The Salazars' Betrayal

The Salazar Brothers, Ken and John, betrayed Colorado last week with their vote to turn the United States into a law of torturers and gulags. The interrogation techniques their "yes" vote on the Republicans' effort at absolute power for the executive made legal the United States's use of the same interrogation techniques the Vietcong used so effectively on our airmen and that the Khmer Rouge used to great impact on their population. Further, the vague language of the bill allows Bush and Rumsfeld to make "enemy combattants" out of effectively anyone they please. So the scenario is now we take anyone we want off the street and if we never want to let them go, we declare them enemy combatants and never give them a trial. If we do, we waterboard a confession out of them - perfectly legal since the act allows coerced testimony - or find someone to present "hearsay" evidence against them. Then we put them in a prison overseas, away from the prying eyes of American journalists and the citizenry, just as the Nazis put their most notorious death camps outside of Germany.

The betrayal goes even further than passing the worst possible measure for America. It demeans our national values. No one who isn't willing to torture the nine year old daughter of a suspected terrorist to extract "information", most likely useless, from the terrorist should support someone else doing it. It gives Bush and his CIA torture squad a free pass for illegal actions under the War Crimes act and the Geneva Conventions and it makes us the enemy I served to defeat - the Soviet Union.

"The bill I voted for today was the best bill we could reasonably expect in this highly charged political environment," said Ken Salazar on his web site in his mea culpa for voting for the measure. "Due to the many controversial and far-reaching implications of this bill, I believe it would be appropriate to force Congressional review of this bill in five years. I have concerns with this bill, but on balance it meets my personal view of what America needs to get the job done."

Will Congress review the bill in five years? Are we assuming a Democratic takeover of power and a less power-mad president (remember the legal maneuverings they took to keep Jose Padilla in prison for four years without being accused of anything)? Was a bill that allows torture, that eliminates habeas corpus for those held as enemy combatants and that gives criminals a free pass the best we can come up with? And finally, does the Senator not imagine that Republicans will use the twelve Democratic votes for the measure as a proof of "bipartisanship?"

In short, Ken and John Salazar have betrayed the people of Colorado, the nation and our Democratic party that got them elected despite the Republican headwind of two years ago. If I had wanted to vote for a Repubican-lite, I'd have voted for their opponents.

Both deserve to be ex-lawmakers in the next Democratic primary.

The Most Important Issue in America

Quick, what's the most important issue facing Washington right now. Is it the War in Iraq, the war against radical jihadists? The deficit? Health care? Poverty?

To Marilyn Musgrave, it's gay marriage.

Misplaced priorities, anyone?

I keep remembering that kiss Bush gave her on the head. That brain wasting disease Bush seems to suffer from must be contagious.

Global Warming - A Visual

Today I went up to Summit County to ride my bicycle. As always, I'm astonished and depressed at the damage the bark beetle is doing to the forest there. Just a rough visual, one in four trees are dead and I'm certain numerous others are infested. It seems there's no stopping the pest. The town of Dillon was taking draconian action, clearing their forest of infected trees yet it is most likely too little, too late as the beetle has finally spread east of the Continental Divide.

The bark beetle is a poster child for global warming. In the past there were bark beetles in our forests but the winter got cold enough to kill off most of the grubs. Now that's no longer the case. Last winter it was warm enough our snowpack began to melt in March. Combined with the close spacing of our trees due to excessive fire fighting, the beetle can march eastward almost as fast as the Japanese beetle is marching westward.

This comes amid rumors that Bush is about to convert to the anti-global-warming camp. The timing is suspicious as is the conversion - Bush is desperately trying to avoid two years of congressional subpoenas so is willing to grasp at any straws. I compare this to his Christian conversion. Bush is nominally a born-again Christian yet he lies, cheats, tortures and falsely imprisons. For five years he has fought any restrictions on greenhouse gas emission, citing the famous cigarette-maker pseudo-scientific obfuscational phrase, "It's not completely clear that...." For years Bush and the Republicans have used this phrase in lieu of coming up with any sound scientific alternative to global warming, indeed, that's the purpose of the phrase, to stall. It's an attempt to fillibuster science.

So don't get me wrong, I'm not implying that Bush can't have a change of heart. I just suspect very strongly that his "conversion" is politically motivated and about as sincere as his so-called devotion to Christianity.

The 65% Solution

On the surface, it sounds like a great idea. Write into law through the ballot initiative that 65% of all education funding must be spent in the classroom. Great, you say. Mandate that we can't be wasting money on lavish administrator salaries and grounds and all that fluff. Now ask yourself, why would GOPers, conservative sponsors of the measure intent on raising private education up as the model of an efficient educational system, want to add money to the public schools?

They don't. What they want to do is shuffle money. Rest assured, this bill will raise no new funds for education in Colorado. Instead it would move money from transportation and school lunches out of those programs and into the classroom. Great, you say but here's the word of my teacher girlfriend: Try teaching a hungry student. And how, without transportation, are some of these kids to get to school in the first place?

The flaws in the initiative have prompted pro-education groups to add another initiative to keep the money to go to 65% classroom funding from coming from programs that will hurt students. Hopefully the Blue Book will spell this out and hopefully voters will read it and understand the implications of the GOPer 65% solution to lame public education even farther. I remain skeptical; however, I can hope for the best.

Please, if you must vote for the 65% solution, vote for the amendment requiring the money come from other sources than transportation and food assistance. You can't teach a hungry child and you can't teach one that isn't there. The GOPers' compassion would require teachers attempt to do both.

His Lips are Moving

Look here... A Washington Post story about the CIA closing the Bin Laden unit.

Then here.... Here Bush says "You know, there is a kind of an urban myth here in Washington about how this administration hasn't stayed focused on Osama bin Laden. Forget it. It's convenient throw-away lines, you know, when people say that."

Once again, Bush's actions don't square with his rhetoric. I tend to believe the actions. The hunt for Bin Laden will not progress as long as Bush needs him to support fear-mongering. This is the sick symbiosis we've created between our increasingly out-of-touch government and the terrorists they claim to fight.

Democracy on the March

I love it when the Shrub gets angry! It means he's not getting his way which also means Democracy probably has prevailed. No, George, you don't get to try the detainees using evidence they can't see. No, George, you can't use coerced (read obtained by torture) evidence and you can't use hearsay.

His jaw clenches. You can see the muscles clenching. Well, King George says, if you won't get me what I want, I'll just not try them! I'll keep them forever! Constitution be damned, they're terrists! We need to try the guilty bastards so we can shoot them!

No, George, it doesn't work that way. Even captured on the battlefield, the fundamental principle of American justice is innocent until proven guilty. Some of these guys are there for wearing a Casio watch. Some are there because they were caught near the battlefield in green clothes. Some are there because someone with a grudge sold them for the bounty. Some, if they weren't terrorists before they came to your little shop of horrors, are now.

And I just love it when he's at a loss for words. There's no comparison, he says, between the extremists and the U. S. He's right. Our body count is much higher, something in the 50,000-100,000 range. They're not worth counting to the Shrub.

A Sea Change in the Colored-Red State

We're on our way to renaming the state Coloazul.

Screw "purple state." We're going for blue.

Imagine...

Today the GOPer Senate laid a smackdown on GWBush - no way will we approve your drumhead tribunals that deny the accused the right to see all the evidence against him, that accept "coerced" (read "alternative interrogation techniques" or "torture") evidence or even hearsay before declaring summarily that the poor guilty bastard is indeed guilty. Firing squad tomorrow at dawn. No, they said, asserting for the first time in five years Congress's place as a co-equal branch of the Federal government. Imagine if it had been that way all along.

No Patriot Act and its incredible internal espionage provisions. There would have been action taken to break down the walls around the intelligence community, walls that should remain in place if for no other reason than to provide checks and balances and to prevent groupthink on a national scale, but civil liberties would have remained in place. Guantanamo and the CIA's black prisons and their incredible harm to the U. S.'s reputation in the world would have been shut down before it could have become operational. The rich would be paying for the war in Afghanistan, a war we should have fought to win, with their fair share of taxes.

We would not be in Iraq.

Abu Ghraib would never have happened.

The President would be on the Hill explaining why he considered it necessary to break the law and end-run Congress with his illegal wiretapping operation.

It would be different. The world I imagine is no fairyland, no eutopia but a far cry from the budding dystopia of the Bush administration. It will be nice to, once again, assert our rights and change the balance of power from one-party dystopia to the messiness of a semblance of balance of power. I am looking forward to November 8th, the start of the U. S.'s rebirth as a just nation and a good citizen of the world.

Tancredo Wraps Himself in the (Confederate) Flag

Tommy the Xenophobe shows his true Confederate colors:

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=79

We knew he was a xenophobe and a white supremacist. Now he's openly attending Confederate rallies. What next, Hakenkreutze on his campaign posters? A shaved head? Seriously, I don't think Tom's extreme position represents Colorado's Sixth Congressional District and I certainly don't think we want him as a Presidential candidate. I can see him standing alongside Jefferson Davis but not sitting in the Oval Office spewing his bile.

It's time to end his political career. Vote for Bill Winter for HD6. We'd be much better represented than by a man who willingly wraps himself in the Confederate flag.

Casualties of 9/11

I honor the 3000 who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon five years ago. In addition to them, there are a number of other casualties of that attack, the greatest of which is the country I was ready to defend. Many of Republican Washington's policies are no longer defensible. This is the saddest casualty of the attack.

We lost foremost truth. Our government has systematically lied to us about a number of results of the attack, most notably the war in Iraq. Even though the Republican Senate has reported that there was no connection between Iraq and the attacks of five years ago, Cheney continues to assert there somehow is.

We lost our honor. We have become a country of torturers, something I would never have considered years ago. The Russians were the bad guys, they did things like waterboarding and "unconventional interrogation techniques." We were the good guys. No more can we make that claim.

We lost our civil liberties. This is the saddest of casualties and the greatest of victories for our enemies. We've become like them in that we will torture, we will kidnap, for what were the CIA's secret prisons other than organized, government-sanctioned kidnapping. We will imprison without the hope of trial and when the judiciary is engaged, the Government will play shell games to keep the prisoner from being tried, accused, counseled. We will summarily sentence the condemned without giving them the right to see the evidence against them and to confront their accusers all in the name of secrecy. No more can we claim the honor of shining beacon of freedom.

We've lost our moral compass. Espionage without oversight is considered by Republican Washington to be quite all right as long as it's not happening to them. Republican Washington wages a war based on lies but does not send their own nor do they pay taxes to support the war. Corporate profits are at an all-time high measured against the GNP while wages are at an all-time low against the same yardstick. We will not raise the minimum wage unless we cut $1.4 million from 8000 of America's wealthiests' taxes.

We've lost our leadership in the world. Republicans send a bully to the U. N. in the guise of a diplomat. We've traded our traditional allies for third-world partners of convenience who will support our twisted policies.

The greatest casualty of 9/11? America. I give up, the terrorists won.