Adieu, 2005

I thought I'd revisit the reason I started blogging, Hurricane Rita. Rita was the disaster that wasn't, where Katrina was the all-clear that became a disaster. My girifriend was caught in the evacuation of Houston, forty-two hours under way between Deer Park, Texas and San Antonio. The trip normally takes four hours. It was in this evacuation that my distaste for the inadequacy of the American news media reached critical mass, the weapons of mass distraction we cause news angered me to the point where I had to do something. So I began to write. I still don't have a readership that I can point to, there are no comments left on my posts but I have the hope that somewhere out there, someone is reading this and that it might change a mind or two.

During the evacuation, meaningful information was impossible to find. The national news media vacillated between Rick Perry and George Bush high-fiving each other for the "smooth" evacuation (massive traffic jams, over a hundred deaths due to heat stroke, no services available and no relief trucks from the Texas DOT) and the inane praddle that there's a big storm coming and, depending on the outlet, it was or wasn't caused by global warming. The local media were as useless as the national, endless pictures of the traffic jams leaving the city, a shot of a water bottle blowing across the pavement. No one gave meaningful information as to alternate routes, availability of water, food, medical help, gasoline or shelter. It seemed as if no one thought informing the public was their role. As a result, people died.

So I blog. Much of my content has been anger against the endless stream of corporate welfare measures in Congress, the President's endless meaningless chatter calling "stay the course" a meaningful strategy for victory, the outrages of the Administration's fourth-amendment busting domestic espionage program and the culture of corruption that our Nation's capital has become. And while I rage against these outrages, I know something else, that America is something far better than the little men we call our government. We are not a nation of torturers, nor are we a nation that holds people without trial. We are a nation who opens our hearts and our wallets to help those in need. We believe in the values our leadership has forgotten. We believe that without our civil liberties, our rights and our values, we're no better than those we're fighting.

My hope for next year is that these values come to light. I'm not hoping for an impeachement or mass indictments of Congress, I'm hoping for a return to some semblance of statesmanship from our elected leaders. I hope that starting in 2006 I can once again hold my head high when I claim American citizenship to foreigners. I hope that we can once again be the shining light of freedom in the world rather than a developing dictatorship or worse, a Christian theocracy. I hope the voices heard abroad are the voices of Americans of character, not the dissembling and weasel wording of a Rumsfeld or a Rice or the criminality of a Rove or Delay.

More than this, I wish my readers a happy and prosperous new year.

It's... Still Alive

Remember the Alaskan Bridges to Nowhere, the poster child for congressional pork-barrel waste? With much fanfare, the Republican leadership a while back announced that the bridges to nowhere had been killed? Well, when these guys speak, grab your wallet and whatever else is valuable to you. Here's what really happened: They de-funded the bridges. That still sounds good, right? Well, it turns out that the money didn't go back into the treasury for spending on Katrina relief, the deficit or funding student loans, it went into the Alaska general fund. The net effect is that the money went from being earmarked for the bridges to being earmarked for nothing. So, guess what, the bridges are back.

The bridge in question crosses the Cook Inlet from Anchorage to Port Mackenzie, population 50. These folks are connected to Anchorage now by driving around the inlet, takes about two hours. The 600 meter bridge would do two things: It would spare these people the drive and it would open land for development. One of these things is interesting to the Alaskan government and it isn't saving gas. Most Alaskans oppose the measure. I would, too. How is it going to do anything for anyone in Fairbanks unless they happen to be invested in the real estate on the far side of the inlet?

So Republican Representative Don Young's bridge - he claimed it in the CNN article reporting on the bridge's revival - will be built, $400 million will leave the treasury, my tax money paid in Denver, Colorado, and some developers will get rich. I wouldn't be surprised to see who benefits.

Shooting the Messengers

Today the Bush administration, thinly disguised as the Department of Justice, announced it was launching an investigation into who leaked the story of the secret, illegal wiretaps on American soil. Would they would have reacted so swiftly to the outing of Valerie Plame but then, that one was going in their favor. My bet is the first move will be to jail the reporters, a favorite of budding totalitarian states. They'll then hold the reporters until they reveal the name of whatever hero revealed to us that Bush was just too damned lazy to get a warrant from that rubber-stamp court called FISE.

The root of the tactic is misdirection. The Republicans know if they can get a Judith Miller-style media circus going around the reporters, the deed will fade into the noise. That would do us a disservice: Bush's illegal, unwarranted (pun intended) wiretaps are a gross violation of civil rights and are impeachable, not that we'd get Senate Republicans to do the right thing nor that we'd want President Cheney. That is what needs investigating. Whoever leaked the story did so with the conviction that his or her leaking was doing us, the American people, a service. I'm familiar with regulations surrounding classified information - I've held a security clearance. It takes tremendous courage to violate the rules willfully, knowing that it's a criminal act. That individual, particularly in today's environment, knows he or she will most likely be jailed. He or she is a hero.

But it won't play that way. The Administration will paint the leaker as a traitor, threatening national security in leaking what the terrorists, if they have half a brain, already know. The only possible compromise of national security is a justified drop in the Shrub's poll numbers when those not convicted Bushites (remember Nixon, when forced out of office, still had a 25% approval rating) realize that Bush would gladly be King George. Instead of investigating the deed, though, King George will continue to spy on you and me and whenever he doesn't like the message, he will gladly shoot the messenger.

Christmas Break's Over

I took Debbie back to the airport today. She lives in Houston, I live in Denver and her presence pretty much takes up all my time. I was on Christmas break.

It's been refreshing. I love our holidays together. We go to Colorado Springs and pick up her stepfather for Christmas dinner. Hermie is a Holocaust survivor, son of a mixed Jewish-Aryan marriage, who had to flee from Munich to Hungary during World War II. He knew hunger, abject poverty and the yoke of a government of absolute power. His father died in Dachau. He came to America and would not speak German, even to help Debbie out with her German class. He became a U. S. citizen, served in the Army. This Christmas he told us more stories than ever of his life as a refugee.

If you want an earful, get him talking about whether it's right to torture or whether a government should have power to do whatever it desires to its citizens.

Congress will soon be back from their winter breaks. The question is which Congress will return, the one with the courage to take back some of the power the Shrub has usurped or the spineless wonders of the last five years. The Democrats finally managed to mount an opposition in the last month of 2005. How will they react in 2006? Will the Patriot Act be extended and our civil liberties bashed in the name of the Shrub's absolute power? Will there be an investigation into the illegal wiretapping of, now we find out, countless Americans or will the Shrub's ascent to royalty proceed unchecked? Will the Republicans make another attempt to end-run Congressional debate and insert Alaskan oil drilling into unrelated legislation or will we finally have a decent conservation program? Will we continue to lose things like student loans and medicare or will the rich again be asked to pay their fair share?

I'd like to hope that the end of this year marked a turning point, the point where we finally said enough and began to act as the good nation we are. I fear there will be more revelations of Bush administration excesses in the coming year, that our reputation abroad will suffer even more and that we will continue to hector other nations over abuses we ourselves commit in the name of a so-called war on terrorism. So far, the only shots I've seen fired in the war have been against our civil liberties, the war in Afghanistan aside. I fear more of the same or, if the Shrub realizes he's losing the House of Representatives, even worse.

But I can hope.

The Latest Devolution

The latest in the sequence of rationales for the illegal wiretapping of, now it seeems, very many Americans is quite possibly the best. Today I heard the spin cyclers and Bushit apologists taking this one out for a spin: It was wrong but it wasn't illegal. It sounds to me like a nice attempt to downplay the seriousness of a President who thinks he's so imperial he doesn't need to bother with niceties like Federal law.

Summarizing the devolution of the case for wiretapping: Bushit: I did it and I'd do it again. Bushit: It was legal, you authorized it. Bushit: We didn't have time to fill out the paperwork. Bushit: It was such a drag, all that paperwork and we're talking about 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.... Bush apologists: It was wrong but not illegal. I can hardly wait for the next iteration.

When a Texan hears something he can't quite believe, he tends to use the same expression we all use but the "Ls" get lost in the drawl: Bushit.

Threaten then Cave

The Shrub is showing a new facet to his personality, his penchant for putting on a big show, puffing up like a little toad, as a future relative in Texas put it, then spinning a victory out of the defeats he’s been dealt. The first of these was the bill to prevent torture. The devolution of the Bush stand was almost comical: First the Shrub says, no way, I’ll veto the bill! Then he sends in surrogate and presumed voice of God Cheney to say, okay, can’t I just let the CIA torture people every once in a while, just a little? Then to acceptance of the fact that he could have exercised the first veto of his presidency and have that overridden by a Congress that, finally, seemed to have grown a backbone. His buddies in the awl bidness were dealt a further defeat yesterday as Democrats and the few Republicans with a conscience defeated Senator Ted Stevens’s attempted end-run of the legislative process and, once again, defeated his masters’ wishes to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Then Democrats and a few Republicans with consciences defeated the attempt to ram a Patriot Act extension down the Congress’s throat.

Going into ’06, Shrub has a few more problems. The NSA wiretaps won’t go away, indeed, he’s put on his bluster to say that no way will he stop them. Will articles of impeachment follow his contempt of Congress or will he cave. I’m betting the Strong Leader will cave. The Iraq war isn’t going to go away either and the way things look, the new government will be more friendly to Iran than to Washington. The economy seems to be handing him a bit of low-hanging fruit, although if you earn wages, you don’t seem to benefit from the economic recovery. It’s also handed him a problem: How do you justify tax cuts to stimulate the economy when the economy is chugging along just fine without them.

So the Shrub has had a rough go of it. I only hope things get worse for our Prevaricator in Chief as his majority in the House either vanishes or fades, as Delay goes to trial and as Abramoff implicates more of the right of the aisle, as Scooter is tried and as the Iraqis lean in the direction of Sharia law. Only then will things finally start to get better for our country.

Eavesdropping, like Torture, Is Wrong

Mr. Bush, what you did to Americans was simply wrong. No amount of Alberto Gonzales's weasel-wording, no excuses, no smug assertions that it's right because you said so will make it so. You, Mr. President, committed a crime. You wiretapped peoples' conversations because, well, because you said so. Those, sir, are actions of despots, not Presidents of democracies or, for the purists out there, republics. There is one reason that makes the action deplorable and, imho, impeachable: It was completely unnecessary.

You had no reason whatsoever to bypass the secret court system set up for just this reason. You could have tapped anyone's phone for up to 72 hours without a court order while waiting for a search warrant from the court, generally a rubber-stamp. If I remember the statistics right, the court has denied exactly two cases since it was formed in the seventies. It would have been easy for you to do the right thing and to have been unimpeachable (pun intended) in your actions in wiretapping on American soil. But you didn't.

Was it a power play? Was it an attempt, as I've long suspected of you, to become King George, if only inside the bubble of your own thoughts? Was it Cheney double-dog-daring you to stand up and be the President? Why, Mr. Bush, did you deem it so pressing to get information that you bypassed the very mechanism set up by the Congress to allow you to do so? Are you that power-mad?

I sometimes think so. Like torturing detainees, what you did by eavesdropping without court supervision was simply wrong. It was criminal. It is impeachable.

Big Oil Wins, Our Troops Lose

Just when you thought the Republican House was beginning to regain some honor, it gives Big Oil a Big Fat Christmas Present, Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. If the House has its way, Big Oil will be sticking dikes into this pristine wilderness, destroying it even faster than the global warming their product produces. The end result will be a reduction of our oil imports by two percent.

Of course, there's no hint of increasing mandated fuel efficiency standards in the bill. Even Republicans call the measure disgusting. Our Generals, you know, the ones the Shrub listens so closely to, wink, wink, nod, nod, opposed insertion of any such measure into the bill, indeed, it is such political manipulation at price of our troops' pay raises that have delayed the appropriations bill by three months. My personal opinion, if you really believe in those "support our troops" bumper stickers you wear so proudly on your SUV, call your Representatives and tell them to cut the crap out of the bill.

Call your Senators and tell them to cut the crap out of the defense authorization or, if your senator is a Democrat, call them and encourage them to block the measure. Send a strong message to Bill "Mr. Insider" Frist that this kind of robbery is a thing of the past and that we'll hold our lawmakers to account.

Little Hans and the Bubble Boy

Sometimes you just can't buy a break. This week could have ended triumpantly for the Shrub with a 70 percent voter turnout - one Americans can look at with a modicum of shame, we're too busy, it seems, to tend our own democracy - and relatively little violence, at least until today. The economy is up, at least if you're a stockholder and his poll numbers even rose a bit from abyssmal to merely terrible. Unfortunately, the cracks in the dykes just won't hold long enough for the Shrub to crow about his limited successes.

First the Senate rebelled against the USA Patriot act. Rammed through Congress by the Republican leadership in the days following 9/11, it basically trashed the fourth amendment and made spying on U. S. citizens business as usual. Thirty thousand times the FBI has used so-called National Security Letters to spy on you and me. The Senate this week had enough, Russ Feingold, the only Senator to vote against the original Patriot Act became the voice of the Senate and led a successful filibuster to keep the law from being extended. Adding to the Senators' rebellion, the very day of the vote the New York Times reported that the Shrub had authorized the National Security Agency to spy on us, citizens of the country, in the hundreds over thirty times. This one was enough to get the Shrub angry: "You can't handle the truth," was his battle cry. Then he justifies it: We broke the law and spied on Americans to save Americans. What happened to that minor inconvenience called the fourth amendment?

That's two fingers in the dyke. Through mouthpiece Condi, the Shrub, two fingers pinned, is now trying to say that disclosing the information damages efforts to stop terrorists. That's Bush tactic number two, by the way, shoot the messenger when the message is uncomfortable. Of course, somewhere some Administration shyster has written a multi-page legal brief about how this is somehow legal, despite the fact that Nixon resigned over it even before the law against wiretapping without a court order was law. Bush was caught this time with his legal briefs down and should be prosecuted.

Can you imagine Frist and Co actually doing the right thing and calling impeachment hearings?

The Congress also rebelled against the Shrub's destruction of our image abroad by outlawing the Administration's practices of torturing prisoners and rendering them to countries that approve of torture. The jury's still out on that one: Republicans keep trying to attach poison pills to the bill to kill it before the Administration actually has to account for its deeds. One of the pills is that the prisoners in Guantanamo have no right to U. S. courts and any evidence obtained under "coercion" (read torture) may be used in the kangaroo courts we're offering them. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling provision may find its way into the defense appropriations bill, although what that has to do with national defense is beyond me.

And just as he was about to start crowing over his victory in Iraq, nineteen more are dead there and Cheney sticks his foot in his mouth by calling the Iraqi elections ours. This Freudian slip really tells us how the administration feels about Iraq and the Iraqis will notice the slip. Now we have two hands and a toe in the dyke.

I guess he could crow about the 57 percent of Americans who think we shouldn't immediately withdraw from Iraq. That represents the common sense of Americans, not the success of the Shrub's politics. A majority of us think the war was a mistake as well but we know we can't just run off and leave the Iraqis in the mess we created.

A Poison Pill for the McCain Amendment

House Republican leaders did their best today to derail the defense authorization bill containing John McCain's amendment outlawing torture. Of course, the Republicans are already doing their best to water it down by prohibiting Guantanamo detainees the right to access U. S. courts and by allowing evidence obtained under "coercion" - images of dogs, waterboards and Lyndee England come to mind. The poison pill is attempting to insert unrelated legislation dealing with campaign finance into the authorization bill.

The end result is that the defense authorization bill is stalled both by the Republicans' efforts to put unrelated legislation into it and by the Republicans' refusal to accept the amendment. We don't get a clear statement that America, despite its leadership, is not a land of torturers, our soldiers don't get their pay raises or medical treatment but Bush can have detainees tortured for a while longer without fear of prosecution.

By the way, the amendment to allow evidence obtained by "coercion" in the military kangaroo courts was introduced by a Republican. That makes the U. S. the only nation in the world to allow evidence gained by torture in a court of law.

A Dream of a Better Washington

I wanted to write about the Shrub's petulance at getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar but somehow his spying on us just fits with his personality, his anger at being caught with his personality type, and his attempt to justify it with his megalomania. He's finally crossed the line from "wartime president" to "despot in training". Nixon resigned for less. Clinton was impeached for a spot of spuge on a blue dress. Bush's actions were clearly illegal. You get the point.

Anyway, at some point in my housecleaning today I began to ruminate about a better Washington. In my idealized national capital, Senators and Representatives were paid fifteen times the Federal minimum wage in keeping with guidelines recently proposed for CEO pay. The President got twenty times but had to pay taxes on it because his housing in Washington is provided. All elected officials got a health care plan, Medicare, and they all got a retirement plan, Social Security. The limit on the value of gifts they could receive was zero unless the gift was purely symbolic such as a plaque or a certificate. Likewise the amount of income they could gather from public speaking engagements was zero. Lobbyists had to be registered, could not enter the Capitol or the White House in official capacity and could not spend money on congressmen.

The campaign finance laws were completely overhauled to prohibit campaign contributions from any entity other than a living, breathing person and were limited to $500. The bulk of campaign financing came out of our pockets anyway, campaigns were publicly financed. We had a system similar to California where we could make our wishes known through the ballot initiative process on a National level. Organizations wishing to classify information were required to prove the information should be classified and defense of one's ass was not considered grounds for classification.

We had a recall system in place should the President fail us as badly as the current one has. Once a year, he could face a revolt from the voters and lose his job, along with his entire cabinet. The House and Senate ethics rules were simple: Violate ethics rules or do something serious enough to get yourself indicted and go home. Both House and Senate rules prohibited introduction of measures unrelated to the law they were being introduced into and finally, political appointees had to meet minimum job requirements regardless of how much money they brought into the appointer's political war chests.

I'd like to say and then I woke up but unfortunately this dream involves politicians, most of whom are lawyers, ninety-five percent of whom give the other five a bad name. Since none of this will ever happen, I'd settle for two of the provisions in place in my ideal Washington, ballot initiatives and Presidential recall.

Of course, ethics would be nice....

A Bad Day for the Shrub

It was supposed to have gone so well, the day after the Iraqi elections with seventy percent turnout and little violence. I'm sure the Shrub went to bed all smug last night thinking, Friday, December 16th will be a good day.

Then the New York Times, so battered by Plamegate, gave us another revelation into the Shrub's true power-hungry, arrogant nature by publishing the story that Bush had given the National Security Agency illegal permission to spy on American citizens within the country. According to the Administration, the efforts were narrowly targeted. I guess that means we have hundreds potential terrorists in the country because supposedly at any given time 500 or more of us have had our phones tapped without judicial oversight or suspicion of any crime for the past three years. Yes, this wasn't an isolated incident but a pattern of criminal espionage against United States citizens.

High crimes and misdemeanors, anyone? Nixon resigned over less.

Of course, we can probably thank the Times for delaying publication for over a year at Administration request (delaying story of criminal conduct by the White House for a year at whose request?). Their timing was perfect to influence the vote on the greatest infringement on American civil liberties since, well, the greatest infringement ever, the USA Patriot Act. Sixteen provisions of the law will sunset on December 30th, meaning your library and ISP records are safe now from intrusion by the FBI based on a whim. In a Republican temper tantrum, leaders of the Senate refused to hear a Democratic offer to extend the act by three months for further debate. In fact, Frist, in one of the grossest mischaracterizations I've heard, found it strange that the very members filibustering the bill were those who wanted to extend it by three months. Bill, it's called an opportunity for honest debate and compromise in balancing the civil liberties of Americans, something you Republicans seem to have forgotten in your lust for power, against national security. Frist called the filibuster a strategy of retreat and defeat. To me, that more aptly seems to describe his own behavior in refusing an honest offer of a compromise so he can go down in flames but still in charge.

The President's authorization of espionage against Americans is one of the best arguments against renewing the Patriot Act. If you give them power, they will take it and if they take it, they will misuse it.

The Second Biggest Piece of Bushit You'll Read Today

Almost as pathetic as Tom Delay's claim that the funds he transferred from TRMPAC to the RNC weren't funds because they were checks was Bush's claim that his defense of Tom Delay was an expression of faith in the judicial system. After exercising his presidential perogative to express an opinion on an investigation in progress, something he insisted he wouldn't do during the Plamegate investigation, he declared Delay innocent. In an interview with Jim Lehrer, Bush said, "The point I was making was 'innocent until otherwise proven." On Wednesday, when asked by Fox News whether he believed Delay innocent, he responded, "Yes, I do."

But then, it was a bad day for the Shrub.

Unintended Consequences

Today a Colorado Springs jury acquited a man of murder for shooting a fleeing person in the back. It was the first test of the "Make My Day" law allowing a person to protect themselves with deadly force against an intruder. In this case, the intruders had assaulted a family and were fleeing the house when the defendant shot at the car. He hit and killed one of the men.

While I do not agree that the defendant got away with murder, he did get away with manslaughter. The man killed was fleeing his home. The defendant was no longer defending himself when he shot the man. I can think of a number of words that could describe the action, vengeance comes to mind. The precedent set in this case is deadly: A person can use deadly force against another after a crime has been committed and the criminal is fleeing. The law states that a person can use deadly force if the shooter believes the other person might use physical force against the homeowner. There are a number of unpleasant interpretations to this law.

It's a case of unintented consequences that, if enforced using the Colorado Springs precedent, essentially legalizes the infamous warning shot in the back.

Bush's Flip Flops

He doesn't wear them on his feet. Remember how the White House refuses to comment on the Plamegate saga because the investigation is on-going? I suppose the same rules don't apply when it's your good buddy Tom "Gerrymander" Delay. According to Scotty the Mouthpiece, flip-flopping is a Presidential perogative. So here's the story on Delay.

It's illegal to use corporate donations in Texas elections. Delay through TRMPAC garnered $190,000 in corporate donations, sent them to the Republican National Committee and got back an equal amount of money. Sounds like money laundering but so far Delay's best defense is that the money was exchanged in the form of checks, not funds. Apparently his checkbook doesn't have the same limitations as mine. At least the judge laughed that argument out of court. I hope this trial goes on for a long time because right now, Delay is getting the punishment most suited for the crime. He's been reduced to relative irrelevance.

He's facing five years to life in prison, a shining example of the culture of corruption that is Republican Washington. Bush, of course, is supporting him, a shining example of the integrity of our Prevaricator in Chief who, when it's to his advantage, won't comment on an on-going investigation.

Russ Feingold, Hero

In the rush to approve the USA Patriot Act, Russ Feingold stood alone in opposing the law. Rightly, he opined that the law gave the government too many powers to spy on innocent Americans, to go on fishing expeditions into a person's library records or internet service providers. Wisely, he also knew that the law, once enacted, would not limit itself to terrorism or rather the definition of terrorism would be so expanded that almost anyone could be spied upon.

Fast-forward to today when Republican leaders realized they don't have enough votes to override a filibuster against provisions to extend the law for four years. The Republican leadership are calling the delaying tactic irresponsible. Some have even said they'd rather have the sixteen provisions up for renewal sunset than have to compromise and return Americans their civil liberties. Once again, faced with news they don't like, the Republicans are turning to their weapon of first choice, petulance, otherwise known as shooting the messenger.

How long before they, like Bush on torture, give in to the inevitable and deal with the opposition?

When Infallibility Fails

Remember during the Presidential debates last year, when Bush was asked about his mistakes and he couldn't think of any? Compare that to his mea culpa on starting a war on faulty intelligence today....

Wait a minute, isn't someone revising history here? Isn't this the man who doubtlessly was briefed that the testimony of al-Liby was elicited under torture and probably untrustworthy? I distinctly remember a U. N. weapons inspector named Hans Blix whose only mistake was not to claim he'd proven the negative. His mission, a mission that could have averted the war, was cut short by the rush to war. Then there was Joe Wilson, who went to Niger and whose wife was outed over the news that the Iraqi purchase of uranium was false.

Yet there is an adjustment in Bush's strategy, albeit not his strategy in Iraq. The adjustment reflects a pattern we've seen any time the Shrub has gotten himself in over his head. As long as things are going well, he's cocksure, blustery, joking and willing to shoot any messenger who brings a dissenting view to his attention. That's the "I can do no wrong" phase, the "I can't remember any mistakes" President. Then when it gets a little hotter, he tries to negotiate a win. The current controversy over John McCain's anti-torture amendment is a case in point, the administration's position changed from "I'll veto it" to "Can't we torture just a little, once in a while," to "Can't we protect torturerers from prosecution" to "We don't torture." That's the last stage, the admission of....What? His admission today wasn't an admission of guilt, it was an admission that the CIA led him down the primrose path. The carefully crafted mea culpa had very little mea in it. He'd do it again, just the same, too, he claims.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

Heroes in the Fight Against Torture

Today the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution supporting Sen. McCain's anti-torture amendments. While non-binding, it does send a powerful message to the White House: America is not a land of torturers. While Cheney, Allard, the Pentagon and others may think otherwise, there are principles that are never to be violated. There is no immunity from their violation. John Murtha said it correctly: "We cannot torture and still retain the moral high ground."

We'll also see Bush's values versus stubborness in this: He has threatened to veto any measure containing this provision. It would be the first veto of his term. Ironically, the measure has enough votes, if the votes in the House and Senate are any indication, to be the Shrub's first overridden veto. It also demonstrates the Bush tactics when it comes to justifying bad political decisions: First threaten, then plead, then cave in. See his speech today for a further example of that progression of behaviors.

McCain and Murtha, originator of today's resolution, are both heroes in the fight against torture.

It's Not a Bubble Unless I Say It's a Bubble

How about the news from Europe? Condi is over there telling the Republican truth: We don't have prisoners in secret prisons in Europe. Meanwhile, the Europeans are finding out what the truth according to Republicans means: The prisons were shut down shortly after the story of their existence broke. They went to Morocco, according to a Swiss Senator, which is not in Europe so Condi is, at least technically, telling the truth. Senator Marty implicates Poland and Romania and implies that several kidnappings were U. S. grabs of "persons of interest". In this case, the truth shall not make you free, just get you rendered to Morocco.

More proof that Bush is living in a bubble: He calls the Medicare prescription drug plan a good deal. Members of his own party are realizing what a white elephant this drug company welfare package is. To tout the plan, Bush blew off the White House Conference on Aging today to drive to an upscale, gated nursing home to speak to a hand-picked audience of lucid seniors. If he wanted to prove he wasn't in a bubble, he should have gone to Maple Manor, where residents lie in their own excrement until one of the miniscule staff has the time to get them out of it, and told them how good his plan is. Here's my experience with it: Two nights ago I helped my mother sign up on the plan. It took us nearly an hour of phone and internet time to find a plan that requires her to pay about $65.00 per month in premiums and sells her her prescriptions at $435 per quarter. This totals out to $2,520 per year. When you compare it to the full price of $3,400, she's getting a discount of around 25%. Now compare it to what she is actually paying today: $0. There you have compassionate conservatism at work. My parents own their home so they're not faced with the drugs-or-groceries choice the Shrub's hand-picked, gated retirement community audience will never face. Bush should try to sell the plan before someone who is facing that choice.

Four more dead for what in Iraq? The body count is over 32,000 now by figures the White House is now trying to distance itself from. Meanwhile, Scotty McClellan once again indicated the Republican's concern for human life by indicating that the U. S. doesn't count Iraqi dead, the poor misunderstood Prez just picked a number out of the paper. We don't count Iraqis? Why, aren't they worth it? Our military goes out of the way to avoid targeting civilians, Scotty says. Tell that to those burnt by white phosphorous, to the many bombed "safe houses" that turned out to be nothing of the sort, to the victims of our allies' torture camps. Besides, most independent estimates of Iraqi casualties are much higher.

Bubble Boy Finds Outside World Toxic

Today President Bush made a disturbing statement: He believes he may not live in a bubble.

What's disturbing about is it means that the missteps, miscalculations, misinformation, misappropriation of resources, mistakes, misdeeds and just plain misses of the last five years were intentional. Even more disturbing, it means that scientific evidence, sound counsel, objections of friends, economic good sense and just plain logic have no effect on our President. Most disturbing, he's fought a senseless war costing somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 Iraqi lives based on what? If our Shrub isn't living in a bubble, he's either the greatest criminal or the greatest moron to sit in the Oval Office.

If he doesn't, as he maintains, live in a bubble, perhaps God really is talking to him, or maybe it's just Cheney on the intercom.

Further evidence of the "bubble", he maintained that race was not a factor in the response to Hurricane Katrina. Duh. The factor was socioeconomic status. The poor didn't get out, regardless of their skin color. The response was botched, even the Shrub admits that. And as he said, the storm hit all up and down the Gulf coast, including Trent Lot's infamous porch. He also claims initial troop levels in Iraq were adequate, a Republicanism as follows: The initial troop levels, those required for "shock and awe" were more than adequate. Days later, faced with a country to occupy and not enough troops to do so, the tables were turned. Again, we get a statement that while true, lies by omission, a Republicanism.

Hats off to Senator Robert Byrd for calling Frist out on his preemptive nuclear strike rhetoric. Filibuster Alito, guys. He's the last thing we need on our supreme court. Filibuster Frist, too, and his nuclear option until he's jailed for securities fraud or voted out of the Senate Majority Leader position. Hats off, too, to the ten Senators including our own Ken Salazar for blocking the rush to renew the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act. "For those who want to reargue it and re-litigate it and reconsider it, it's not going to get any better," said Arlin Specter, faint praise for the bill that establishes an American secret police. It seems that whenever common sense is exercised in the Senate, Salazar isn't far from the action.

Mining Law, a Boon to Developers

Yesterday I was at Keystone Ski Resort, my favorite weekend escape with the exception of Vail with new snow. No, I'm not a rich snob, I'm a Front Range skiier with an extra few dollars a year to put into a season pass. I don't own property in Summit County nor, at the rate it's appreciating compared with my salary, will I ever.

Unless the Republicans manage to ram through their $50 billion rob from the poor deficit reduction package. Buried within it is a measure to revive privatization of public land based on the law Ulysses S. Grant (probably the second most corrupt president following our Shrub) signed in 1872. The law, designed to bring more people to the American west, granted mining claims to anyone who could prove there were valuable minerals under the public land (then property of the various Rocky Mountain Indian tribes but that didn't matter to Congress then). For reference, there are currently 120,000 acres of Colorado's public lands under such claims according to Colorado Public Radio's "Colorado Matters".

The measure not only ends the moratorium on new claims under the law, it takes away the provision requiring the claimer to prove there are minerals under the land. Under the new provision, anyone with such a claim could convert the land to private ownership, essentially taking it over from you and me for a couple of dollars per acre without ever having the intent to mine the land. What could possibly go wrong? Some of the million dollar condos around Keystone Resort were built using land claimed under the mining act of 1872 then sold to developers. While the claim could be disputed, the Department of the Interior never does. So now, on what was a mining claim, stand million-dollar homes and condos. This abuse was perpetrated with the restriction requiring proof of minerals intact. Now imagine what will happen once that restriction is lifted.

Who will build the first mansion on the Mount of the Holy Cross? National parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas and ecologically sensitive sites aren't protected under the Republican land grab. Even Allard the Torturer has enough political savvy to realize that Coloradans love their public land and is opposed to the measure. I haven't heard Salazar's position but I can't imagine he would be in favor of it. Those lands provide our fresh water, feed our streams and fish and wildlife. People hunt there, camp there, fish there, ski there. Mining is an important concern (although not at all connected with national security, regardless of what some supporters of the measure will tell you). It should not be the most important use of our land.

In 1872, the Republican administration granted the Indians' land to miners. Now the Republicans want to grant our land to developers. Their values haven't changed. Our only defense may eventually be to file land claims. Maybe then I can own some land in Summit County. I'd much rather see the measure go where it belongs and with it, the short-sighted Republicans who support it.

Bush's New Line

The Shrub in Chief can apparently no longer face the American people. Hardly surprising after he's hornswoggled, bamboozled, misled, lied to, misdirected, misinformed, poorly led and sadly underestimated. His speeches on his "Plan for Victory" have all been in front of less than representative audiences such as the Naval Academy and the Council on Foreign Relations and moreso, they've neither presented any plan other than the tired "stay the course" nor have they presented the definition of victory. Strange that after three and a half years of conflict, he should suddenly grow a strategy or a definition of victory. I'll tell you the definition of victory per the Shrub:

Troops out of Iraq prior to the 2006 elections. That will be the Republican definition of victory. In the absence of any prior definition of what "victory" means, let alone "complete victory," that nebulous state the Prevaricator in Chief continually calls for, pulling our troops out in time for the mid-term elections is the only definition that makes sense. There'll be some "milestone" not yet defined, perhaps the second Iraqi batalion at level 1 readiness, that precipitates the "victory" parades. Meanwhile, four more Americans have died for this nebulous goal today.

I'm forced to agree with Howard Dean: Victory in Iraq in any real sense is not possible. We can't kill, capture or contain the insurgents well enough to keep them from killing bunches of Iraqis and significant numbers of our highly-trained, hair-triggered, cautions troops. The Iraqis don't seem to take their training seriously - in three years we've managed to stand up how many batallions? The political structure, well, we'll see what next week's elections bring and what follows. One thing is certain: There will be no "condition" that means we can start packing up and coming home. We will not "win" in the classical Western sense. The best we can hope for is a slow fading of hostilities as we pull out.

Bush has used the word "victory" 26 times in his last two speeches, something he'd really like us to associate with his failed strategy in Iraq. Victory will eventually be defined by the President and the Republican party and its definition will be troops home in time for the elections. Keep in mind the Republicans don't lie: Millions of Iraqis support our being in Iraq (less than 20 percent) and the U. S. does not torture prisoners (we shut the secret gulags a month ago).

Your Republicans at Work

Today the Republican House of Representatives extended the 15% maximum tax bracket on capital gains for another two years. What that means is that the investment income I make for sitting on my butt will be taxed at a maximum of 15% while the money you work your butt off for will be taxed as ordinary income - normally at 28%. Put another way, student loans are about to be cut for the poor while the rich have another break to spend on a Harvard education. The economic recovery is no longer an excuse according to the Republicans, we're growing at a 4.5% annual rate (although I'd like to see you sell that one to someone looking for a job today). So what's the reason? The rich own Washington. This week I've heard the term "Culture of Corruption" applied often to our lawmakers. They're right: Our lawmakers are for sale to the highest bidders. Unfortunately, those of us who have to earn our salaries can't bid much; therefore, the rich get tax cuts, the poor get benefit cuts.

Russ Feingold could emerge as a hero in the coming days. The Republicans believe it's okay to search our records at will and to place gag orders on those who've been searched or those of whom records are requested. I believe we still have a First Amendment guaranteeing us free speech, don't we? And a Fourth Amendment protecting us as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There you have it, folks, probable cause, not sneak-and-peak search on FBI National Security Letters. Period. The Patriot Act Paranoids haven't a leg to stand on, except for the fact that those they're presenting with those letters aren't those with an interest in protecting the civil rights of those being actually searched. Unless Bush can stack the courts with like-minded paranoids, the Supreme Court will strike down the first Patriot Act case that comes before them based on the Fourth Amendment. But, as we've seen from Condi's visit to Europe, the Bushies' way is to do the illegal until they're caught, fight to keep doing the illegal as long as they can then claim innocence at the end - see torture and Condi's "We don't torture". The secret bases closed a month ago. The claim is probably correct.

I really do encourage Democrats to stand up for their principles and filibuster this abomination called the USA Patriot Act. There's nothing patriotic about it and it's completely un-American.

But then, I thought torture was un-American. That was before Republican rule of two of the three branches of Government. Oh, did anyone catch Rumsfeld's comments to General Pace? The General stated that if U. S. forces observed Iraqis abusing someone they were to stop them. Rumsfeld corrected the General: According to Mr. Weaselword, our obligation is merely to report the incident. Values, anyone?

An American in Brussels

Read this sentence very carefully: "The United States does not engage in torture." Now compare it with the report by ABC news that the prisons were shut down last month. The statement is technically true. Again, compare the statement: "U. S. forces world wide have been prohibited from using torture...." to the report by ABC. Again, the statement is true at this time. The problem is, the truth does not convey the information it seems to. Remember Rumsfeld's "Millions of Iraqis support our presence"? At the time, the percentage of Iraqis that supported our presence was twenty. Now twenty percent of twenty-seven million is five and a half million - millions, true but not quite representative of the situation. It's become a favorite Republicanism: Lie with the truth. I believe the technical term for that is spin.

Now, ah, did, um, you, er, hear Condi, ah, speak, um, in Brussels? Listen to parts of the speech on NPR. A big attention slap (not torture by Administration weasel-wording), that's the speech pattern of someone who is having to think real hard about what they're saying and that generally means something the speaker doesn't believe. That's representative of our leadership. At least Condi has the good grace to stutter. Bush delivers bushit with a straight face. But then, maybe it's because he doesn't think at all.

Condi will neither confirm nor deny the network of overseas CIA detention centers. If we didn't have them, don't you really think she'd deny it? There's nothing to hide if you don't have something. It's only if you do that you can neither confirm nor deny.

Bush spoke before the Council on Foreign Relations, a captive audience of conservatives, today before a captive audience forbidden from questioning him after the speech. Have you noticed all his audiences now are military or cherrypicked? I do find it amazing that he would suddenly grow enough scruples to be unable to face the population he's so sorely screwed.

It still disgusts me that we in the United States of America are engaged in a serious discussion as to whether it's legal to torture people and the President is on the side favoring it.

A Victory for Liberty

Sami Al-Arian, a Florida ex-Professor accused of aiding terrorism, was cleared of over half the charges against him and deadlocked on the remaining charges. He was accused of a number of crimes but the important victory is the defeat of the Patriot Act and the evidence it allows the Amerikan Secret Police to present in court. Noteworthy, according to a report on NPR, is that al-Arian's defense attorney presented no defense, merely called the jurors' attention to his violated First Amendment rights. By the way, the First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to assemble....

The Government presented no evidence that al-Arian was involved in or knew of any plans of violence. Ashkroft's Amerikische geheime Staatspolizei didn't come through, instead, the American principle of free association and free speech shone through. The Republican disregard for Constitutional liberties as evidenced by the Patriot Act is well documented.

In other news, Condi signed an agreement with Romania today for use of an air base. According to many sources, we've already been using it. The Bushies continue to use the Clintonesque tactic of "defining terror" to defend themselves for having used it and if you don't call it torture, I'll see you on the waterboard. So far, she's used the Administration tactic of evading for as long as possible then attacking, this time "reminding" the Europeans that they've benefited from American-0btained intelligence. I rather think they wouldn't have accepted the intelligence had they known its sources. Condi denied rendition in Germany, home of a man we know was rendered from Macedonia, where he was apprehended, to Afghanistan, where he was tortured. You deny something you haven't done, Condi. You refuse to speak about what you're guilty of. Good little Republican! Not to mentioning trivializing it as a mistake and euphemistically referring to waterboarding as rough tactics....

If we don't torture, why does Bush object to an anti-torture provision in a defense authorization bill? Could it be a provable high crime and misdemeanor?

Theft is, and Bush continues to advocate stealing from us to give to the rich. He credits the robust economy to the tax cuts while refusing to believe unspun numbers: We are poorer now than when he took office, more of us are without medical insurance, our pensions are vanishing, interest rates are rising and debt is at record levels. The Shrub's tax cuts have benefitted those who don't need benefiting and to balance them, the Republicans want to reduce student loans and Medicare. A poor family can't afford the University of Colorado so that a rich family can have more money for Harvard? Seems wrong to me, hence the "W".

Hypocrisy and other Bushisms

Is it not the ultimate in hypocrisy that George W. da Shrub Torture 'm Bush, alleged President of the Nation that Shines the Beacon of Freedom and Christian Values for the Rest of the World, calls on companies to honor their promises of pensions to their employees? Isn't this the guy who wants to gut government promises of Social Security benefits in favor of some Republican privatization scheme benefitting those who already benefit from 401k's, IRA's and other investment tax shelters (myself included)?

Now a quote from Donald Weasel Word Rumsfeld, Administration Prevaricator in Chief: "There is no question that there were people who believed they would be met as liberators, and indeed they were for a period, and still are in a number of parts of the country (Iraq)." Wasn't this guy Secretary of Defense at the time of the invasion? Wasn't he one of those telling us that Iraqis would be throwing flowers and celebrating our arrival? And what about all the insinuations that oil would pay for the war?

Then there's Condi, telling our European friends that since they benefited from our extraordinary rendition, secret prisons and torture of certain high-ranking terrorist suspects, they have no business criticizing us although we can't confirm or deny that anything went on. I was beginning to think better of her. Oh, well. If you can't convince them, swift-boat them, it's the way of the Bushites. Her goal is to say we were bad but since you benefited from our actions, you're bad, too. Somehow she doesn't understand the outrage of Europeans who, unlike the U. S., have scruples and values and believe that the ends don't always justify the means.

Back to the Shrub and his fatal, "You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie," FEMA knew it was screwed shortly after the water started rushing into the Big Puddle. Warnings and pleas from state and local responders as well as FEMA operatives fell on apparently deaf ears as Brownie practiced his spin and the Shrub did, well, wasn't he clearing brush in Crawford at the time? Now how long did they mislead us by telling us they had things under control? And what really happened to those four trillion dollars in homeland security funding? It appears to me that all we've got for our money was a pile of knitting needles and nail clippers and a TSA too busy searching for bombs to search for the type of weapon used in the 9/11 hijackings, much less searching cargo for bombs.

Another day in Republican Washington.

Next Week in Congress

Next week the Republicans go back to work on their rob from the poor, give to the rich agenda. The House wants to cut the Federal budget by 50 billion dollars. Sounds like a lot until you realize the projected budget through 2010 is 4.6 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office. Now let's do the reverse Rumsfeld and calculate that 5o billion as a percentage of the total deficit: 1.2 percent. This is not, you can easily see, meaningful deficit reduction. What is meaningful is where they intend to take it.

At the same time (a week later, actually, since Senators apparently need more vacation than Representatives), the Senate wants to cut taxes by 60 billion, the benefits going to, you guessed it, the rich. The cuts will benefit those earning capital gains and dividends - not your average medicare recpient. For reference, my Bush tax cut amounts to about $23.00 per month - I ain't one of the beneficiaries of tax cutting.

Here are some of the places the budget is to be cut:

- Student loans. More poor loose out on education while a Harvard education just got more affordable for those who earn a large percentage of their income from investments.

- Medicare. Reduced health care for those who can't afford health insurance more for discretionary (or not, depending on your aesthetic sense) boob jobs, er, elective surgeries.

- Hurricane Katrina relief: New Orleans remains without electricity over eighty days after the storm but we can shift $17 billion to build Federal facilities.

And they want to do all this before Christmas. What ever happened to going and selling all your possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor, values espoused by the man whose birth Christmas celebrates?

Hastert and Frist claim they're deeply committed to fiscal responsibility, the same fiscal responsibility that, instead of returning money for pork projects such as the Bridges to Nowhere, convert it into a half-billion dollar grant to the Alaska general fund to claim the bridges are no more. It's called lying by omission, a favored Republican tactic. It's the tactic Laura Bush used when claiming her hubby the Shrub was the first president to fund stem cell research: Technically true but misleading in that Clinton laid the groundwork f0r Federal funding and Bush restricted it to the point where any research funded with Government money will be meaningless. It's Rumsfeld's tactic in claiming that millions of Iraqis favor our presence in Iraq. True, twenty percent of 27 million is 5.4 million. Millions, all right, but millions in an extreme minority. In the case of deficit reduction, misdirection is also in play. One bill is in the House and the other in the Senate, making it an effort to see that the overall thrust of deficit reduction a la Republicans is to take it from the poor and give it to the rich.

Why Bush's Economic Poll Numbers Suck

30,000 jobs lost at GM. The jobs the economy is creating won't pay a family's bills. UAL, parent of United Airlines, dumps pensions on taxpayers for pennies on the dollar. In fact, dumping pensions on the Pension Guarantee Corp has become standard practice for those companies no longer interested in paying up on their promises to their employees. Inflation is up but real incomes have dropped for the past five years (the duration of the Bush presidency). Gas hit three dollars a barrel this summer. The Republican bankruptcy law makes it difficult for individuals to go bankrupt but spares corporations from the pain to the point where it's SOP in the airline industry. The number of Americans with no health insurance has gone up every year of the Shrub's reign. Many people face the choice between heating their houses and eating this winter, God forbid they need prescription medicine. The Medicare drug plan ends up costing many seniors more than they paid before. I spent my $23.00 tax cut on the additional cost of my groceries this month. Interest rates are rising, probably to drive the owners of interest-only ARMs into the welcoming arms of the new bankruptcy law. Americans are saddled with immense credit card debt, again losing large shares of what little disposable income they can still muster to interest charges.

On the larger scale, much of New Orleans is still without power over eighty days after Hurricane Katrina and there ain't squat being done to fix the levees. Another storm, we're up to Epsilon, by the way, and the Big Easy will have to be renamed the Big Puddle. The deficit remains at record levels while Congress plays hide-the-weenie with taxpayers over the pork in the Federal budget. Foreigners own our national debt and one day when the Euro is more attractive than the Dollar, they may foreclose, precipitating a devaluation of the Dollar of Chilean proportions. Despite the record deficits, the Shrub and his Republican cronies still want to cut taxes for the rich. Congress can't find the discipline to cut spending and the Shrub certainly won't veto any of his buddies' pet projects. Globalization means American can't afford to make things any more.

George, I write this to you personally: We ain't as dumb as we were when a misguided minority of us elected you President. Americans have become a skeptical lot when it comes to you and your spinmeisters. We believe what we see. You don't see it from Air Force One at sixteen hundred feet, much less from flight level 410 but we on the ground do. The economy sucks, George. For us little people, it sucks bad. And that's why your economic poll numbers suck.

A Powder Day at Breckenridge

Nine inches of new snow last night! Epic! Wonderful conditions for a day ski trip with two Right-leaning friends....

Yes, I have a few.

On the way back, talk turned to politics. The first subject was Iraq. It turned out we were in remarkable agreement: U. S. troops should get out as soon as we can. We talked of training the Iraqis. My right-leaning friends were in agreement that two and a half years should be sufficient to train an army. After all, we geared up for World War II in three and can train a recruit in less than six months. All of us commented on the images we've seen of Iraqi soldiers and the one eerie agreement there, they don't move like soldiers. They don't move like they want to be soldiers. They move much as I envision the Iraqi troops did when faced with the U. S. invasion. We also agreed that we should give the Iraqis six months to complete their training, look after our interests thereafter and if the country breaks up into Kurdistan (already de facto an independent state), Shiite Islamic Republic of Iraq - just not too friendly with Iran - and whatever the Sunnis have in mind to call their state, so be it. In a stunning turn of events, the three of us agreed that the Iraq war was over oil.

A watershed moment in my political life, agreeing with Republicans that the Iraq war was over oil. Let that sink in a few minutes. Two Republicans said the Iraq war was over oil.

Then we expressed hope that someone good from at least one of the parties will run in '06. I hope it isn't Hillary or Joe Lieberman but someone from our side with two qualities: Clear policies and the gender-specific organs to express them clearly and simply. Kerry couldn't speak a subject-verb-object sentence to save himself from waterboarding; every phrase contained qualifiers and parenthetic elements and so much weasel wording that Donald Rumsfeld must have been taking notes for future speeches. We do not need John Murtha. His policy is correct but he has some articulation problems, if the interview on NPR the other night was any indication. But I digress....

It's hard to get three skiers of any pursuasion together without a discussion of snow and the prospects for it which, given the mix in the car, had to lead to a discussion of environmentalism. Here again, we found a strange middle ground. All of us agreed that individual actions and incentives are important, driving a fuel-efficient car, turning down thermostats, using compact fluorescent bulbs. At first I got some resistance on the regulatory side but then I mentioned that California companies had saved nearly sixty billion dollars as a result of their emissions standards. Not only are they finding savings, they're finding new technologies and that translates to money in the pockets of stockholders. Agreeing with two Conservatives is a wonderful thing, particularly when both sides mean it.

Long and short of the discussion, we're not going to get anywhere by individual actions (conservatism) alone, nor will we solve our problems through regulatory action (liberalism) alone. Massachusetts's approach to solving the state's health insurance problems is a prime example of both sides working together, each true to their ideology, to solve the problems. The Conservatives want a requirement that everyone in the state have health insurance and the Liberals want subsidized insurance available to low-income families and individuals. It's the most sensible approach I've heard in a while. The outcomes of our discussions on the way home today were similar, that both individual actions and regulations are necessary to protect the environment.

Maybe we should take some of our representatives skiing.

Stolen Elections and Other Propaganda

While not enough to definitively say the 2004 election was stolen, a Government Accounting Office study of electronic voting is enough to give pause. The link to the GAO study is here:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf

No where in the study does it definitively say the election was stolen; however, it calls to attention several areas in which voting machines could have been manipulated. The key is without a paper trail, we will never know. There's no proof of voting manipulation and that's just the way the winners of the election want to keep it. In politics, laws are made by winners of elections and winners of elections are those who got the most votes under the then-existant system. Ergo, the winners of an election have no incentive to change the rules under which they were elected. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it.

Lyn Davis Lear summarizes the findings in the report in a Huffington Post article here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20051201/cm_huffpost/011483

Despite the whiff of conspiracy theory, it's worthwhile reading, much more entertaining than 107 pages of Governmentese.

The military is now trying to justify its propaganda campaign in Iraq by saying the Iraqis simply forgot to print the "Paid Advertising" label on the stories. Everyone up the chain of command is plausibly denying involvement (as if those of us who served believe the higher-ups don't know what the field units are doing, especially a field unit with a $300,000,000 budget). The campaign is further evidence of the culture of corruption that is Republican Washington. Following the Republican effort to put propaganda in U. S. news media by disguising its real source, it's not hard to believe we'd pay to put propaganda in Iraqi papers.

Further evidence of a culture of corruption: Congressional researchers find that Environmental Protection Agency skews the results of its studies to back up Bush's pollution plans. That's no surprise to any of us who thought about his "a little mercury won't hurt anyone" plan to sell the right to emit the potent neurotoxin on the open market. What "Clear Skies" has meant all along is that the energy industry has clearance to pollute. The agency overestimated the costs of new equipment to scrub mercury out of smokestack emissions, cutting into the public health to the profit of shareholders in utility companies. So, Republicans, what is the cost-benefit analysis of a few handicapped children against the share price of Xcel Energy?

Or polar bears against CAFE standards?

Know the Enemy

Here's a fun little link that will help us penetrate the spin from Reupblican Washington (I almost typed "Wahnsinnton". If you know German.... Wahnsinn is insanity).

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051212/kvh

Enjoy it!

Stay the Course and other Insanities

Variously attributed to Albert Einstein or Benjamin Franklin, the best ever definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

Yesterday morning I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to agree with Bill O'Reilly. During his interview with Katy Kouric on the Today show, he pointed out that a U. S. soldier can be trained in as little as twelve weeks, six weeks of basic training and six more of more specific career training. What have the Iraqis been doing the past two and a half years? It would appear they haven't been subjected to the same kind of training we subject our own soldiers to. This leads us to Gen. Peter Pace's comments today about the state of Iraqi forces and the statements about their readiness. General Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claims that about forty Iraqi batallions, about 4000 troops, are at readiness level two, about that of an American brigade operating in the field but relying on the Air Force for resupply. He claims that eighty brigades, or about 8000 troops, are at level three.

Then why the hell, General, in the current offensive against insurgents, Rumsfield be damned - they are insurgents, are there 2000 American troops and 500 Iraqis?

According to John Murtha, our troops are exhausted, worn out and ever less battle ready. I believe him. I also believe the field commanders are telling the Shrub what he wants to hear, that the troops are in great shape and the Iraqis will be ready to take on the terrorists in time for the 2006 elections so everyone can be home, Republicans can get reelected and we can make the country safe for tax cuts. See, what separates general officers from colonels is a sense for politics. Politics under George W. Bush means that you don't voice opinions that don't support the Administration's pre-determined conclusions. The President gets no news that doesn't support his policies and if he does, the messenger is summarily shot. So they spin their reports to match the Administration's needs to save their careers, their retirement, their legacies, the President operates in his favorite mode, blissful ignorance, and American soldiers die while Iraqis apparently don't take their training seriously. Apparently they've allowed themselves to be trained to the approximate level of Saddam-era troops, ready to be shocked and awed and just fit enough to retreat. The motivated ones seem to be on the other side.

Here's my plan for ending our involvement in Iraq. Note I didn't say victory. I could really care less about victory in Iraq, whether there's a free and independent Kurdistan, an oil-rich Shia Islamic republic in the south and a bunch of poor Sunnis in the middle: I care about U. S. troops, about the loss of our reputation and our standing in the world and the continual flow of abuses from Republican Washington in the name of the war on terror. I want us out of there. My plan is simple. Iraq, you have six more months then you're on your own. From that time on, you can do what you want, become any kind of state you want as long as you pose no threat to legitimate U. S. interests. While that would give the terrorists a timeline, it would also provide the Iraqis an incentive to do what we can do in twelve weeks, train soldiers, in six months.

But we'll stay the course until it begins to damage Republicans politically. Rove certainly has determined that Republican control of Washington is linked to this issue and that bringing the troops home in time for the election or at least announcing major troop reductions in the week before will tilt the vote. I agree with Murtha that our troops will be home by next November but until then, we'll do the same thing over and over. Only Bush expects different results.