Earle’s “political vendetta” against DeLay is apparently moving along at a steady pace, throwing a big monkey wrench into GOP plans to have The Hammer re-enshrined into his leadership post in time for the next Legislative session in Washington. Perhaps Earle has been “strong-arming” those Republican judges the same way he has those feeble-minded Texans who sit on grand juries.
But Gurwitz insists that Earle never had the goods on DeLay and that his downfall will be due entirely to the Abramoff scandal currently sending shockwaves through Washington, D.C.
In that way, he reminds me of the Al Pacino character in “And Justice For All...” where Pacino is a lawyer forced to defend a corrupt politician who he knows is guilty. In the climactic scene, Pacino gives an opening statement at the trial in which he taunts the district attorney saying he doesn’t have a case against his client:
The prosecution is not going to get that man today ... cause I'm gonna get him!
Pacino then turns on his client and viciously denounces him to the jury before being dragged away screaming You're out of order! He's out of order! This whole trial is out of order!
Likewise, after spending the first part of the column dismissing the money laundering charges as little more than a “money-shuffling technique” that was employed with equal finesse by Democrats, Gurwitz suddenly turns on DeLay and accuses him of “spectacularly violating a pact he and his Republican colleagues made with the American people when they assumed leadership in 1994.”
The problem here is that it is highly unlikely that DeLay would have confined his corruption to Washington, while always playing it straight back in Texas. The more likely case is that Earle got a hold of one piece of DeLay’s corrupt empire long before it was uncovered in Washington for all to see.
Monday, January 09, 2006
San Antonio blogging update
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).
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).
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?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)