A Preview of Tonight's State of the Union

***Update 2/1/06, 1:30pm – MoxieGrrrl has uncovered the most significant issue from last night’s speech…you can read more here.

One thing I'll say about Bush is that he doesn't mince words. Oh, and he's doin' a heck of a job.




Read Mark Morford's State of the Union here.

Pete From Troy

For those of you with audio capabilities, I’d like for you to listen to the following call that came into the Jerry Springer Radio Show (I know) the other day. I think this call sample is important because it really does embody the conservative movement of today, and I think people need to be called out on this stuff as much as possible.

Listen.


Here are some direct correlations between this caller and conservative arguments in general…a guide to debating with conservatives, 101 if you will (in order to listen to this, you have to get the Jerry Springer part out of your simple little mind – his radio show isn’t too bad…it’s actually for moderate to moderately conservative people…conservatives make up 30% of his callers, perhaps identifying with the White Trash theme of his former show).

Conservative Behavior: The caller beings by claiming to be a specialist in the are of history, and therefore world events.
Analysis: Fearing their credibility will automatically be lost by supporting the Bush administration, most conservatives feel obligated to point out they have had some education on some of this stuff somewhere.

Conservative Behavior: The caller compares the war in Iraq with another moment or war in history that made a significant, positive impact upon society.
Analysis: We see here that the caller has chosen World War II. World War I, the fight against fascism/imperialism, etc (a lot of what we're fighting against with our own president today) and fighting the terrorists who “did 9/11” would have also been acceptable.

My WWII decorated veteran friend, also known as my grandfather, is frankly insulted by this argument. It has nothing to do with the two armies - but rather to compare the noble cause of World War II and the struggle this country faced against that enemy along with the coalition fighting along side us – is frankly insulting.

Bush himself has adopted the WWII analogy in recent speeches, and the distinct sound of veterans of that war no longer with us today can be heard rolling in their graves at Arlington National Cemetery.

Attacking an unarmed nation against the will of most of your own allies when that nation hasn’t even attacked you is hardly the decision-making leadership of president fighting a noble cause.

Conservative Behavior: Evoking the black=white, up=down, rules of Bizzarro world, and therefore arguing against ones self.
Analysis: In this case the caller explains exactly what the situation is, but unfortunately for him, this moment of truth blows apart his entire argument, and Springer missed this point entirely (perhaps his in-studio producer could have thrown a chair at him to wake him up).

The caller states the following:

"They are making the mistake, however, in that they are not confronting what radical Islam is all about. The very essence of their belief, is the - the Wahabi, radical Islam. If you read books on this, you will understand what their intent is. And what we're doing now - the man that spoke a little while ago - about knowing what your enemy is, is absolutely correct. We do not understand...

What would the American people do if we had never gone into Iraq, and the Middle East...continued to be run by tyrants who that tolerated these radical Islamic fanatics. And they had a suitcase bomb, and instead of the towers going up in New York, New York disappeared off the face of the map and nobody knew where it came from?"

What he’s stating is that those who attacked us on September 11th, and who continue to attack our allies thereafter, are all part of extremist, ultra-conservative Muslim groups originating from the Wahabi movement, perhaps the most radical sect of Islam. Osama Bin Laden, for example, is Wahabiist, as are many Saudi Muslims.

The caller is absolutely correct. And because of that, he just blew apart his own argument.

At the very heart of the fallout from the Iraq war, the very specific fact that, other than Afghanistan, we DID NOT target a nation with close ties to Al Qaeda, radical Islam, or any form of terrorism aimed at the United States and our allies. We instead went after, "Islamically speaking," one of the more progressive states in the region.

- One that had almost no tolerance for radical religious behavior within it's own borders.

- One that felt so threatened by it's neighboring Shiite Muslim radicals, it declared unprovoked chemical warfare on it's people, killing over 1 million of them.

- One that was so anti-extremist, it absolutely squashed it's own domestic Shiite movement to where they were nearly segregated, second class citizens despite being the majority population.

- One that was so adamant toward a brutal, secular dictatorship, there are no records showing it ever cooperated with the actual extremists who hated the United States as much as they did, wasting a coalition opportunity.

Instead, what we've seen is:

- An Afghanistan whose former Taliban members are re-organizing,

- An Iranian election that propelled a conservative Islamic leader, cozy with the 1979 Islamic revolution, into power

- Syrian and Lebanese nations where Hezbollah is still running strong, and of course

- Hamas about to blow the roof off to the delight of the camps in the West Bank.

The caller is exactly right on, and doesn't even know why. We missed the super-conservative, Right-wing Muslim states, governments, and terrorist groups - and instead ousted a crazy dictator who raped more than he prayed.

The caller therefore becomes the very person he criticizes at the start of his rant, and most of the conservatives who still can't get enough Clinton cock-talk during the lunch room in your office - totally lost.

Randi Rhodes on CNN

It's rare that she makes an appearance in the corporate media - but Randi Rhodes, host of the best liberal...best talk show ever, will be on CNN Monday night, 9pm EST. Don't even think about missing it.

Listen as a College Sophomore Dumbfounds Our President

The RNC has long set up situations to ensure that when President Bush appears in public, it’s a VERY carefully scripted PR event. From making attendees sign a statement on the election trail 2004, to the fake town hall meetings that followed, to preparing staged, rehearsed “question & answer” PR session with our troops, to having fewer press conferences than any sitting president in recent history, Bush does NOT like to speak off the cuff.

Recently he’s been attempting some question & answer sessions which include people complimenting him furiously, almost freakishly with many of the questions asked, until…

Someone went off-script.

That someone was KSU sophomore Tiffany Cooper. Here’s how the Q&A played out:

Cooper: "Recently, $12.7 billion was cut from education, and I was just wondering, you know, how is that supposed to help our futures?"

Your President: "The education budget was cut?" Bush responded. "Say it again. What was cut? At the federal level?"

Cooper: (repeats question)

Your President: “Uh, actually…I think what we did was reform the student-loan
program.” (Actually, according to Becky Timmons, director of government relations for the American Council on Education, "When you take [$12.7 billion] out of the program, you can both hit the lenders and make students and parents pay a lot more when they repay their loans.”)

You have to listen to the audio here, because the text simply doesn't do it justice.
Note the applause Tiffany Cooper gets, and the laughter Bush gets as he's trying to figure out what the hell to say. Commentary provided by Sam Ceder of Air America at the end (video here).

So again, I reiterate the point that I keep making over and over on this site because it’s something most people, including some on the left don’t seem to understand.

It’s not that Bush can’t speak well – he does indeed speak at a 10th grade level and has some strong signs of dyslexia, but that’s NOT THE PROBLEM. Just because you have some trouble with articulation, it doesn’t mean you’re a moron or an idiot on the subject.

I get really angry when people misunderstand this. People say, "oh, he's just tripping up on his words," or, "what, the president can't make a mistake in his speeches?"

No. That is NOT what I'm talking about.

Bush’s problem is that he DOESN’T KNOW THE ANSWERS. He doesn’t do the research, he doesn’t understand the questions, and he doesn’t have enough knowledge, sophistication, or complexity to really process questions on the fly and answer them. He’s like a high school kid trying to fake his way through a history essay he didn’t study for. He is unable to grasp the concepts or provide ANY intellectual insight to build his sentence structure in the first place.

I’m embarrassed when my boss at work does this. When it applies to our president, I am mortified, and frightened.

حركة المقاومة الاسلامية = This Can't Be Good...

The major justification armchair quarterbacks in favor of this Iraq war have given – other than WMD’s and ties to 9/11 – is that attack an unarmed country that didn’t threaten us in the most politically sensitive region on the planet will spread peace, like fairy dust, throughout the region.

Apparently the voters in the Palestinian legislative elections didn’t get the message.

By an overwhelming and what some are even considering a shocking victory, the Palestinian state has just seated a known terrorist organization to run the government.

Granted, Hamas is just as involved with running soccer teams and financing charities as much, if not more than exploding busses in Tel Aviv during rush hour – but make no mistake, this election is very, very significant news not only for that region but also for ours.

We’re reminded constantly from our current administration that the war in Iraq is planting the seed of freedom, peace, and (insert bumper sticker slogan here). With Iraq’s own government now tilted toward an Iranian-friendly Shiite majority, Iran pledging to grow it’s nuclear program, and a Terrorist organization who would rather annihilate Israel that sit down for talks with it – I’d say the seeds of peace may have a long time before they bud.

But hey, maybe I’m just a pessimist.

Say what you want about Saddam – he was a brutal tyrant – but he wasn’t a fundamentalist Islamic crusader, and that’s exactly where much of the terror aimed at the West comes from. Sounds incredibly fundamental and obvious, but you wouldn’t believe the amount of people on the Right who haven’t learned this concept yet. One of them is giving a press conference with a smirk on his face as I write this.

Over at needlenose, there are a couple photos of Bush from said conference:

Rhodes Interviews Dean

I have the audio of the Randi Rhodes brilliant interview with Howard Dean the other day. Please feel free to listen here.

Bush on Katrina: Move Along, Nothing to Learn Here

You may recall just a short time after Bush congratulated Brownie on doing a heck of a job as the head of FEMA handling the Katrina response, he mentioned that we were going to learn from the mistakes that he took responsibility for.

Remeber? He said:

This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. We're going to review every action and make necessary changes, so that we are better prepared for any challenge of nature, or act of evil men, that could threaten our people.

I nearly fell out of my chair.

Well, I’m happy to say there will be no more metaphorical chair-falling, because apparently the Bush administration is no longer interested in learning from the tragedy.

In other words – and I know it might be hard for some of you to believe this – but the pledge Bush made to learn from this awful mess was really just a PR stunt. Coming from the president who was reprimanded by Office of Government Accountability for illegal propaganda, I’m guessing most reading this are not picking themselves off the floor either.

That’s because it has been revealed by Joe “Closet Republican” Lieberman (D-CT) and Susan “Closet Lesbian” Collins (R-ME) that the Bush administration is significantly stifling the federal investigation into what the hell happened.

As you may recall, the Bush administration is not real big on investigating failures or national security issues. Just ask Scooter Libby. Just ask the 9/11 commission. Ask those who wanted to extend the deadline of the probe. Ask those trying to obtain information about Abramoff and Bush. Now add the red-voting Gulf Coast to the list.

The White House is hampering a Senate inquiry into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina by barring administration officials from answering questions and by not handing over documents, senators leading the probe said yesterday.

''We are entitled to know if someone from the Department of Homeland Security calls someone at the White House during this whole crisis period," Collins said. ''So I think the White House has gone too far in restricting basic information about who called whom on what day."

She also said that it ''is completely inappropriate" for the White House to bar agency officials from talking to the Senate committee.

Read more here.

New Pentagon Report Hates the Troops

When Bush continually smirks at the camera and tells us that we will prevail and defeat the Iraqis rising up against us – in Iraq – he is describing to you his definition of victory.

If you are one of the countless millions of Americans who are leery when asked by Bush officials to blind faith in your federal government, considering the “just trust us” motto he’s used for 5 years has burned our country almost every single time, perhaps you’d like to read the latest Pentagon report indicating the army is stretched too thin to defeat the insurgency with our current level of troop rotation. It also casts a different light on the decision to reduce troop levels, as the reason for this decision seems less like, “yay, we’re winning!” and more like, “the civilians in charge of these decisions may have really planned this thing poorly.” From MSNBC:

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon’s decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

The 136-page report represents a more sobering picture of the Army’s condition than military officials offer in public. While not released publicly, a copy of the report was provided in response to an Associated Press inquiry.

Thankfully, the insurgency is in it’s last throes.

Toture Czar Gonzales Gets Cold Greeting

Alberto "It Ain't Torture if you Ain't Dead" Gonzales, not exactly a big fan of civil liberties, was greeted during his PR speech defending Bush's illegal wiretapping since Sept 11th with the following banner:

The banner, scrawled with the words of newly annointed al Qaeda member Ben Franklin, was held up by protestors, while others in the crowd turned their backs on Gonzales (those must have been the Republicans in the audience, who always scream about wanting smaller government. Yep, those had to have been Republicans).

Gonzales went on to lie his ass off when he told the crowd, many of which had their backs toward him, that Congress was aware of the wiretapping and said nothing (First off all Congress was not aware - the Senate Comittee was, and not nearly to the extent of the program. Republicans and Democrats have BOTH stated they were not briefed fully. Secondly, they were not allowed to speak of the program due to 'national security' issues. Third, you may perhaps be able to cite some examples in which whistle-blowers have had a tough time with this administration in power. Just a few.)

After seeing the sign, Gonzales paused briefly during his speech to ask, "why does Ben Franklin hate America?"

Reconstruction ? Not Going Well.

Whenever we see the President and His (capitalization of the H intentional) people speak of how incredibly well the war in Iraq is going…and no, I’m not speaking of the insurgency being in their last throes…we’re often fed a completely misdirected, black=white, up=down view of the world for us to feed on.

One of the most echoed Republican talking points is of how well the rebuilding is going. That despite the nation we’ve occupied over 2 years now doesn’t have steady power, other significant utilities or the freedom to allow any Western person to walk around on most city streets, there are schools and buildings and businesses springing up everywhere. Iraq is the new SIM city, and the liberal media – you know with its members who compare Bin Laden to Democrats on their cable talk shows – are just ignoring the amazing progress we’re making.

Well, according to the latest report by the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq, the reconstruction effort – the ONLY thing the Administration can tout, other than freedom flowers sprouting all over the Middle East like dandelions isn’t exactly going well.

The “first draft” report, (considered by one authority on the rebuilding to be "gutsy and honest”) describes an almost child-like division among the various groups.

According to the report:

Seemingly odd decisions on dividing the responsibility for various sectors of the reconstruction crop up repeatedly in the document. At one point, a planning team made the decision to put all reconstruction activities in Iraq under the Army Corps of Engineers, except anything to do with water, which would go to the Navy…”It almost looks like a spoils system between various agencies," said Steve Ellis, a vice president and an authority on the Army corps at Taxpayers for Common Sense, an organization in Washington, who read a copy of the document. "You had various fiefdoms established in the contracting process."

Read on here.

Osama Bin-Forgotten

Remember this guy?


Osama released another selection from his "greatest hits," which mysteriously gets from a moutain top in Pakistan over to Al Jazeera without any fingerprints whatsoever, as if it just fell from - the U.S. governments hands...err, the sky.

Everyone's heard the news by now, but the tape relay an encouraging development. Bin-Forgotten spoke of Iraq has becoming a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified solidiers.
The bad news is he wasn't exactly speaking of the Iraqi army we've been waiting to get trained so we can leave the region.

After the tape had been released and beamed into the homes across America, Bush made an appearance in Sterling Virgina to campain for himself.

Bush's thoughts on the tape: "What tape?"

That's right - the gossipy soccer mom down the road from you knew about the tape while she was making that evening's meatloaf but President Bush didn't have a clue.

It prompted the following question from a reporter:

Q: “Scott, during the appearance in Sterling, Virginia, the President didn’t find out about the reported tape until after that was over –”

McCLELLAN: “That’s correct.”

Q: “– and you have a situation where millions of people are watching television, they’re learning about the tape before the President does. Doesn’t the White House see that as – view that as kind of awkward, and was any thought given to perhaps giving him a note or somehow concluding that event –”

McCLELLAN: “No, I don’t think – he was briefed immediately after the remarks, and I think that was an appropriate time to inform him of it.”

I have an idea - perhaps Bush can explain in his own words:

"So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him...to be honest with you. " - March 13, 2002

(note: the quote above was recently edited by the RNC, where it was preceeded by, "you know...I'd have to be one hell of a fucking idiot to say,...")

You'll notice the Osama clock in the lower right hand corner of the site is still going strong.

Some Thoughts on Gore's Speech

I’d like to weigh in on Al Gore’s recent speech regarding the Bush Administration’s wiretapping policies.

The speech, made on Martin Luther King Day (yes, the same federal holiday Dick Cheney opposed as senator, appropriately made this day by Gore because King himself was a victim of illegal FBI wiretapping) is making headlines and facilitating discussion everywhere in the blogosphere, and for good reason; Gore made some brilliant and passionate points. What has been endlessly disgusting is the Republican response to this speech.

As if you need to be shocked as you read the juvenile response to Gore speech – he was smeared by the Right, and accused of being unpatriotic and hurting the war on terror, as ANYONE IS WHO IS WILLING TO QUESTION THIS PRESIDENT’S AUTHORITY.

Q: “Mr. President, why are we torturing people?”
Republican Response: “9/11, terrorists.”

Q: “Mr. President, why are we unlawfully detaining people indefinitely in prisons in and outside the United States without access to a hearing, a lawyer or any type of judicial process?”
Republican Response: “Gotta keep the terrorists on the run. Oh, did you happen to forget 9/11?”

Q: “Mr. President, why are you proud of authorizing illegal wiretapping of Americans without warrants or approval by the FISA court, or even congress?”
Republican Response: “Why do you hate the firefighters who died on 9/11?

Q: “Mr. President, why are we illegally kidnapping people for imprisonment and interrogation in nations that are known for torturing prisoners?
Republican Response: “We’ve noticed you have less then 3 American flags on your car. Please come with us.”

I have three things to say to Republicans regarding this neo-fascist, nationalist, infantile bullshit:
1. Not everyone who raises legal concerns in the realm of illegal detention, torture, wiretapping or any other disgusting rape of civil liberties protected by the Bill of Rights is cheering on the next car-bomb, gassing, or nuclear explosion in downtown Los Angeles. Really – we’re simply concerned Americans who are fighting for the very freedoms we’re propagandized to and supposedly spreading in the Middle East.

2. The more Republicans continue to play the Patriot Police, and accuse anyone who calls this Administration on their lying bullshit as hurting the war on terror, the more those accusations lose their meaning. I would like to refer them to the fable of the “boy who cried wolf.”

Just because one doesn’t want to give up their civil liberties, finds flaws in the government’s reasoning, and finds misconceptions, half-truths, misleading statements and 100% lies in their speeches, doesn’t mean that individual is encouraging terror or “siding” with Al Qaeda as if this were like picking soccer teams during recess.

3. To accuse, intimidate or even suggest that one is “aiding” terrorists by seeking to preserve the laws and foundations of the very Democracy we're trying to protect is so irresponsible I can’t paddle the asses of the children behaving this way fast enough.

It truly makes it more ironic that those who furiously defend this type of behavior are the ones who put an extra shine on their American flag lapel pins, and are overly excessive in their Patriotic symbolism.

You are exactly the opposite. You are the oppressors, the government’s minions, and a huge, disgusting and shameful stain the soul of this nation.


Here are some highlights of Gore’s speech(as well as some video thanks to crooks and liars):

During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the President went
out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place.

But surprisingly, the President's soothing statements turned out to be false. Moreover, as soon as this massive domestic spying program was uncovered by the press, the President not only confirmed that the story was true, but also declared that he has no intention of bringing these wholesale invasions of privacy to an end.

Whenever power is unchecked and unaccountable it almost inevitably leads to mistakes and abuses. In the absence of rigorous accountability, incompetence flourishes. Dishonesty is encouraged and rewarded.

Last week, for example, Vice President Cheney attempted to defend the Administration's eavesdropping on American citizens by saying that if it had conducted this program prior to 9/11, they would have found out the names of some of the hijackers. Tragically, he apparently still doesn't know that the Administration did in fact have the names of at least 2 of the hijackers well before 9/11 and had available to them information that could have easily led to the identification of most of the other hijackers. And yet, because of incompetence in the handling of this information, it was never used to protect the American people.

**Updated Republican Photoshop Contest

I've found so many outstanding Photoshop jobs of Bush and his friends over the past year, I thought I'd share my four favorite - with links on each of the pictures back to their original source (I haven't seen the orignal source of the Rove picture yet - help me out if you know).

Feel free to vote on which of the four below you like the best.

Most importlantly, please feel free to submit links to your favorite Republican Photoshop artwork you've found on the web, and I'll post them here. Now to my favorite....

Most Republicans OK With Unauthorized Gov't Spying

Bush, for the 142,038,829,582,359,335th time, though he might cite 9/11 and terrorists in a speech to scare the shit out of Joe American enough to let his administration get away whatever.
"I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy's thinking,” he said in order to justify illegally wiretapping American citizens.

Dark shadows. Enemies are everywhere. Lurking. Hating our freedom. WMD's are aimed at you. They’re watching you RIGHT NOW. Bush likes to convey this in every single speech to justify every single thing he does. It polls well.

Well George, 56% of us do want to know what they’re up to, it’s just that we’d like to legally find out. This means we can’t torture them, and this means we can’t just go around bugging everyone everywhere just because you feel like superseding the law that protects the very people you say you’re trying to protect.

According to a recent AP poll, most Americans – by a 56% to 42% margin – feel that the US Government shouldn’t hold the authority to wiretap it’s citizens without a warrant signed by a judge.

Recently, Right Wing outlet NewsMax published a piece that maintains the poll oversampled Democrats.

This actually made me feel better. Think about this. Democrats, by a margin of 3 to 1, are bothered when their civil liberties and Constitutional rights are violated, and don’t support the President’s ultimate authority over the law, or his ability to bypass the Justice system to eavesdrop on us.

Republicans, by a 2 to 1 margin are ok with this. This Republican came out on the side of the law.

Incidentally the poll finds that by the same Margin, most Republicans are lying when they say that want smaller government.

Eight Reasons for W.V. to turn Blue in ‘05

While Bush himself didn’t light the match that caused the explosion at the Sago coal mine last week, as the American Progress Action Fund points out, there are plenty of ties between his administration and the recent tragedy.

Now, there are going to be scores of Bush supporters who will accuse people who connection this incident with the current administration as "political," or opportunists looking to blame everything on Bush..because after all, Bush advocates do NOT like to learn lessons, admit accountability, or change anything that might help the average American. They instead of their choices and free thought stripped from them as they defend this president the way a 5-year-old sticks up for Mommy.

The rest of us on the other hand will looks at the facts below and realize one stereotype about Republicans is indeed true: they’re not a big fan of workers.

Although unions are not the answer to every employee dilemma, Republicans hate them in almost every instance. If you look at GOP affiliated corporations like Wal-Mart and Enron, you’ll get a really good glimpse into a capitalist culture that is unfair, unsafe, and doesn’t really give a shit about you or I – just our CEO’s.

1. The Mining Safety and Health Administration, under the Department of Labor (similar to FEMA under the umbrella of the Homeland Security Dept) never pressured the mining company to close this mine despite it having three times the national accident rate. Among the hazards? Inadequate ventilation to guard against the buildup of deadly gases, including flammable coal dust and a failure to adequately insulate electric wires that could spark explosions.

2. Despite this, the biggest single fine at Sago "was $440, about 0.0004 percent of the $110 million net profit reported last year by the mine's current owner, International Coal Group Inc." Throughout the U.S.,"The number of major fines over $10,000 has dropped by nearly 10 percent since 2001," a Knight-Ridder analysis found, adding that "less than half of the fines levied between 2001 and 2003 - about $3 million - have been paid."

3. Bush, who promised to forge cooperative ties between regulators and the mining industry, saw the number of mines reported to the Justice Department drop steadily, from 38 in 2000 to 12 last year. Under Bush, 17 of 26 regulations proposed by the Clinton administration were dropped or withdrawn, and the agency began a series of high-profile 'cooperative alliance' agreements with industry to promote safety through education, posters and other voluntary programs."

4. Last February, President Bush asked Congress to appropriate $280 million for MSHA, cutting the number of full time positions in the agency by 146.

5. Under President Bush, MSHA leadership also "advocated a less confrontational style and gave inspectors a less-intimidating job title: 'compliance assistance specialists.'"

6. Under Bush, the MSHA has eliminated or scaled back programs that "allowed public access to records related to safety performance and accident investigations." For instance, the Washington Post noted, the MSHA "halted the release of notes from mine inspections, which the agency had routinely released under the Freedom of Information Act for a quarter-century."

7. According to union officials and former agency employees, the administration also "shifted many routine accident investigations into closed-door proceedings, in some cases denying entry even to union officials and lawyers representing injured mineworkers."

8. Some of the miners, who survived at least ten hours after the explosion, but rescue teams didn’t enter the mine until the 11th hour. Federal law does not require mines to have their own rescue teams. Charleston Gazette analysis found concerns over the last decade that the mine rescue system "is growing ever short on personnel and is in major need of reforms." Yet in 2002, in direct contravention to recommendations of the Clinton administration in 1999, then-MSHA director Dave Lauriski "halted work on revising MSHA's 15-year old mine rescue
regulation."

Abramoff Donations to Democrats: $0.00

I haven't written anything about the Abramoff scandal yet for two reasons:

1. I have been reading the stories quietly, trying to gain further understand for myself, because there is a LOT of content being reported here and...

2. Any daily listener to Air America radio knows that the Abramoff thing is actually old news - to us anyway. We've been hearing about this for many months, and the mainstream corporate media has just now started to report the scandal. Yet another example of progressive media being way, way ahead of the curve, and listeners of this type of media being much more educated about this stuff than the average CNN viewer...who buy the way, knows more about great holiday decorating ideas or runaway brides than those of us who use progressive media for information. I guess that's the down side.

Anyway, the one thing I would like to post about is something that I got some clarification on myself recently from a fellow blogger that the media is disgustingly wrong about, and reporting incorrectlly.

The Republicans are trying to drag the Democrats down in the mud with them and they're actually getting away with it because most corporate outlets are failing to report correctly that no single Democrat took a single dime from Jack Abramoff. Period.

If you'd like to see Mr. Abramoff's contributions, for yourself, go here. For those of you too lazy to go to that link, I've prepared a pie chart illustrating Abramoff's contributions to Republicans versus money he has given to Democrats:


Perhaps those of you who still think the media has a liberal bias would like to read a transcript that's being posted at Kos and many other blogs and read how one of your "liberal" news outlets tried to spin the story this way with the wrong Democrat, Howard Dean:

Wolf Blitzer: “Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges among other charges [and is] a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrats who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?”

Howard Dean: “There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff. Not one. Not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person in [this] investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money and we’ve looked through all those FEC reports to make sure that’s true.”

(long pause) Wolf Blitzer: “But there are, through various Abramoff related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.”

Howard Dean: “That’s not true either. There’s no evidence for that either. There’s no evidence…”(crosstalk)

Wolf Blitzer: “What about Senator Byron Dorgan?”

Howard Dean: “Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes, they’re not agents of Jack Abramoff. There’s no evidence, that I’ve seen, that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They’re scared. They should be scared. They haven’t told the truth, they have misled the American people, and now it appears they’re stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.”

(Longer Pause) Wolf Blitzer: “Sigh….Unfortunately Mr. Chairman we have to leave it right there. Howard Dean, the Chairman of the Democatic Party. Always speaking out bluntly, candidly, appreciate you joining us on Late Edition.”

I guess this proves two things - 1). Abramoff is a Republican who gave to Republicans and Republicans will be the only ones getting fined or going to jail, and 2). If CNN were really liberal producers would not have kept whispering for Wolf to pressure Dean into linking the Democrats with Abramoff.

If you're still confused by the graph above as many in the corporate media and Republican party seem to be, you can read an explanation here.

To all the Yellow Ribbon Bush Supporters...

When i see people who have both "support our troops" and W. stickers side by side on the bumpers of their SUV's, I want to walk up to their car, rip them both off and say, "MAKE A CHOICE. You can only have one or the other. You cannot have both."

No, I'm not talking about sending our kids into an unjustified war that has almost nothing to do with the war on terror and officially 0% with 9/11...nor am I talking about Bush/Cheney having never attended a troop's funeral...or the backdoor draft they've set up where I troops cannot get out once they're in...or the lack of an exit strategy, or dismissing every ranking member of the armed forces who said this war needed more troops, the war would be hell, or shouldn't be fought without an exit strategy...nor am I referring to Bush's closing of various VA hospitals during wartime, or the Pentagon using soldiers as poster-children, even after they have died, to promote their war...I'm also not referring to the private companies in charge of and profiting from this war like Haliburton overbilling the Pentagon, and giving them contaminated water..and I'm not talking about the fact that this war has crippled the recruiting effort for our armed forces...

I've just read this post over at YellowDogBlog, a veteran himself, and have been both angered and justified in my hatred for this president and many who support him.

Here's a snippet:

The New York Times reported yesterday on a secret Pentagon study concluding that a large number of Marines killed in Iraq – perhaps up to 80 percent of those who died of upper-body injuries – would have survived had they been properly equipped for battle.

It's bad enough to take our brave men and women in uniform and put them in combat in a country that posed no threat to our land, sovereignty or people. To do it and have them fighting daily in an urban, guerrilla war, while not coming through with the best life-saving protection money can buy, is criminal.

Read on at his site, or reference the article here.

Bush Agrees to Torture Ban? No, Not Really.

If you read just one article over the weekend, I encourage you to read this one from Salon.com, posted on RR’s web site.

The article itself sheds light on the Bush Administration’s ability to take laws from Congress and add what are called “signing statements” to his actual signature, or approval of the bill.

A signing statement is a little discussed Presidential privilege that allows the executive branch to add a little waiver – a disclaimer, if you will – which allows said branch to circumvent the law that was just signed. The legal author of this particular tactic? One Samuel Alito, in 1986 working for the Reagan administration.

What’s the most recent execution of this particular provision? I’ll give you an example from the article.

Recently, Bush and McCain both made headlines after the latter was able to get Bush/Cheney to accept the torture ban the former was originally against. Here’s the article to refresh your memory.

Since those headlines have disappeared, Bush has issued a signing statement regarding the law he signed only days before. Salon has more:

Last week, when Bush signed the military appropriations bill containing the
amendment forbidding torture that he and Vice President Cheney had fought against, he added his own "signing statement" to it. It amounted to a waiver,
authorized by him alone, that he could and would disobey this law whenever he chose.

He wrote: "The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

In short, the president, in the name of national security, claiming to protect the country from terrorism, under war powers granted to him by himself, would follow the law to the extent that he decided he would. (read the full article here)

So, while people were applauding Bush and Cheney who wanted torture, coincidentally avoiding it in Vietnam – and their ability to compromise with McCain who wants to ban the practice and actually was tortured – Bush turned around and instituted his own Presidential pardon of the law, excusing himself of following it before his original signature was even dry.

More on this particular move here and here and here, and finally here.

According to Salon, President Bush issued an unprecedented 108 statements during his first term, upon signing bills of legislation that expressed his own version of their content.

This is an amazing breech that was probably bleeding all over most front page newspapers this week, right?

Nope…coalminers families getting notepads and mics shoved in their faces. Damn liberal media!

News Flash: Pat Robertson Still Saying Stupid Shit

Lest you thought Pat Robertson's mouth was on vacation - because hey, it had been at least a month since he last uttered stomething sad yet hiliarious - the little troll-like leader of the bat-shit Christian Right that amuse us all on a daily basis put your fears to rest on Thursday.

Robertson's latest comments were uttered during his 700 Club show, which to everyone's surprise, still has viewers. Because we all look for someone as sophisticated and Internationally weathered as Pat Robertson to give us insight into complex issues facing or planet.

Specifically, he tried to take a stab at explaining the recent sour health suffered by Israeli prime minister Sharon (note to Bush supporters: it doesn't rhyme with "Karen.").

As we know, Evangelical Christians are experts in the medical science field, so we expect Robertson might attribute Sharon’s stroke to some sort of cardiovascular disorder, right?

Actually no. Sharon’s diagnosis from Robertson? God smote him.

Take it away Pat:

"He was dividing God's land, and I would say, 'Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America...'"

"God says, 'This land belongs to me, and you'd better leave it alone.'"

Apparently God is a greedy Real Estate mogul...less like a supreme being and more like Donald Trump. Hopefully God's combover is a little more attractive.

Bush Argues Against...Himself

Of course with the wiretap story still fresh in the news and on people's minds, I thought I'd post a rebuttal to Bush's argument pertaining to this specific subject.

The person arguing against the President? One George W. Bush, just a year and a half earlier:

President Bush, April 20, 2004: "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, itrequires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." (click here for video)

President Bush, July 14 2004: A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the government can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order.

I know, I know. Kerry's the flip-flopper, right?

Letterman Kicks the Crap Out of O'Lie-ly

If you missed the Bill O'Reilly appearance on Letterman Tuesday night, you missed some great entertainment. O'Reilly, known mostly for lying his ass off on cable tv and AM radio each night when he's not busy writing porn novels, or sexually harassing coworkers got a rougher welcome than perhaps even he expected on the Late Show last night.

Click here for the video.
Click here for some audio highlights.

If you're at work or just feel like reading some highlights, here are some of Letterman's barbs (See the full Transcript here):

Letterman: I'm not smart enough to debate you point for point on this,
but I have the feeling that 60% of what you say is crap.

Letterman: [on O'Reilly's phony "War on Christmas"]: I don't this is an
actual threat. I think this is something that happened here and it happened there and so people like you are trying to make us think that it's a threat.

Letterman: (On Cindy Sheehan) Have you lost family members in armed conflict?

O'Reilly: No, I have not.

Letterman: Well, then you can hardly speak for her, can you? [audience applause]

O'Reilly: I'm not speaking for her. Let me ask you this question.

Letterman: [referring back to O'Reilly's "War on Christmas"] Let's go
back to your little red and green stories.

Letterman: See, I'm very concerned about people like yourself who don't have nothing but endless sympathy for a woman like Cindy Sheehan. Honest to Christ.[audience applause]

O'Reilly: No, I'm sorry.

Letterman: Honest to Christ.

If you did watch the segment, you can read more about a false claim O'Reilly made about elementary school kids changing the lyrics to Silent Night here.

Crooks and Liars did some research of their own and found a quote from O'Reilly regarding his thoughts on Letterman:

"Mr. Letterman is a smart guy who can spot a phony with telescopic accuracy and expects his guests to bring something to the table. If a guest begins to sink on this show, the bottom is a long way down." - Bill O'Reilly in a Feb 27, 2001 column

You know what Bill - for once, I find myself agreeing with you.

Liberal CNN Replaces Conservative Reporter With Even More Conservative Reporter

That's right - the liberal network made up mostly of models reading teleprompters, bringing you stories of missing white teens and engaging in afternoon debates about the war on Christmas has made a change.

Columnist Bob Novak, famous for cursing on live television and making everyone wonder how the hell he avoided prison when he leaked the name of a CIA agent in one of his columns has recently been canned by CNN.

His replacement? One William J. Bennett - the moral values author who has gambled an lost an estimated $8 at high stakes poker tables in casinos across America.

Well done CNN. Please make sure we hear more about Bennett's ideas for fighting crime during your legal segments.

Want to Really Prevent Future Coal Mining Tragedies?

I’ve been a little slow on the news since last night- so it was only a couple hours ago that I learned the reporting last night, announcing the coal miners’ survival was false, and that all but one died.

This is obviously terrible news, and I feel really bad for their families and friends who had to endure the crushing blow of elated hope yanked from under their feet.

A friend of mine gave me some good insight via email this morning:

In my ideal world, our President would be on tv right now offering sorrow and sympathy for the families of these coal miners. He/she would recognize the sadness, but would also use their deaths as a positive thing, such as using this event to illustrate the importance of the US Gov't attempting to develop alternative fuels so that more people don't have to die fishing out this dirty and inefficient fuel source from the ground.

My President wouldn't invoke biblical language on people who've spent the last 2 days praying in church only to not have their prayers answered. He/She wouldn't insult their intelligence like that.

He/She would do everything in their power to make sure these men did not die in vein. He/She would propose a bill named after these folks to request more funding from Congress for alternative fuels so that horrific things like this don't happen to any other families in the future.

Winning the Iraq War...at Home

A friend of mine recent emailed an article which presented what I consider to be an excellent portrait of Bush trying to sell the Iraq war – while involuntarily mocking those who still support him.

While I’ve never considered Rolling Stone the pinnacle of quality political journalism, I was pleasantly surprised by this post in particular. It’s as if someone was finally articulating vague, almost difficult-to-reenact observations of this President and why he really…REALLY concerns those of us who are paying attention.

Here’s the article:

December 7th, 10:44 a.m., the sixty-fourth anniversary of Pearl Harbor day.
I've just woken up with a line of drool on my face in the back row of a ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., where any minute now President George W. Bush will give the second address of his barnburning four-speech "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" tour.

There are no T-shirts for this concert tour, but if there were, the venue list on the back would make for one of the weirder souvenirs in rock & roll history. U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, November 30th, no advance publicity, closed audience: check. Here at the Omni, December 7th, again no advance warning, handpicked audience, ten reporters max (no one else knew about it), with even the cashiers in the hotel's coffee shop unaware of the president's presence: check.

Dates three and four, venues and dates unknown for security reasons: check and check.

This is how President Bush takes his message to the people these days: in furtive sneak-attack addresses to closed audiences of elite friendlies at weird early-morning hours. If you want to catch Bush's act in person during this tour, you have to stalk him for days and keep both ears open for last-minute changes of plan; I actually missed the Annapolis speech when I made the mistake of briefly taking my eye off him the day before.

Here at the Omni I showed up early, determined not to repeat my mistake. I was not going to miss the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, no sir. But for all my preparations, I did almost screw it up again. I fell asleep an hour before the event and only awoke in the middle of the introductory remarks by Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the stodgy, status-quo think tank hosting the event. I pried my eyes open just in time to see Bush, looking spooked and shrunken, take the stage.

Bush in person always strikes me as the kind of guy who would ask a woman for a hand job at the end of a first date. He has days where he looks like she said yes, and days where the answer was no.

Today was one of his no days. He frowned, looking wronged, and grabbed the microphone. I pulled out my notebook . . .

A few minutes later, I felt like a hooker who's just blinked under a blanket with a prep-school virgin. Was that it? Is it over? It seemed to be; Bush was off the podium and slipping down the first line of the crowd, pumping hands for a minute and then promptly Snagglepussing toward the left exit. By the time I made it five rows into the crowd, he had vanished into a sea of Secret Servicemen, who whisked him away, presumably to return him posthaste to his formaldehyde tank.

I looked down at my notes. They indicated that Bush had opened his remarks by comparing the Iraq War to World War II ("We liberated millions, we aided the rise of democracy in Europe and Asia. . . . "). From there we learned that we were fighting an enemy without conscience, but all was not lost, because the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Iraq. Of course there had been setbacks, because in the past after we took a city, we left it and the terrorists would just take it back again. But we've stopped doing that now and so things are better. In conclusion, Sen. Joe Lieberman visited Iraq four times in the past seventeen months and, goddamn it, he liked what he saw.

In the Obey Your Thirst/Image Is Everything era of American politics, Bush's National Victory campaign is a creepy innovation. It features the president thumping a document -- the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" -- that was largely written not by diplomats or generals but by a pair of academics from Duke University named Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi.

Essentially a PR document, the paper is basically a living political experiment, designed to prove that Americans will more readily accept military casualties if the word "victory" is repeated a great many times in public.

"This is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency," Gelpi told The New York Times. "The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion."

In other words, this was really a National Strategy for Victory at Home. It was classic Bush-think: Instead of bombing the insurgency off the map, he bombs the map -- in lieu of actually fighting the war, a bold strategy, to be sure. But would it work?

Both the record and my notes indicate that the audience applauded on two occasions. The first came after the line "And now the terrorists think they can make America run in Iraq, and that is not going to happen so long as I'm the commander in chief."

My notes say, "Scattered but by no means unanimous applause." The second time came at the end of the speech, after the last line, "May God continue to bless our country."

This time the reaction was more enthusiastic, but at least one person -- me -- was clapping because it was over.

The Council on Foreign Relations was good enough to pass out a list of the expected attendees at the speech. Here are some of the names that one could find in Bush's audience: Frank Finelli, the Carlyle Group; Adam Fromm, Office of Rep. Dennis Hastert; Robert W. Haines, Exxon Mobil Corp.; Paul W. Butler, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld LLP; Robert Bremer, Lockheed Martin Corp.; Scott Sendek, Eli Lilly and Co.; James H. Lambright, Export-Import Bank of the United States.

The point is obvious; Bush's audience was like a guest list for a Monster's Ball of the military-industrial establishment. And even in this crowd full of corporate lawyers, investment bankers, weapons makers, ex-spooks and, for Christ's sake, lobbyists, the president of the United States couldn't cook up more than two tepid applause
lines for his Iraq policy -- and one of those was because he was finishing up
and, one guesses, freeing the audience to go call their brokers.

God bless George Bush. The Middle East is in flames, and how does he answer the call? He rolls up to the side entrance of a four-star Washington hotel, slips unobserved into a select gathering of the richest fatheads in his dad's Rolodex, spends a few tortured minutes exposing his half-assed policies like a campus flasher and then ducks back into his rabbit hole while he waits for his next speech to be written by paid liars.

If that isn't leadership, what is?

Not many people in the Omni audience hung around to be interviewed when it was over. The few who did make themselves available tried to put a brave face on the situation.

"Well, he did the best he could under, uh, difficult circumstances," said council member Jeffrey Pryce. Did he detect anything new in the new strategy? "No," he said, shrugging. "But he's in a tough spot."

I'd been following the national tour for more than a week. If the reception at the Omni was stale, that was nothing compared to how it was going over in the White House briefing room. On the day before the Omni speech, I actually worried that gopher-faced administration spokescreature Scott McClellan might be physically attacked by reporters, who appeared ready to give official notice of having had Enough of This Bullshit.

In fact the room at one point seemed on the verge of a Blazing Saddles-style chair-throwing brawl when McClellan refused to answer the cheeky question of why, if we weren't planning on torturing war-on-terror detainees in foreign prisons, we couldn't
just bring them back to be incarcerated in the United States.

"I think the American people understand," McClellan said, "the importance of protecting sources and methods, and not compromising ongoing efforts in the war on
terrorism . . ."

When a contingent of audibly groaning reporters pressed, McClellan shrugged and tried a new tack: "I'm not going to talk further about intelligence matters of this nature," he said.

A reporter next to me threw his head back in disgust. "Oh, fuckin' A . . ." he whispered. The room broke out into hoots and howls; even the usually dignified Bill Plante of CBS started openly calling McClellan out. "The question you're currently evading is not about an intelligence matter," he hissed.

I looked around. "Man," I thought. "This place sure looks better on television." On TV, the whole package -- the deep-blue curtains, the solemn great seal -- suggests majesty, power, drama. For years I'd dreamed of coming here, the Graceland of politics.

But in real life the White House briefing room is a grimy little closet that's peeling and cracking in every corner and looks like it hasn't seen a bottle of Windex in ten years. The first chair in the fifth row is broken; the fold-up seat doesn't fold up and in fact dangles on its hinge, so that you'd slide off if you tried to sit on it. No science exists that could determine the original color of these hideous carpets. Reporters throw their coats and coffee cups wherever; the place is a fucking sty.

It's a raggedy-ass old stage, and the act that plays on it isn't getting any fresher, either. All partisan sniping aside, this latest counteroffensive from the White House says just about everything you need to know about George Bush and the men who work for him.

Up until now this president's solution to everything has been to stare into the cameras, lie and keep on lying until such time as the political problem disappears. And now, unable to comprehend that while political crises may wilt in the face of such tactics, real crises do not, he and his team are responding to this first serious feet-to-the-fire Iraq emergency in the same way they always have -- with a fusillade of silly, easily disprovable bullshit.

Bush and his mouthpieces continue to try to obfuscate and cloud the issue of why we're in Iraq, and they do so not only selectively but constantly, compulsively, like mental patients who can't stop jacking off in public. They don't know the difference between a real problem and a political problem, because to them, there is no difference.

What could possibly be worse than bad poll numbers?

On this particular day in the briefing room, it's just more of the same disease. McClellan, a cringing yes-man type who tries to soften the effect of his non- answers by projecting an air of being just as out of the loop as you are, starts pimping lies and crap the moment he enters the room. He's the cheapest kind of political hack, a
greedy little bum making a living by throwing his hat on the ground and juggling
lemons for pennies.

Putting his hat out for the Strategy for Victory, he says nothing new -- there is no real strategy, remember, just words -- and it quickly becomes clear that the whole purpose of this campaign is not to offer new information but to reinforce the administration's most shameless and irresponsible myths about the war: that we invaded to liberate Iraq, that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, and so on. McClellan does this even in the context of responding to angry denunciations of this very tactic.

For instance, when a reporter asked why the administration still insists on giving the impression that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, McClellan answered, "I don't think that [it] does. But I think what you have to understand about September 11th is that September 11th taught us some important lessons: one, that we need to take the fight to the enemy and engage them abroad . . ."

Implying, in other words, that the enemy who attacked us was in Iraq. Same old shit.
After hearing McClellan talk for what seemed like the thirtieth time about our continuing efforts to spread democracy, I finally felt insulted. Giving in to the same basic instinct that leads people to buy lottery tickets, I raised my hand. I figured I'd ask nicely, just give him a chance to come clean. C'mon, man, we know you're lying, why not just leave it alone? I asked him if he couldn't just admit, once and for all, that we didn't go to Iraq to spread democracy, that maybe it was time to retire that line, at least.

"Well," he said, "we set out the reasons we went to Iraq, and I would encourage you to go back and look at that. We have liberated 25 million people in Iraq and 25
million people in Afghanistan . . ."

"But that wasn't the reason we went --"

"Spreading freedom and democracy," he said, ignoring me. "Well, we're not going to re-litigate why we went into Iraq. We've made very clear what the reasons were. And no, I don't think you define them accurately by being so selective in the question . . . that's important for spreading hope and opportunity in the broader Middle East . . ."

"Just to be clear," I said, exasperated, "that's a different argument than was made to the American people before the war."

"Our arguments are very public," he said. "You can go look at what the arguments are. That's not what I was talking about."

He smiled at me. There's your strategy for victory in Iraq: Fuck all of you -- we're
sticking to our story.