State of the Union

I'm not watching the State of the Union. I have to admit, the very sight of our President is revolting to me, physically revolting. I get ill watching the smirk, listening to the lies, hearing the ignorance of a man who will not let facts sway his beliefs. I will not listen to Bush. Even the inadvertent sound bites I sometimes pick up sicken me. In this, I'm not tolerant. This is the man who has destroyed my faith in our government and I will never forgive him for that.

You know where I stand, now. Unlike many of my liberal bretheren, I'm not afraid to take a stand and to say what I feel. Bush disgusts me. Alito disgusts me. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry disgust me.

They're on our side? Guess again. When Kennedy could have been doing something, namely at the Senate hearings, he was bloviating as Alito waged a battle of wits with an unarmed man. When it's too late, Kerry and Kennedy attempt a filibuster as I feel my civil liberties slipping away. Show me the evidence, Kennedy could have asked Alito. Show me you've changed in your writings. Show me somewhere in the body of your writings that you'll act to rein in Bush's power grabs. Show me you respect the rights of individuals over the corporations and government you're beholden to. But Kennedy chose to pontificate and mumble over Alito's membership in a Princeton alumni association, as if that has anything to say about the man who could crown King George. Kerry, afraid to take any kind of stand against Bush, afraid that saying that he had convictions could have turned off voters, attempted to position himself by a futile filibuster. And we wonder why we lose elections.

The Prevaricator in Chief is, as I write, busy prevaricating. I'll hear all about it tomorrow, the first day Judge Alito is Justice Alito. I hope I'm wrong about Sam-I-Am. He's now something we have to live with. The best we can do as progressives and sensible liberals is to find unity and to take a stand. Over sixty percent of Americans agree with us if we can only find a way to communicate to them what is that we stand for. I believe that if we can leave the splinter factions of the Democratic party to fend for themselves and to reach toward working men and women, we can take back the Government. We have to. More than any other nation on Earth, we're careening toward totalitarian rule. In a sense, we already have it. The Radical Right now owns all three branches of government, at least for a year. We need to get our shit together and form an effective opposition, minimize the damage and unite to take back at least some of the power from the neocons this fall. I hope we can.

If we can just get Kerry and Kennedy to shut up and Hilary to stand for something other than pendulums and photo ops.

Hamstrung and Shackled: The State of Bush's Union

Tomorrow night the Obfuscator in Chief will once again regale us with a fairy tale about the greatness of the neocon agenda. He'll tell us how well we're doing in Iraq, spreading the good word of democracy and freedom even as we spy illegally, jail our citizens without access to courts and reserve the right to torture prisoners via signing statements. He'll tell us how well the economy is doing as stocks soar to the backdrop of Ford and Kraft laying nearly 30,000 Americans off. He'll tout tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the poor as a way of increasing the stock market's performance. There'll be some bone about health care in there, some problematic solution to the wrong problem, in short, it'll be another bit of Shrubbery.

The state of Bush's union is grim. We're limited in our economic prospects by the largest deficits in history, by a futile war that's costing us nearly two trillion dollars, by the fact that we're now economic hostages to the Japanese and Chinese. Our economy is soaring, if you own stocks. Real wages are declining, the number of people in poverty is increasing, prices, particularly for heating homes, are rising. Yet we'll hear tomorrow night that we need to cut taxes even further for the rich, making the tax cuts on capital gains and dividends permanent. We have no money for new initiatives, it's being thrown down the five sided dollar drain, the Pentagon, into the septic tank of Bush's wars to spread democracy.

How are we doing there? Like Hamas? It's a foretaste of what will eventually happen in Iraq. We are encouraging democratically elected governments in an area dominated by Islamists who hate us. It stands to reason we'll get Islamist governments. Bush's foreign policy bore fruit in Palestine, all right. We have a democratically elected government dedicated to the destruction of Israel. We also have the hypocrisy of the Bush foreign policy evident in the drive to deny aid to a democratically elected government. The people of Palestine have spoken and our reaction to their statement proves that we're all in favor of democracy, as long as the right people get elected. So what happens when Islamists vote themselves into power in Iraq? Ready to invade again, this time with Iran backing the Iraqis up? It seems the "shock and awe" came at the ballot box this time around.

And how about the state of our union? We're facing the largest corruption scandal in Congress since I can remember and, despite attempts to rebrand it, the problem is a Republican one. Come on, folks, there's no reason to bribe the minority! So much for the morality of the party of the Christian majority, unless you like earmarks in exchange for bribes and "campaign contributions", thinly disguised bribes themselves. Yet there are no real cries for reform that will make a difference. There is no attempt to rein in earmarks, the Republicans say "we need business as usual". So Colorado taxpayers pay for bridges to nowhere in Alaska and no one in Congress gets to debate or even know they've been had. There is no drive to publically finance elections, instead corporations, legal entities to be sure but still owned; therefore, property, cry out for First Amendment rights property should not be allowed to have. Lobbyists and corporations reserve the right to bribe congressmen and call it campaign funding. That needs to be gone. Yet in the Shrub's corrupt union, this business as usual, the K-street financed Republican culture of corruption will endure.

The state of our union is grim, yet the Prevaricator in Chief will attempt tomorrow night to tell it differently. He will be believed by some who want to believe. It's been proven that political thought is emotional and facts have little sway over emotions. People will still try to believe. The Christian Right will somehow attempt to believe that killing, sixth commandment be damned, is doing God's will, that they're Christian Soldiers and the United States is the new Israel. The Neocons love what's happening as we drive toward a dictatorship with a dictator referred to as "Mr. President". They'll find reasons to believe.

After all, twenty five percent of all Americans supported Nixon the day he resigned.

Brokeback Bush

<>When Bush was asked at a press conference whether he’d seen Brokeback Mountain, he responded by asking to talk about something he knew about, like ranching. More on that later.
<>The Homophobic Right seems surprised that a movie about gay cowboys could be so critically acclaimed and so well received by audiences in the –gasp- Red Heartland. It’s because they’re seeing things through a toilet paper tube. The movie’s got gay cowboys in it so it must be promoting homosexuality. Bad! Bad! In actuality, the movie’s about something all but the most perfect of us have experienced, the victory of convention over keeping something precious to us. Ang Lee just jells the story through a different set of eyes. But as soon as we see two cowboys sleeping together, the blinders come down and it’s about gay cowboys, not the great love that so many of us have thrown away simply because society expects something different of us.
<>The same Shrub who hasn’t seen Brokeback Mountain has staked his rapidly shrinking legacy and a good deal of America’s reputation on spreading democracy in the Middle East. Democracy, good! Good! Right? Well, this week the Bushite foreign policy bore fruit as Hamas, the radical Islamist party of Palestine dedicated to the destruction of Israel, won in a landslide control of the Palestinian parliament. Is it a surprise? Did Bushco not hear Iran’s rants concerning Israel? Does no one in Washington remember that we imposed democracy at gunpoint on Germany after World War I directly leading to the election of the Nazi party in 1932? Maybe that’s the disadvantage of electing an MBA President – no historical perspective. Islamism is a major force in the Middle East. It stands to reason that if you hold democratic elections in a region where Islamism is a major force that Islamism will be win elections. Supporting democracy in such a region is fostering the spread of Islamism although the ideological dilettantes of the Bush administration continue to believe that if you force a country to hold an election, you have a democracy. In fact, without the underlying civil structures of democracy, a free press, tolerance, respect of rule of law and rejection of violent solutions, all you do with elections is elect the next dictator and, by virtue of his being elected, give the next dictator legitimacy to, in this case, pursue the destruction of Israel.

Also, given the Bushite emphasis on spreading democracy, it would be hypocritical to deny recognition to the Hamas government of Palestine. Therein lies the trap of imposing democracy – you don’t always get what you want. They are democratically elected, right? We foster the spread of democracy, right? Put in language even Bushites could understand, democracy, good, right? Well, it didn’t go our way this time. It won’t go our way in Iraq next time. It didn’t go our way in Iran the last time around. These are democratically elected governments, good, right? Except they didn’t go the way we wanted. We now have to deal not only with the evil we opposed but with a new, legitimately elected evil as a direct result of a foreign policy that favors democracy at all costs. So now are we to turn our backs on fostering democracies and the evil ones we’ve produced? I would. Will we admit our mistakes and attempt to foster secularism even as radical Christianity attempts a hostile takeover of our courts and Congress? I rather doubt it. The short-sighted policies will win out and we will pay a heavy price for a long time for our MBA President’s lack of historical policy or realistic vision.

<>Which brings us back to ranching. Bush bought the Crawford ranch back when the Neocons decided he’d be the perfect Governor of Texas. Until then, he’d been a New England fratboy and New Orleans party animal. He’d had no experience “on the range”. So now he clears brush for the cameras. In Texas, where I am as I write this, they refer to this as an “all hat no cow” rancher. It would appear we could apply this appellation to the Presidency, as well.

p. s. Rebranding of domestic spying seems to be having little effect. Even Bush’s hometown newspaper the Houston Chronicle is still referring to “Surveillance of terrorists” by its proper name, domestic spying.

Why We're In the Shape We're In

Watching Rumsfeld try to repudiate the results of a study his Pentagon commissioned today was a sad reminder of why so many of Bush's big initiatives have gone wrong. King George and his Court know everything, or so they think.

They knew how many troops we'd need in Iraq, far better than the commanders who said it would take hundreds of thousands of troops. They knew it would be over quickly, far better than experts who told them it would take years and cost thousands of lives. They knew that Iraqi oil would pay for rebuilding the country and now, nearly three hundred billion dollars later, Iraq is still a wasteland and the only part of the world with less hours a day of electricity than Baghdad is New Orleans.

Today two studies, one commissioned by the Pentagon, say that our Army and Marines are stretched to the limit. Frequent deployments of a too-small force are leading to failures to meet recruiting goals, despite huge signing bonuses. John Murtha, talking to commanders on the ground, knows that the troops are stretched to the limits. The National Guard, forced to take on the burden of the too-small active duty forces, can't make recruiting goals and can't function at home as it was designed. In its desperation, the Army will now recruit ages 35-42, a little old for boot camp, I'd say. And Rumsfeld says there's no problem.

The only word for this administration and their Republican backers in Congress is arrogant. They know it all, they don't need no stinking experts or warrants. It's self-evident, just look at the smirk on King George's face when he speaks. Despite numerous warnings on numerous issues, the Administration in its arrogance continues to make major mistakes. They underestimated the cost and problems of the Medicare benefit although they were warned of both. They underestimated the deficits although they were warned. I just hope the experts aren't right on some of the possible effects of our deficit. They underestimated the Iraqi insurgency. In every case, when the Bush administration has ignored those who know more than they about any issue, they've been proven drastically and tragically wrong.

But Rummy knows best, right? They'll be okay. There are just some whiners and snivelers and it's Clinton's fault. They're the best force in the world, Rummy says, because by God I say so. And that's why we're in the shape we're in: The Bushites just keep ignoring the facts and saying so. They even ignore studies they commission themselves. They're antiintellectuals and they prove it often, generally recognizable by the foot in their mouths.

Google, Hero

Today a study revealed that 56 percent of Americans favor Google in its fight to keep Big Brother's hands off your search information. More frightening, 90 percent of Americans believed their searches were private. I won't debate the wisdom of Google retaining the information, after all, they need demographic information to sell their advertisements and make their money. I will praise them for their decision to fight the Government. Forty-0ne percent said they would stop using Google if it acquiesced. They should immediately stop using Yahoo and MSN Search. Those search engines already have.

Strange how the fight against Big Brother takes on a whole new meaning when it's the individual involved. After all, everyone uses Google, right? When it's some nebulously defined group of individuals placing overseas calls to Al-Qaida (do they answer the phone, in Arabic, of course, Al-Qaida, how may I help you?), the numbers change - it no longer involve me, right? What doesn't change is the principle of Big Brother as personified by the Bush administration and Republicans who turn a blind eye to his criminal behavior getting his hands on your personal information without you knowing it. The searches will not stop at a few individuals making calls to Al-Qaida. Are registered Democrats next? Here's a news flash for those of you who support domestic spying: Those big white golf balls at Buckley AFB and Mildenhall, England can intercept far more than a few select phone calls and the computers that analyze the signals must do far more than filter out a select few calls, after all, they have to pick out whatever words are on the watch list. Don't say your baby made a dirty bomb in his diaper, for God's sake! Since our Democratic senators couldn't penetrate Alito's wall of obfuscation, I'll let you in on something. If confirmed, his vote will go to King George the Fratboy and your personal data will be open for, well, just about anything.

Ultimately, there is little difference between mining of Google's data for porn surfers and mining the national telephone system for calls to Al-Qaida. Both involve intrusions into a person's private sphere, the sphere the Fourth Amendment of the document the George referred to as a piece of paper (proving, again, his ignorance: It's written on parchment) is designed to protect. King George the Obfuscator has already claimed the right to tap your phone calls because, well, because he wants to. He has the right to search your house without a warrant thanks to the Patriot Act. His Justice Department is now seeking the right to search your search engine records. Confirming Alito is another diamond in King George the Torturer's crown, another loss of your civil liberties all packaged up in legal mumbo-jumbo and well reasoned rationalizations of his radical right-wing position. He will support King George and Roberts will crown him.

War of Words

Today in the liberal stronghold of Manhattan, Kansas, Bush attempted rebranding of his domestic spying program. To the Shrub, eavesdropping on conversations without even attempting to get the kangaroo court called FISE to approve a warrant is called a "terrorist surveillance program." I thought we had one. It's called FISE.

The law calls for Bush to show "probable cause" to a FISE court before engaging in domestic espionage. Bush's instructions call for a "reason to believe". Applying that reduced standard makes it suddenly crystal clear why the Shrub wanted to bypass a court that had approved 99.9 percent of all requests brought before it: His targets didn't even meet the absurdly weak standards required under the FISE standards.

The Shrub maintains he was briefing Congress on the program; therefore, he must be doing nothing illegal. Is this the same Republican-dominated body in full retreat because of its dealings with a certain law-abiding citizen called Jack Abramoff? The only way I'll believe the briefings of Congress had anything to do with the illegal domestic espionage program is when I know what he briefed to whom and of what party. Evidence tends to believe the Obfuscator in Chief was engaged in a campaign of obfuscation, asking Congress for changes - all approved by the way - to FISE while actually violating it with his program of domestic spying without a warrant. All kinds of lawyers have looked at this? Samuel Alito was once a lawyer and what would he say to the President's power grab? I'd guess he'd encourage whomever is working on it to complete work on the crown so Roberts can put it on the Shrub's empty little head at the earliest possible.

Bush defines espionage as use of force. I suppose this domestic spying is use of force in the sense of the science of physics, pushing a button does require one to exert force. He claims it is a wartime necessity. The war he refers to will never end as long as there is someone with a bit of knowledge, a bit of material and a lot of anger against us. Given the excesses of the Bush regime, I can't say I blame some of them. If we allow this power grab, where will the next one be? I'd guess that our search engine records are the next "vital information" in the endless war against a tactic employed by those who hate us. How much of our liberty will we give up to have the second King George protect us?

Power Grabs

"The NSA's terrorist surveillance program is targeted at al-Qaida communications coming into or going out of the United States," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. "It is a limited, hot pursuit effort by our intelligence community to detect and prevent attacks."

Scotty the Mouthpiece was attempting to rationalize the President's illegal behavior in authorizing wiretaps on American soil without a warrant. The sad joke of the matter is that the President had such authority provided he requested the warrant up to 72 hours after starting the tap. I don't know what part of hot pursuit that meaningless restriction interfered with. The FISE court, the secret court that issues warrants in such cases, has approved all but a very few such requests and has modified not many more. It's telling, however, that most of the rejections and modifications have come under Bush's administration. So there are two reasons for Bush attempting to usurp authority. Either the requests were so far off-base that even the FISE court wouldn't approve them or Bush wanted a blatant power grab.

Add to the evidence the subpoena against Google, probably the hero of the week for standing up to the Justice Department and attempting to protect our privacy where Yahoo and Microsoft have not. The Administration wants a week's worth of Google's search records, it says, to provide evidence that an anti-pornography law struck down as unconstitutional indeed provides better protection against minors surfing porno sites than parental controls. Innocent enough until one realizes what could be done with search engine records. The Government could literally mine everything from it and use it, well, the Bush administration has declared itself in favor of the so-called "Unitary Executive." Another word for this is dictator.

This is an administration that has advocated torture, deprived American citizens of due process and held them without access to a lawyer, lied about intelligence to start a war, refused to police itself in the wake of scandal after scandal, defied Supreme Court edicts, manipulated terror alerts and stifled all attempts at reasoned debate. I for one don't trust him with the power to spy on me at will or, as he seems to think, absolute power.

Finally, from a Republican, The Right Words

In a party that has sold Washington to the highest bidder, including Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush's favorites Big Oil, John McCain stands out in calling for alternative energy sources to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Let's face it, Iran is going to be a problem for a long time as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, weak to say the least, finally gives up its last vestiges of protecting rogue states from acquiring nukes. Venezuela, another top producer, is run by a shaky individual, to say the least. The Chinese are negotiating for the Alberta tar sands, probably the world's next best source of oil and our Congress, well, they're afraid the automakers will cut off their campaign contributions if they up the fleet standards and require SUVs be a part of the calculation.

"We better understand the vulnerabilities that our economy, and our very lives, have when we're dependent on Iranian mullahs and wackos in Venezuela," said McCain. The irony is that the conservation less open-minded Republicanoids so violently oppose (Bush: It would damage our economy) makes good business sense. California businesses have saved $58 billion since the state enacted tough energy standards. Even mandatory carbon controls save energy and thereby money. This does not account for the energy-saving technologies that could be developed and sold abroad, reducing our economic dependence on the Chinese and the Japanese who are financing our trade imbalance.

The President and the Classic Republican desire to find more domestic sources, i. e. the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, couldn't be more of a sell-out to Big Energy. We will never sell a barrel of Alaskan crude overseas. It will never reduce our trade deficit. If we were to get busy developing new ideas, we could manufacture and sell or at least collect royalties from the overseas manufacture of energy-saving technologies and perhaps reduce that deficit. We could certainly reduce our dependence on benevolent and cooperative states such as Iran and Venezuela but I don't see it coming. The Majority Party gets too much of their life's blood - campaign finance - from the Big Energy side of the argument and they're not likely to give that up.

Until we have public financing of elections, we're not likely to get too many statesmen of either party in Washington. They're not giving those contributions out of the goodness of their hearts, they're buying influence. In Republican Washington, we're seeing what happens when the Big Corporate Contributors and Lobbyists call in their chits. Until we remove the very possibility of them buying Congressmen through gifts and campaign contributions, we will never have a Congress that does the right thing.

The Terror Card

Once again, Osama bin Laden has proven himself to be Bush's best ally and friend. In an ill-timed release of a tape, the man Bush once promised to get dead or alive proved that he is indeed still alive. He reminded us of the existence of smart people who are out to harm us and he set the stage for the GOP to once again start playing the terror card.

We haven't had a heightened terror alert since the election. The Administration hasn't raised the threat level due to Bin Laden's tape either but let the polls start showing the Republicans are losing the Congress. Today Rove advised Republicans they should use terrorism in their campaigns, a prelude to Administration support for orange terror levels? Don't be surprised if you see it. There will be more trumped-up events in New York and Washington now that Republican morality has been proven as hollow as a megachurch on Christmas day, it's about the only so-called Republican value they have left. Under their rule, earmarks have risen from 1,400 to about 14,000, a factor of ten. So much for small government and fiscal responsibility. Their "reform" has brought us the K-street project and pay-for-plan, a culture of corruption on the scale of Nero's Rome. Terrorism is about all they have left.

Google This....

Imagine you're writing a fiction piece concerning a terrorist attack on, say, Denver. Tom Clancy has already nuked the city once so we may as well do it again. To do so, you need information on construction and materials used to build a dirty bomb. This being the Information Age, what do you do? You go to one of the many search engines out there and type in the phrase "dirty bomb". Two weeks later you can't get on an airplane.

This scenario, to my knowledge, hasn't happened but with another Bush attempt at grabbing absolute power in progress, it could. See, the Justice Department is trying to get Google's records in an attempt to gather data on visits to pornography sites after the Supreme Court overturned a 1998 anti-pornography law. Or so they say. So far we know that Yahoo has caved in to the Government's demands. MSN refused to comment, indicating that they, too have given records of what you're searching for to the benevolent eyes of the Bush Administration.

Google, to their credit, is resisting. The Justice Department, of course, is attempting to get their hands on the information. What happens to this data once the Government gets their hands on it? It isn't a search, it's data mining. Once again the Bush Administration is engaging in domestic spying on a scale that would have made Nixon blush. Once the Government establishes precedent that they can subpoena search engine records for any trivial purpose, a major tool in the development of the Internet becomes, effectively, Government property, to be used against its citizens at will. Orwell, are you spinning in you grave? In effect, granting Government access to this information without strict limits on what can be done with it is granting them unlimited power to spy on its citizens in a way that make illegal phone taps look tame.

Although this case is not directly concerned with the war on terrorism, rather the fight to make a Christian theocracy out of the country by restricting us heathens' access to information they find offensive, the next case, or the next will be. The endless war against nebulous enemies called the War on Terrorism will be another excuse for infringements on our civil liberties and unwarranted searches into our private lives. And the power will be abused, as the Government has abused its powers already in this so-called war against a tactic. The important thing to remember is that the war on terrorism (when did we drop the 'ism' and make it a war on terror) by definition will never end so neither will the wartime powers of the President. And as long as we have an abuser of power like Bush in office, neither will the indignities and the losses of liberty imposed on the American people in the name of a war largely fought in the minds of the paranoid.

Putting Intelligence in Intelligent Design

I read a wonderful article on teaching of intelligent design in Kentucky in the Lexington Herald-Leader a couple of days ago. I should say, the non-teaching of intelligent design in Kentucky. Although teaching intelligent design alongside of "change over time", Kentucky's fortuitous euphemism for evolution, has been legal since 1999, the story's writer could find no science teacher in the Bluegrass State who would take time out of the curriculum to teach the optional, nonscientific add-on. One teacher, a Baptist minister, even went so far as to say that intelligent design wasn't science and had no place in the classroom, taking a place beside such liberal religious leaders as Herr Pope Benedict. Of course, Gov. Ernie Fletcher, beholden to Kentucky's masses of less enlightened Republican voters, has urged teachers to teach the "fact" of intelligent design while, like most whose science education had its roots in Hollywood, misusing the word "Theory".

As a Kentuckian born and raised, I have to praise the state for its inadvertent clarification of the basic principle of evolution, the change of life over time. The legislature accidentally renamed the theory (a well-tested fact in scientific terms) to a more descriptive name: Evolution implies progress toward a goal and, in evolution, there is no goal. There is merely change over time. Species change through mutation, the more successful survive statistically more often than others, reproduce more and, eventually, become new species. The name Evolution came from Victorian ideas, that Man was the most advanced of any species on the planet. Truth is any species coexisting with us today from elephants to bird flu virus is equally evolved with us as evidenced by their existence. Change over time is the better term for the theory.

Why mention goings-on in Kentucky if I'm in Colorado now? Because one of our less brilliant lawmakers, a Republican syncophant of radical Christian leaders, is proposing that intelligent design be taught in Colorado schools. Why? The Supreme Court ruled against the posthumous Dover, Delaware school board (posthumously because all the backers of intelligent design were voted off the school board at the sensible citizens' first opportunity). Even in Kentucky, teachers given the opportunity to teach intelligent design and religious enough to be creationists reject the chance because they know intelligent design isn't science and teaching non-science in a science classroom is a waste of theirs and the students' time. Why would someone sharp as the leading edge of a boulder propose to teach intelligent design in Colorado? To pander to Dobson's crowd. He'll lose but he'll have taken a stand for the Lord, strongly rumored to be the intelligent designer.

Intelligent design advocates are the last in a long line leading back to the Catholic cardinals who excommunicated Galileo for teaching the world revolved around the sun. Science has been backing religion into a smaller and smaller corner since men finally figured out that the best way to describe the universe was using what they could see, what they could measure. God has always been outside the scope of science because he is inherently unmeasurable. Science has never attempted to disprove God, it has only observed, hypothesized, measured and modified its hypotheses. Intelligent design's basic postulate is the existence of the unmeasurable and that disqualifies it as science.

Without Crooked Congressmen....

...There'd be no crooked lobbyists.

An interesting anecdote concerning lobbyists: When major league baseball returned to Washington, lobbyists lobbied the team owners to reserve a block of special seats behind home plate. The seat price: $49.95 but you can't buy them for that. Only corporate buyers can have these seats. Why you ask would any team sell seats behind home plate for $49.95?

Congressmen are limited to gifts of $50 or less.

Both sides of the debate to clean up Congress are missing the point, although I have t0 give points to a John McCain proposal to strip the Congressional retirement from anyone convicted of a felony related to their service in Congress. We're talking about limiting gifts, about limiting access by former members but we're not addressing the number one cause of corruption in Congress: Republicans, in their haste to create a culture of corruption in Washington, have gutted the ethics committees and are unable to police themselves.

Neither house has an effective self-policing agency and neither side is proposing creating one. Even if reforms were to add an effective ethics committee structure, it would be composed of Congressmen who are benefiting from the very systems they are to police. Would a Republican vote to eject a congressman for violating pay-for-play regulations or taking campaign funds from a lobbyist when they're doing it themselves? Would a Republican break party unity and vote against one of their own even if it were proven that the congressman was as corrupt as, say, Tom Delay? Delay was cited three times for ethics violations before the Republicans gutted the ethics committee and put their yes-man in charge of it rather than having their number two man brought up on ethics charges again. Yet he was still allowed to hold the number two position in the House. Were there any integrity in Washington, he would have been ejected from the House, a right the House has under the Constitution, by the way.

And I doubt Democrats would do any better. Were they the party in power, they'd be offered bribes just as the Republicans were. They'd set up systems to favor their own power just as the Republicans did. The only difference is that the Republicans, organized and monolithic as they tend to believe, are just far more efficient at it. Organized corruption requires an organization, something Democrats traditionally lack and something Republicans are typically very good at, hence the magnitude of the scandals of Republican Washington.

Any reform package that doesn't address internal ethics in the Congress is futile. No matter what restrictions are in place, crooked lobbyists will find crooked congressmen. Lobbying must be reformed but Congress itself must be also. Strip the pensions from crooked congressmen, ban earmarks, I don't care how many Republican pork mongers object, and slam-dunks of legislation. Limit gifts to congressmen to a rational value, zero, and in that include trips on private or corporate conveyances, even on "official business". Eliminate lobbying from the House and Senate floors, gymnasiums, cafeterias, and any other place where powerful and corruptible men can gather away from the public eye. And put the name of the individual writing sections of the law into the margins of the law. Most importantly, restrict lobbying companies from campaign contributions, whether monetary or in-kind.

It's obvious and easy to try to blame Republican Washington's corruption on the lobbying machine the Republicans created. Blame the Republican Congress that became so corruptible, too, and remember that without crooked congressmen, there is no corruption.

Just in Time for Election 2006, Terror Alerts Return

Isn't it amazing that there hasn't been a terror alert since the end of the Presidential elections? Well, I just read an article stating there were rumblings that the Shrub's reelection didn't spell the extinction of anthrax, the end of the dirty bomb or those willing to use it against the increasingly evil American empire. Amazingly coincident with the start of the 2006 Congressional elections and Republican fears of losing one, if not both, houses of Congress to their own ethics abuses, terror and terror threats are back.

So the terror threat level has been set to "election year". Expect more orange and red than yellow in this year's fashion palette.

If we buy into this transparent ploy, we deserve the bad leadership we have. But Bush had trouble with "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." Apparently so do his constituents.

Remember Nixon left office with a twenty-five percent approval rating.

The Horses are Out, Close the Barn Door

Today I heard a story about how the CEO of Boeing emphasized ethics in one of his meetings. At the start of the meeting, he held up a number. The assembled vice presidents and presidents of subsidiary companies scratched their heads about the significance of the number. Not long after the meeting started, the CEO told them what the number was: The former CFO's prisoner number. That drives home the importance of ethics in a very graphic way. Let's hope some bad apples in Washington join him for exercise in the yard very soon.

Today the architects of pay-for-play and the K-Street project unveiled their proposed ethics legislation. Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House and one of the archtects of the culture of corruption that is Republican Washington, claims that the current scandals are lapses of existing law. Oh, well, one does tend to defend their own creation. One bright spot is that John McCain is going to be a part of the legislative process, although his fellow Republicans are currently attacking one of his masterpieces, the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act, in the courts. Such is reform in Republican Washington. When it became apparent that McCain-Feingold would pass, Republican leaders, Hastert and Delay among others, attached measures to it to make it more vulnerable in the courts, in effect, strengthening the law to overturn it. Will we trust these to police themselves? These are the "leaders" who, when Tom Delay was chastened three times by the House Ethics Committee, gutted the committee's rules and then appointed a syncophant as chairman of the committee.

Still, the proposed reforms are a good start. Limit gifts to zero, keep lobbyists off the House and Senate floor and out of the gyms and cafeterias, make congressmen pay for their trips, these are meaningful. Eliminating earmarks - undebated grants of my tax money for bridges to nowhere in Alaska, would also help but what will help most of all is to throw the crooked bastards out of office. A Colorado state senator and a Republican summed up ethics best: Don't try to do what's best for the party. Do what's best for the state and you will do what's best for the party.

The names being tossed about are those I hold most likely to take a statesmanly approach to reform of Congress. It's just a shame it took Jack Abramoff and the Republican-created culture of corruption in Congress to bring them to the front. But remember, you can't have crooked lobbyists without crooked congressmen.

Ethics Committees?

The Republican leadership of the House and Senate ethics committees are notworthy in their silence. In the wake of some of the biggest scandals since U. S. Grant gave lobbyists their names, neither committee has opened investigations. In this Democrats are complicit. The ethics committees are the only ones balanced by party.

Last year the House Ethics Committee did launch three investigations of Tom Delay even before the Abramoff scandal cost him his position of power and, if you believe the current polls, will cost him his seat in the house. The Republican leadership then gutted the committee and put a compliant yes-man in the position of chairman. Not since Newt Gingrich (also, notably, a Republican leader of the house) was fined $300,000 for ethics violations has the House committee seriously investigated anything. This was in 1997. The Republicans have held the majority in the House since 1994.

Which leads to the conclusion that the Republican Congress is unable or more likely unwilling to police itself. They established the corrupt pay-for-play system as part of their K-Street project. They have benefited most from the corruption on the hill. They have the most to lose in any investigation of the scandals. So their committees remain quiet, waiting for new laws to put a band aid on the bleeding artery while looking for their next fat contribution check or fundraising junket to someplace I'll never afford on a lobbyist's dime.

So the Republican ethics committees are reflections of Republican ethics - at least let me do it until I get caught. We'll have to wait for prosecutors and the press to tell us about the most crooked of our lawmakers, men we elected to represent us in good faith when in effect we got indentured servants of corporate America. One day I'd like to know how much a Republican costs a lobbyist. Most likely I never will.

At least now even the Republicans are starting to abandon their worst mistake since lobbyists were named. Arlen Specter ever so softly raised the possibility of impeaching the Obfusticator in Chief. Ready for President Cheney?

Let's Start to Write the Legacy

Events of the day - a trip to Keystone and a chance to ride the lifts with some fine young men of our armed forces, gives me hope, as does news that even Sugarland, Texas knows a bum steer when they see one. Support of Tom Delay in his home district is now down to twenty percent. It's instructive to remember at this point that Nixon had a twenty-five percent approval rating when he left the White House. And Nixon, his shortcomings aside, was one of the reasons I was, for a time in my life, a Republican. The young soldiers on the lifts were a stark contrast to the corrupt congress and inept President that continues to send them to war to establish a Shiite theocracy in Iraq: The young army MP told me he was looking forward to the 2007 ski season because he'd be in Iraq again next year. The Air Force cadets were everything you could hope for in the future leadership of our country's military service. Gentlemen, you are impressive and this veteran salutes you.

Would that the little men who send you to die had your qualities. I can name few in Washington I'd salute, McCain and Murtha come to mind. These chance encounters gave me pause to reflect on twelve years of Republican supremacy in Washington and what it's done for our country.

We now have more million- and billionaires than ever and they keep getting richer. I got a two percent pay raise last year, the average CEO got twenty. I got twenty-three dollars a month in tax relief from the Bushite tax cuts. How many millions did Bill Gates sock away? The economy is good if you're in the upper percentiles of income. If you're a wage earner, it sucks and that's what our Republican majority can't seem to comprehend. As even Reagan, the inventor of trickle-down economic theory realized, it ain't trickling down.

Laura Bush was in Africa today touting abstinance-only prevention of AIDS to a culture that doesn't even have the token prohibitions on sexual activity we Western cultures profess to have. A result of this half-baked idea is the spread, not the containment, of AIDS as people attempt to preach away the disease. Condoms, an effective deterrant, are downplayed in favor of changing a behavior so basic that even the thread of hellfire hasn't been enough to stop it in our culture. I hardly think it will work in Africa.

We have had an actual debate in the United States of America whether it is right to torture people and to hold them indefinitely without trial. The shining example of democracy and freedom is a laughingstock in the rest of the world. How can we preach human rights when we have secret prisons abroad, approve waterboarding as a "severe interrogation" technique and we hold our own citizens for three and a half years without trial by playing a legal shell game? Our reputation abroad is shot, the only thing that keeps us from paraih status is the multi-trillion dollar military service we posess.

Our energy dependence has increased, largely due to the fact that those profiting from our energy dependence are those who made our energy policy. Despite all evidence that conservation, not production, is more important to our economy, our policy makers insist that conservation is bad business sense. We will eventually drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Some day some congressman owned by some oil baron will manage to get it passed. Detroit will dodge the conservation bullet, we'll destroy an ecologically sensitive area we're already destroying with the emissions from use of the product to be produced from the area. And our energy dependence, as well as our national debt, will deepen.

Pay for Play and the K-Street Project, Republican attempts to make lobbyists a part of the Government, leave Congress's reputation, already bad, in a shambles. And it is not a bipartisan scandal - Democrats receive 25% of lobbying funds and it makes no sense to bribe the minority party in our winner-take-all House of Representatives. The lobbying culture is a Republican invention: Ulysses S. Grant invented the term for those who would wait in the lobby of a Washington hotel for Grant to show up after a day's work for his whiskey. The current culture of corruption is a Republican invention, too. The K-Street project, forcing lobbying firms to hire Republicans to have access to the congressional leadership, is completely theirs. It will be a long time before Congress regains any semblance of honor.

We no longer respect the sovereignty of other nations, evidenced by a bombing raid into our nominal ally Pakistan this weekend. This will come back to haunt us when we really need, I mean really need, help from some of these. I'm not looking forward to the day when we have to invade Iran - the drums are starting to beat, people. We're hearing the same rhetoric we heard in the run-up to Iraq but this time the WMD program is real. Who will back us? Where will we base troops? If Iraq tells us to get out, will we, knowing the bases there would be vital in any military action against Iran? I rather doubt we would leave knowing that our departure may hasten the development of a middle-eastern nuclear power that isn't and doesn't like Israel. Of course, we still have Afghanistan....

Hopefully, this time next year, we will be actually writing a legacy of Republican rule in Washington. The Presidency has become such a mess that even his own party is mentioning, however cautiously, impeachment. I'm not in favor of it: President Cheney would be just as neocon as Bush but Cheney's smart where Bush is a frat-boy son of powerful and competent men. A Democratic congress would finally check the frat-boy's rush to near-imperial power and probably put a damper on his self-professed disdain for the Constitution and the law of the land.

What More do we Know About Alito?

I'd be one of the first people to stand up and say we need to scrap the current confirmation process for Federal appointees. The process is broken and useless.

The hearings concerning Judge Samuel Alito for justice of the Supreme Court were an exercise in futility. The party favoring judge Alito merely threw softballs which Alito, intellectually superior to everyone in the room, batted out of the park. The Democrats were unable to mount any kind of resistance. Indeed, one of the only moments of interest was Ted Kennedy's sparring match with Arlen Specter. Otherwise Alito did exactly what nominees have done since Bork was canned for voicing his opinions. He punted. Meanwhile, there was real news going on elsewhere in the world that deserved our attention. The nomination hearings did not.

What is Judge Alito? He's a right-wing ideologue. That's what his writings say, that's what his associations say, that's what he seems to be. Is that necessarily a bad thing? No. If he can put it aside when he's on the bench he can be whatever he'd like and donate to whomever he wants when he's off-duty. Do we know any of this from the hearings? No. We know more about what a group of bloviating Senators believe - they took up sixty percent of the time with their own bombast. Of course, all this was news, primarily because it was contained in one room and cost very little to cover.

So why bother? Just put all the evidence out there and let the Senators vote. There was no chance that anyone in that room was going to change their mind about Alito. Save us and the Senate the indignity of being batted about by their intellectual superiors and just cut to the chase. The only thing I came away from the Alito hearings were that, although I don't like him and do wish the Democrats would grow balls and demand that Frist try the nucular option, I respect him far more than the gasbags interviewing him. And by gasbags, I mean the distinguished gentlemen from both parties.

Two Unrelated Stories

Reading today about Bush's efforts to sell his failed war policies, I noted that "approval" of the war was going up (in actuality, the rate of disapproval was going down). I wondered why reasonable, intelligent people, for surely not all of Bush's supporters belong to his half of the human population, would support a polyanna repetition: Stay the course, stay the course, 9/11, stay the course.... Then I read a completely unrelated story.

India is facing a shortage of girl children due to selective abortion of girls. There are cultural reasons for this but the amazing thing about the story is the practice is most common among educated Indians of all castes and religions. The practice is shocking to us but apparently so self-evident to them that the more educated, richer families, the ones with access to clinics with ultrasound for gender determination and abortion for the unfortunate girl children, are the ones engaging in the practice of aborting girl children. Steeped in the belief that women are second-class citizens, the people are killing girls.

What does that have to do with us? It indicates to me that intelligent people believing and practicing obviously erroneous beliefs isn't an American phenomenon. We are not the only people in the world to delude ourselves into thinking something wrong is correct. It explains much to me, particularly concerning the existence of intelligent neocons: People who think it is perfectly all right for America to violate another nation's sovereignty to achieve an American goal, as was done in Pakistan just yesterday. There are those who think social Darwinism is a good thing, it's obvious that if we root out the weak, the race will improve. There are those out there who think corruption is a perfectly good way to run the country and who back it up with their contributions to the Republican National Committee. There are those out there who think torture is a positive and a weapon in the war on terrorism rather than a cheapening of America and a violation of our principles. There are perfectly rational people who think it's a good thing to impose their self-evidently right religious principles on those of us who choose to believe God is something other than the petulant abusive father described in the Old Testament. The list can go on but one thing female infanticide tells me: Deluded beliefs are difficult to shake, even for the intelligent.

Must be even more difficult for someone like Bush, pawn and puppet of the Neocons, to shake his delusions and finally see that all we've done in Iraq is foster the formation of a Shiite theocratic satellite state of Iran and a civil war at the cost of over 2,200 American lives, 16,000 wounded American soldiers and uncounted but believed to be over 100,000 Iraqi deaths. Bush's legacy is already determined: He will be remembered as the President who tried to grab imperial power and who destroyed America's reputation in the world.

Adieu, Civil Liberties

It looks like, unless someone in the greater Senate grows some balls, we will have Justice Samuel Alito. Adieu, civil liberties. Once again, the brilliant evasion tactic worked to sell America a pig in a poke.

Even more disgusting than the Republican blockers were the Democratic bloviators. Of all the Senators participating in this verbal circle jerk, only two spoke less than the appointee. Enamoured with establishing positions and the sound of their own voices, they never once held Alito to task by asking him to prove with his writings that his opinions over the years have changed.

Yes, I allow for the change of ideas over the years. I was once a Reagan Republican myself before the Party of Lincoln sold its soul to the neocons. To tell the truth, I'm not a great fan of the neolibs, either, the Ted Kennedys and the Hillary Clintons and the Howard Deans, those without a position or a soul or direction. I'm a fan of Ken Salazar, a Democrat who is not ashamed of his positions and who can allow the other side to have a good idea. I'm a fan of John McCain, a Republican who is not ashamed of his position and who can allow the other side to have a good idea. I hope both have the integrity to vote against Alito on one point: He responded to his job interview questions by attempting to evade them. Telling about him are the questions he chose not to answer.

And I'm forced to agree with Joseph Biden: The confirmation process is broken. Committee hearings are useless. The one side runs interference, the other side attempts character asassination and self-agrandizement and the appointee blithely refuses to answer any questions other than those that put him or her in a positive light and neither side has the courage to call the appointee on their evasions. Robert Bork would have been confirmed under the modern process simply because he would have evaded the tough questions using the stock answer, I might have to rule on that. So put the appointee directly on the floor of the Senate, no cameras, no microphones, just the appointee's record, their writings and the evidence of their biases and vote or filibuster or maneuver procedurally but stop the circus called confirmation hearings. They serve no purpose if the appointee doesn't answer questions and the Senators don't call the appointee to task for it.

And let's stop pretending Alito isn't biased. He is, he has been as far back as we have written record of him, he's an arch-conservative, he will vote against Roe v. Wade and for the big guy over the common man every chance he gets. It's his history and I don't expect him to change. He will work to crown the President king, to gut affirmative action, to protect the right of the police to strip-search ten year olds. That's who he is. But then, everyone is biased so let's cut to the chase and identify the biases rather than couching them in legal niceties and Senatorial position statements and brilliant evasions. What we're getting might still suck but at least we'd know what it is we're getting.

Unless some Democrat grows balls or the female equivalent thereof, unless the Democrats stand united and unless a few Republicans are still statesman enough to know that the nuclear option is bad for everyone, say hello to Justice Alito and goodbye to your civil liberties.

Bubble Boy's World Shrinks

President Bush claims he doesn't read polls. I believe that about as much as I believe that staying the current course will lead to anything other than Kurdistan and a civil war-torn Shiite Islamic Republic. A strong majority of Americans don't believe His Shrubbiness has the power to unilaterally defy both the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the FISE law by eavesdropping on Americans without a warrant, even one from a kangaroo court like FISE. And the Shrub knows it.

Today in Louisville, he continued his well-known progression of behaviors when coping with the inconvenience imposed on him by our laws and simple fact. First, when the program was revealed, he was defiant. Then he tried to shoot the messenger by going after the patriot who leaked the information. That having failed to improve the public's perception of his illegal acts, he pulled out the weasel-word machine and Republican Radio, seeking justification in obscure, unrelated legalities. Now that he's still way behind, he's not opposed to investigations, as long as they don't reveal the tactics....

Reveal the tactics? He's listening to your damned phone calls without a warrant, that's the tactic. The how is obvious: He's using these big white golf balls five miles north of me at Buckley Air Force Base or other installations such as Buckley's twin at Mildenhall, England. The what is easy, too. It's called data mining. So how is an investigation, as long as we're not revealing precise frequencies, decryption capabilities or intercept signal strengths, revealing tactics. The bad guys know what we're doing. They knew it already. It isn't the tactics we're interested in, Shrub, it's what to do with your arrogant, sorry, law-breaking ass. Then there's the blowback: The Shrub has just queered every terrorism conviction and every case currently being considered. The accused have the right to confront their accusers and to see the evidence against them. That includes secret intercepts. Now the challenge for the Shrub's Justice Department becomes proving the negative: Prove to me that my client isn't being accused based on evidence obtained through illegal wiretaps. Those of us with a blue-state education, literate, that is, know that proving the negative is logically impossible. So the Shrub's blow in the war against terrorism turns into a blow for the bad guys or just blowback.

But back to the Shrub's pattern, well known and shopworn. He's in the "reasonable guy" stage now but if you'd listened to his words, they're pinched with the barely repressed, "how dare you challenge me" little-boy snarl the Shrub affects whenever anything goes against his will. The reasonable guy phase will soon be over, we'll have gone from threatening to pleading (remember the "just let me torture every once in a while" phase in the fight for America's reputation?). Finally he'll cave in and stop the operation, or, as he proved in his signing statement (I reserve the right to break this law and torture prisoners if I fell it necessary), he'll say the program stops but will it? We'll have to wait for another patriot to leak the information to find out. Meanwhile, the tone of Bush's voice in Louisville reveals the bubble is shrinking and sometimes the unpleasant truth manages to get inside.

Brilliant Evasions

When were you ever hired for a job based on how brilliantly you evaded questions on sensitive issues? It would seem that the brilliance of the evasion is the primary criterion for a job in Republican Washington and it would seem that prospective Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is well-versed in the art.

When it's to his advantage, he answers the questions, always blandly, always using the ultimate legal caution in couching his answers. When it's to his advantage, he evades. Of course, our Republican bretheren admire this: His record indicates what he will do to shred our civil rights by favoring the large organization, be it government or corporations. They admire the smooth evasion of any question dealing with our civil rights - almost. Alito was more than ready to answer one-man-one-vote questions while evading anything to do with abortion. The man told his mother he'll do anything in his power to stop abortion, for God's sake. You think he'd vote to support Roe v. Wade?

This is an arch-conservative, make no mistake. We can pray for but not expect another Souter, a conservative who, after realizing he no longer has to be reelected, grew a conscience and became a liberal. It most likely isn't going to happen. This man will, through his position, systematically work to destroy civil liberties and to annoint the President King. But you can't tell that from his answers. To be truthful, you can tell more about Samuel Alito from his evasions - answers he does not want to give - than from the questions he's willing to answer.

If I could be granted one wish, it's that the Senate, both sides, would grow a set of cojones and demand answers from the appointees put before them. If I were Senator, I'd tell any appointee, my side or not, point-blank: My vote depends on your answers. The brilliance of your evasions will not impress me, only your answers matter. But I don't think there's a set on the Judiciary Committee big enough to make this statement before a man who's come to them seeking a job.

No where else in the world would someone be hired based on the brilliance of their evasions. Should we hire someone as the ultimate arbiter of our Constitution for as long as he wants to hold the job based on his ability to evade questions or his unwillingness to take the firm stance we know from their record they hold? I'd send him packing. I'd rather honestly disagree with a person's position than have it hidden from me by brilliant evasions.

Agreeing with Bush

On the day our civil liberties are before the Senate for confirmation, the day the military kangaroo courts resumed at Guantanamo Bay, I'm forced to agree with the Shrub when he said:

"In a free society, there's only one check on political speech and that's the judgment of the American people. So I ask all Americans to hold their elected leaders to account and demand a debate that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries."

Amen, George. A debate that brings credit to our democracy. Does that mean that you'll finally participate in the debate instead of swift-boating anyone who opposes you? Does it mean that you're finally willing to drop the "with us or against us" rhetoric and actually discuss options with someone who doesn't agree with you? Does it mean the bubble is bursting? Does that mean that the nearly two-thirds of us who oppose the war will finally be heard and we can leave the budding theocracy of our own creation to fend for itself?

I doubt it. To you, your noble words simply mean don't disagree with me, it's unpatriotic, it's giving aid and comfort to the enemy, it's treason. There's little nobility left to the Republicans these days with the culture of corruption symbolized by Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay and the polyanna President you with your refusal to listen have become. There's precious little left us Democrats either with our inability to pull together to kick you bums back to the farms and pulpits and oil fields you came from. Our party rightly responded that the President has no authority to define what is appropriate speech, as much as your man Alito may uphold your grab at royalty.

So I guess what I really mean is I agree with your words, with what they say to someone who didn't survive college on Daddy's money and cocaine. I certainly don't agree with you: Dissent is not giving aid and comfort to the enemy, it's supporting the troops in the best possible way, by fighting to bring them home safe from an ill-advised, failed attempt to impose democracy on another country. Imposing democracy by force has never worked. In Iraq, it will lead to formation of a Shiite theocracy in the image of Iran.

Alito: A Judge Shouldn't Have Any Agenda

But all of them have beliefs and it's the beliefs that scare me. Sam Alito's record is of an ultra-conservative. Even if he is the most restrained, fair and impartial judge ever, his record indicates his beliefs are ultra-conservative. Bye bye, one man, one vote. Adeiu, right to privacy. Sayonara, civil rights.

Now here's an interesting link:

Bush signs law banning annoying another on the Internet

So maybe I should post my real name here to avoid annoying anyone and committing a Federal crime. Yes, I'm not joking. It's now a Federal crime to annoy someone via the Internet if you don't give your name. This gem was stuck in a bill concerning violence against women and justice reauthorization....

So, Department of Justice, I'd like to see whitehouse.gov shut down. Their right-wing propaganda annoys me. There's an example of someone being annoyed by a perfectly legal (one of the few in this administration) activity. There will be others. The George now has another weapon in his scabbard to go along with illegal wiretaps and playing legal hide the weenie with U. S. citizens, excuse me, enemy combatants. Anyone want to bet this law won't be used against some poor blogger out there with a message the Shrub finds annoying?

This calls to attention something that desperately needs changed. Arlen Specter introduced this turkey into a completely unrelated, must-pass bill so it passed without debate. That practice must stop, for it's the recipe for pork pie and disastrous measures, of which the measure against annoyance is one. It's a favored tactic of lawmakers who want to avoid debate, i. e. those who think their ideas aren't strong enough to stand on their own merits. It's also a tactic of the majority, currently the Republicans. Come to think of it, Bush's love of bypassing the Senate with recess appointments is another facet of this practice. A Republican value, perhaps?

Of course, Bush could do the right thing and order the Justice Department not to enforce the law. Think that'll happen? He could have done the even more right thing and, for the first time in his Presidency, vetoed a bad law.

Is that a knock on my door? Are the annoyance police here already? Should I give my name?

Bush and Battlestar Galactica

I missed the half-season finale of the new Battlestar Galactica series until Thursday of last week. Aside from the enjoyment of finally seeing the adventure where the obsolete Galactica meets the state-of-the-art Pegasus, all I could think as I watched was how appropos.

If you are familiar with the rather cheesy late-70's show or are a fan of the new one, you already know what has happened. The Galactica is supposedly the only survivor of an apocalyptic attack in which the Cylons, machines invented by humans and evolved into a form indistinguishable from us apart from a certain unnatural hotness in the females, destroyed all but about fifty thousand members of humanity. Initially Adama, commander of the soon to be retired battlestar, initially wanted to take the war back to the enemy but was convinced that fleeing with a fleet of civilian vessels was the only option to save humanity. Since then he's had his ups and downs, has even pulled off a coup of the civilian government, but has come to realize that life doesn't consist of military, black-and-white, chain of command decisions. He even treats the Cylon prisoner aboard the Galactica with respect and decency. Adama has become a progressive.

Now meet Admiral Cain, commander of the Pegasus. She is cold, calculating, driven by one thing: She will defeat the Cylons at any cost. She, too, once led a civilian fleet fleeing the apocalypse but instead of nurturing and protecting the civilians as Adama did, she stripped the ships for spare parts and abandoned all but the useful survivors to destruction or death in space. She replaces those in positions of power ruthlessly, practices a divide-and-conquer leadership strategy, is willing to go to any length to win, even shooting her executive officer when he questioned an order. The Cylon prisoner aboard the Pegasus is tortured and raped and the crew is willing to turn a blind eye to it - the prisoner isn't human, after all (although the Cylons have the entire range of human emotions and feel pain). Faced with the inevitability that her war is lost, she continues to fight it even to the destruction of all she's fighting for.

The metaphor isn't lost on me. She wages a futile war because that's what she does. She strip-mines the civilian population for spare parts and personnel to run her war. She allows, even encourages torture of prisoners. She's willing to kill at a moment's notice to have her way. Civilians are disposable resources to her as long as the war machine is fed. She goes against the very principles of the civilization she claimes to fight to preserve....

I'm surprised the conservatives haven't screamed about these episodes as they did about the final installment of the Star Wars hexology. Perhaps such a clear metaphor buried in a science fiction action adventure show (my one television guilty pleasure) was lost on them, all they saw was a leader doing whatever it takes to further her own agenda and not a reflection of the current administration and Republican leadership in a slightly distorted mirror.

One Down, Sixty to Go

In a rare show of ethics, Tom Delay did the right thing today and stepped down as House Majority Leader. He has indicated he wants to try for the post again in November but I'd rather doubt he's allowed. Unless the Texas district he patched together out of parts of Houston extending to the Rio Grande is composed of the completely blind or morally lost, he will not be re-elected and when Abramoff starts to sing, he'll probably be in worse legal shape than he's already in, if not behind bars.

The Culture of Corruption that is Republican Washington is shaking. Fifty-six percent of Americans believe Bush's unwarranted, unsupervised domestic espionage program is wrong. Of course, Nixon still had 25 percent approval when he left office, so don't read too much into that number. I'd bet if the question were phrased, "should the President be allowed, without court oversight, to listen in on your telephone conversations," the support would have been much lower. The Shrub isn't immune from the sale of America, witness his continued polyanna drive to have his tax cuts made permanent. Now we're not talking about the tax cuts that put a whopping $23 per month in my pocket, we're talking about the cuts to capital gains and dividends, both modes of income only of concern to those of us with more to invest in the stock markets than goes into tax-sheltered accounts such as IRAs and 401ks. His rich owners want this because it benefits them. He'll try to push it through congress while exercising "fiscal restraint" on those programs that benefit the poor and middle class.

Don't forget, Abramoff is only one of the K-street gang of lobbyists the Republicans managed to get installed. There are more. The culture of corruption that is Republican Washington goes far deeper than one lobbyist and sixty or so lawmakers. Delay is the first victim of the scandal. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Bubble Boy's Self-Contradiction

Today the Shrubbery Road Show hit the road to tell me that despite flat incomes for the past five years, a two percent increase in the number of people living in poverty, another two million Americans without health care coverage and dramatically increased costs of living, the economy is just cooking along. Of course, my finances are schizophrenic. The part of them that is supported by a job and that has to pay to heat my modest suburban home isn't noticing anything except a decline in my lifestyle while the part that is invested in the stock market is joyous. All this, claims the Shrub, are the result of tax reductions that we need to make permanent.

Uh, Prevaricator in Chief, isn't the deficit a problem? I read today that China may move some of its financial reserves from dollars to other currencies. Won't that mean a very weak dollar as in falling free as the Chilean peso? While that may be great for U. S. manufactured goods, the few that we still manufacture, won't it mean that my costs of heating my modest home, foreign oil bought with weak U. S. dollars, will increase further? All it will take for the dollar to crash is for a major investor to decide that another currency is more attractive then there are two options: Raise interest rates to levels not seen since the seventies and bankrupt U. S. businesses or settle for hyperinflation as the dollar goes into free-fall against the remainder of the world's currencies. A permanent tax cut to make a few million- and billionaires a bit richer won't help that problem in the least.

Then there's the simple fact that the economy, in your words, is cooking along. The Fed has been raising interest rates to cool the economy for how long now? So, given me the deficits, Mr. Obfuscator in Chief, where is the need to cut taxes? The economy doesn't need it, the deficit doesn't need it, there's no need for it unless....

Shrink government to the point where you can drown it in a bathtub, isn't that the Neocon mantra? The only logical reason to cut taxes is to shrink government. I tend to like balanced solutions, Mr. Shrubinator, solutions that both rely on individual initiative (saving for retirement) and government help (Social Security in case the market zags while I'm zigging). Drug companies and privately-owned hospitals will never fight a bird flu epidemic, nor will they make decisions based on the greater good. The medications and respirators will be for sale to the highest bidder - a seventy-five year old billionaire is on life support that could save a young, less affluent person. Is that the Republican dream? Individuals ueber alles? I tend to believe there is a greater good, a good individuals may serve as evidenced by the Sago miners giving the survivor their oxygen so he can raise his family and a good that organizations may serve. Corporations do not tend to take the altruistic position and are ill-suited to replace the government you, Herr President, want to drown.

Cutting taxes to stimulate the economy? You contradict yourself, bubble boy. What's the real reason?

More Power Grabbing

Not satisfied with contempt of the law and the Constitution in ordering secret, unsupervised wiretaps of American citizens, Herr Shrub today bypassed the Senate confirmation process and appointed another group of cronies to positions they are not qualified to fill. Joining John Bolton, the ranks of the Shrub's syncophants are filled with Hans van Spakovski to the Federal Election Commission. Van Spakowski is famous for championing the requirement for Georgia voters to have a photo ID, something they have to pay for and something that discriminates against poor blacks, not exactly Republican constituency. He's also known as being a part of Delay's gerrymander of Texas that gave power to the Republicans at the expense of the state's Latino population through fragmenting districts with predominantly Latino, read Democratic, populations. He also appointed a crony to the National Labor Relations Board, a defeat for organized labor and safety enforcement that could have saved the lives of twelve miners in Sago, W. Va. Finally, Ellen Sauerbrey, a staunch advocate of the Administration's anti-choice agenda, got the nod for Assistant Secretary of State for Refugees. Poor and now due to administration policies pregnant, the shores will be teeming with that many more, not to mention the unchecked spread of AIDS because the flat-earthers believe they can overcome basic human physical drives with their pseudo-religion.

There are more but more disturbing is the Administration's claim that we're stuck with these turkeys until 2007. The Senate held a pro-forma session on Tuesday, which the power-hungry neocons seized as an opportunity to call the Senate in session. Since the Constitution, the very document the Shrub called a worthless piece of paper and tramples at every opportunity, gives the President the authority to make recess appointments good through the end of the next session of Congress, he's claiming the end 0f 2007 as the drop-dead date for these losers.

Now for a War on Terror "success story", since enacting tougher border controls, the Homeland Security office is 0 for forty-five million. That's right, not a single known or suspected terrorist has tried to enter our besieged land since the Homeland Paranoia department instituted their passport-required for Canada, a truely dangerous land of liberals. They're claiming an effective deterrance. The babies caught in the tougher travel measures applaud as they're doodying their diapers in your holding area, Homeland Security. I feel so much safer.

Here's a letter concerning ANWAR drilling written by yours truely. Enjoy!

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/letters/article/0,2777,DRMN_23966_4363899,00.html

Cheney's Lackluster Defense

The Press called Dick Cheney's defense of Bush's domestic espionage program "vigorous". I suppose I can go along with that if volume and bluster are the criteria by which a vigorous defense is judged. It would fit: Bush's mantra for years has been if you repeat an untruth often enough it becomes true. Cheney's pro-espionage rant was not a defense. A defense would have explained why it was necessary to bypass the FISE court, an organization with a mandate to approve requests, or why they couldn't produce enough evidence to warrant the wiretaps in the 72 hours they can use without any approval at all. The FISE court has approved all but six requests since its formation, the irony of which is that the majority of the six rejects belong to the Bush administration. Also the majority of the court's modifications to espionage plans belong to the Shrub's nascent KGB.

The only defense Cheney offered was the old, tired, 9/11. If you repeat it often enough it becomes true, right, George? Given the FISE court's record of rubber-stamping wiretap requests, the only possible defense of bypassing it would be an assumption that a member of the court was compromised. I've yet to hear that hypothesis offered. All this leads to one conclusion: The administration wanted to grab power to do as it wants. That, my friends, is not checks and balances. It's a budding dictatorship.

Following 9/11 we through Congress gave Mr. Bush near carte blanche to run the war on terror as he saw fit (although that authorization did not include waging the war on terror within the U. S.). He and his gang of cabinet thugs have proven themselves unworthy of the power alloted a dog catcher, much less a "wartime" administration. We must now count on Congress to rein the Shrub and his gang in. That means putting rational controls on the Patriot Act and, I'm sorry, leave my library card alone unless you have probable cause to search it.

The sad thing about the lastest misstep of the Bush administration is that it was unnecessary. Everything they wanted to do could have been done legally. The president saw this as an opportunity to seize power from Congress, to do literally whatever he wanted and grabbed at the opportunity. In Cheney's lackluster defense, he accused opponents of the program of downplaying the threat terrorists posed. What actually is happening? Congress is taking back power foolishly granted to fools and would-be dictators.

Little Evils

Serial killers generally don't start out killing people. They start by torturing a doll or an animal. Dictators generally begin their careers by doing something good for their people. Hitler, for example, got the German economy running and some would argue more importantly, he got the trains running on time. Jack Abramoff didn't start his career by bribing congressmen, he started with slightly shady deals.

Evil generally doesn't appear full-blown. No one I know would torture someone to prevent a petty theft but practically everyone would to save a million lives. That would be perceived as a small evil against the greater good. The problem is, the sum of small evils is never the greater good, rather a greater evil.

In our time, we face small evils on a daily basis: the erosion of civil liberties called the Patriot Act, the attempted power grabs by the Executive branch of government, unchecked wiretapping, little tortures of prisoners in Guantanamo, the disappearance from the streets of a few bad individuals, the wholesale corruption in Congress that began with little gifts from unscrupulous men. We face times of tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the poor, of attempts to drill in the ANWAR without any attempt to conserve energy. These are small evils, hell, I'd give up ANWAR in a heartbeat for meaningful energy conservation and carbon dioxide emission reduction measures. The problem is they aren't adding up to a greater good as defined by our so-called leadership as a war on terrorism or a healthy economy. Homeland Security funding, a backbone of any real war on terrorism, have been allocated by some arcane political formula by which rural communities in Montana get chemical attack detectors and New Orleans gets tragic hurricane response. Alaska gets a half-billion dollar bridge to link fifty people to Anchorage while student loans are cut for the poor. Such are the little evils perpetrated on us.

Our former friends abroad no longer trust us, such is the sum of little evils under our current leadership. Five years of Republican preeminency have resulted in flat incomes but increased prices and I'm sorry, folks, you can't factor energy and food out of inflation. Oil jumps two dollars a barrel based on a weather forecast, such is the result of the little evils of poor energy policy and reliance on status-quo solutions, the very definition of conservatism. We have become a nation with a serious debate about torturing people, a nation with secret prisons abroad, a nation that spies on its own citizens, a nation that pays for propaganda.

Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia were the sum of little evils, many of which are being perpetrated in Washington today. The Conservatives have brought the word "evil" back into fashion. Perhaps they should look at what constitutes evil and what constitutes good. The greater good is served by only one type of deed, good deeds. The little evils being perpetrated on us today only serve to erode our way of life, our freedoms and our standing in the world.

Republican Radio

I had a very interesting experience on the way back from Breckenridge today. I actually listened to part of a conservative talk show. There was this host, I can't remember his name, comparing the torture of terror suspects to an incident where a man supposedly tested positive to HIV then tested negative. The host also threw emminent domain in, why unless to have a point on which most of us agree, I have no idea. He then wrapped the whole thing in basic ethics with the basic point: It is equally okay to torture a terrorist to save millions as to forcibly take samples from the supposed HIV survivor as to take someone's property to build a Wal-Mart parking lot.

I'll get to the factual errors later. The comparison of forcibly taking a blood sample from an HIV survivor to torturing a terrorist to save millions is, firstly, a false comparison. No one is going to torture the HIV survivor and the HIV survivor has something tangible to offer. Should he be forced to give up a DNA swab or some bodily fluids? I think so. The terrorist, on the other hand, has information and, as John McCain so aptly put it, a tortured man will say or do anything he thinks the captor wants to hear to stop the torture. But our hypothetical terrorist has information that could save a million people. Is it a good thing to torture the information out of him? Most of us would probably agree that if torturing one man would save a million people, it would be a good thing. How about five hundred thousand, then? A hundred? Fifty? Three? Where do you draw the line, even assuming you can get reliable information from a tortured man, historical evidence aside? Many have explored the theme of doing evil to do good in literature and the general consensus is that you can't do good by doing evil. It is small lapses that lead to great evil because every small lapse, every violation of principles make the next one easier.

Now to the facts about the gentleman who supposedly got over HIV infection. I Googled the theme and got the following information: The story broke in the Daily Mail on November 13th, not exactly yesterday's news. The gentleman tested positive, then fourteen months later tested negative. This is, in the words of a caregiver quoted in the article "rare," not "unheard of." Finally he told the paper, "I can't help wondering if I hold the cure for Aids. There are 34.9 million people with HIV and if I have something to contribute, then I am willing and ready to help." That's a far cry from the resistance to further testing the talk show host reported but then again, someone resisting doing good for his fellow man just because fits with the pessimistic Conservative world view far better than it does with an informed, progressive one.