April 30
Remember during Bush's press conference he was asked about extraordinary rendition and torture, then after he denied it he went on to justify it as necessary for security? Among the countries he sent prisoners to is Uzbekistan, which reportedly tortures by boiling. So, is Bush ignorant of his own policies, or a liar? I suppose he could be both, but one's bad enough.
Sadly, Bush's willingness to use torture is a pattern, not an exception. Notice that every investigation of torture has been an internal Pentagon investigation, and they keep exonerate themselves with no evident concern that almost no one believes them. Everyone tried for prisoner abuse has been enlisted, even though the pattern of abuse at every military prison would indicate it goes much higher. They've tried to scapegoat the general in charge of Abu Ghraib as if that explains Guantanamo and abuses in Afghanistan. Speaking of Afghanistan, the UN investigator who criticized US prisoner abuse there has been removed under US pressure.
They do it in our name folks, don't ever forget that. It's part of why the rest of the world can't comprehend how we could let this government stay in power, whether by a real electoral win, or by fraud we've allowed to stand. One unavoidable fact is the Bush administration are torturers, and the other unavoidable fact is we let them do it. We should have known, as indeed many feared, when they wanted to put prisoners in Guantanamo to get them beyond the law. Those who paid attention heard the first reports of torture in Iraq in 2003, before the photos of Abu Ghraib a year ago. Those who excuse it or knowingly ignore it share the responsibility, and the rest of us must hold them accountable.
April 27
There was an interesting quote in a LA Times article about the House Republicans' decision to roll back the Ethics Committee rule changes that protected Tom DeLay --- and exposed the rest of them. Someone identified as "one exasperated GOP congressman, who spoke on condition of anonymity" explained why the rules were changed to gut the Ethics Committee in the first place: "Why did they do it that way? Because they could." It reminds me of ANWR and the "nuclear option" (coined by Trent Lott). ANWR was opened to oil drilling, even though there's not much oil and other land is open to drilling, just to show they could drill on protected land if they felt like it. Abolishing the filibuster to force through really awful nominees (again, I ask readers to look at the individuals opposed and see if there isn't good cause) isn't because those few nominees are irreplaceable, but to show the GOP can do it. It's the same pattern, except on DeLay they seem to be unable to cover the smell.
Though the LA Times article I quoted was otherwise finely done, the reporter, Mary Curtius, did mischaracterize the Republicans' electoral triumph. She said, "Less than six months after their impressive victories, Republicans have found that some of their most high-profile stances have failed to win strong public support in the polls: Bush's plan to restructure Social Security, Congress' intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, and the determination among Senate Republicans to end the Democratic filibuster of judicial nominees." The word "impressive" jumped out. Remember they picked up four seats nationally but five from the gerrymandering in Texas. Otherwise, they lost a seat, and who knows what would have happened with a fair election in Texas. Likewise with Bush winning by the narrowest margin of any incumbent, and that margin tainted by charges of fraud. In the Senate, the 44 Democrats won more votes than the 55 Republicans. Funny definition of "impressive". Someone who thinks that would be puzzled at the problems they ran into. If however you realize they won through gerrymandering, nationwide redistricting to protect incumbents (both parties benefit except Texas Democrats), possible election fraud (did only Bush benefit from rigged counting?) and that the country is essentially split in two, then it makes sense they've had some losses. However, it's also wrong to think they've consistently lost. They won on ANWR, the estate tax, and bankruptcy, plus there are still no investigations into any Bush scandals, even the use of torture.
At least in the torture scandal, the consequences are being felt, as Europe is cutting back on cooperation against terrorism due to the torture. However, the cover up continues: instead of fixing the problems, the acting president forced out the UN investigator in Afghanistan.
April 26
Remember I once mentioned that while vacationing in Montreal, I observed that in the Canadian campaign the Conservative candidate was compared to Bush, and this was considered an attack? Here's another one for those yet unconvinced the acting president is one of the least respected people on the planet. Bear in mind this comes from the one country that made a substantial effort in Iraq. On a British newspaper site, this banner ad attacks Tony Blair by showing him with Bush. Since I doubt the Liberals are into political suicide, being associated with Bush must be bad for your political health. Even the Conservatives are attacking Blair for lying about the war, even though they backed it more than Labour did. Click the thumbnail for the full size image, and the ad for the Liberal Party landing page.
The GOP has taken to telling a new lie, that the phrase "nuclear option" was invented by the Democrats. It's almost amazing they would try this, as the Republican origin is well documented. The liberal side of the blogosphere is figuring some polls indicated the phrase tests poorly. Maybe the real reason is the acting president can't pronounce "nuclear". Anyway, now they want to call it the "constitutional option". It's all about marketing with GOP leaders, honesty be damned. It's like when "private accounts" suddenly became "personal accounts." Maybe this is a half-truth rather than a lie, because the Democrats do say "nuclear option", but they didn't invent it. They picked it up from the Republicans, and the individuals who coined the phrase know this is a lie/half-truth but won't undermine the party line.
And finally today, we have another winner of the Take the Red Pill Award. You can buy a book called "Pray and Be Rich". I don't know if the author, Richard Gaylord Briley, really believes God rewards the faithful with money, but those of you who believe you can get rich by praying enough need to take the red pill. Moreover, those of you who believe wealth is what a Christian should aspire to should read those parts of the New Testament you skipped, like the bit about camels and needles.
April 25
Do you enjoy reading the outrageous things Tom DeLay says? Who doesn't! OK, here's something from an interview he gave the Washington Times: "They're not writing about my trips to the Soviet Union in the 1980s to get persecuted Jews out of the Soviet Union, participating in the Refusenik Movement." He then goes on to list other things that are admirable or he believes are admirable. It looks like "they" are the Democrats. His point is that "they" should stop talking about his ethical problems and talk about the good things he's done. As a good evangelical Christian, he should know good deeds don't make up for sins. To put it less theologically, good deeds aren't a license to steal, bully, lie, or anything else naughty.
Want another gem? "The same news has been written over the last 10 years, and they're just simply printing the old news." Yes, that's the usual ethically-challenged person's argument that his badnesses are "old news", with the implication being they don't matter. Actually, the gerrymandering was last year. So were his three rebukes by the ethics committee. Neutering the ethics committee was this year. Interesting definition of "old". But even if they were old, so what? Hey Hammer, did you do this stuff? We don't care if it was a decade ago. If you did it, you're unfit to be in elective office. Get out.
Let's throw in a lie: "The Democrats don't want an ethics committee for two reasons." One of the complaints with DeLay is that he's stopped the ethics committee from functioning. The ethics committee was busy last session. The problem for DeLay isn't that the Democrats don't want the committee, but that they do. However, let's look at his reasons. "One, they know that all of this is privileged and that the only way I can be cleared is through the ethics committee, so they don't want one." The Democrats have pushed for the investigation he says would clear him, and under the old rules it would be underway, since the two parties are equal and a tie started an investigation, whereas now a majority is required. Even under the new rules, just one Republican on the committee would have to vote with the Democrats to get the investigation started. Clearly he's lying. The other reason: "Secondly, one of their best friends, [Rep.] Jim McDermott [Washington Democrat], is being investigated, and they don't want him to be kicked out of Congress. I mean, this guy has been found guilty - guilty by a court of law - and they don't want an ethics committee." Again, under the rules DeLay threw out, the Democrats couldn't stop the investigations of Democrats. Since the Democrats want the old rules back, they are willing to investigate their own. Again, clearly a lie. It's not just DeLay saying this though. Speaker Hastert is spreading the same lie.
Now something outrageous from the same interview that shows he is indeed out to gut the separation of church and state, and doesn't accept it's a core principle of the Constitution. "The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them." Christian fundamentalists frequently repeat that "separation of church and state" isn't in the Constitution, and sometimes assert that it's a recent invention, as DeLay is doing. However, the framers themselves used the phrase. Here's Thomas Jefferson using it himself. He makes it clear as can be that the establishment clause of the first amendment is an attempt to put the separation of church and state into effect. Likewise, judicial review isn't a 20th century phenomenon. One of the first decisions of the Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison, established it, and Congress did not and never has seen fit to amend the Constitution to eliminate it. Judicial review goes all the way back to the beginning of the republic, not back to the Warren court. Finally, by "right to privacy" I assume DeLay means abortion, but it's far more broad than that and again, though the phrase isn't used, it is implemented. The 4th amendment ban on unreasonable search and seizure is an implementation of the right to privacy. There were no databases back then where the government could pass around your data. When they thought of invasion of privacy, they thought of their own experience with invasion of homes with no warrants as the British did before the revolution.
April 24
Today I ask to call readers' attention to a couple news items from South America that are reminiscent of misdeeds of current US leadership. An Argentine naval officer who took part in Argentina's Dirty War against suspected dissidents has been tried and convicted. Captain Adolfo Scilingo participated in the murder of dissidents by drugging them, flying them over the ocean, stripping them naked, and throwing them out of the plane. It sounds like maybe thousands were murdered this way. No, I'm not saying anyone in the Bush administration has done anything this heinous, but what they've done is bad enough: routine torture, detention without charge or trial, aggressive war (I know all war is aggressive --- it means attacking a country which didn't attack you), and massive civilian deaths through negligence. The common thread is the assumption Bush and Co. must be making that they'll never be brought to justice. I doubt Scilingo ever expected it either. This isn't a Hollywood ending "the bad guys get theirs" situation, as no doubt some of the criminals from the Dirty War are unidentified, successfully on the lam, or died a natural death. However, some will get punished after thinking they were acting with impunity. Maybe, just maybe, Bush and his underlings should consider that their actions may catch up to them, and the rest of us shouldn't lose hope. In case someone thinks this is now in the past, here's the story of a German man captured in Macedonia and held five months in Afghanistan without charges but with torture. This was just last year. Yesterday, once again the pentagon cleared itself of torture. Notice they won't allow an independent investigation.
The other interesting item is the people power overthrow of the president of Ecuador, Lucio Gutierrez. Take note of what Gutierrez did: he tried to replace the Supreme Court. The people took to the streets. They forced the Congress, which went along with replacing the court, to replace him. The Republicans now are trying to do the same thing with the federal judiciary. Using the "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster and force Senate approval of noxious judges is just the start. Look at what the rapture right has been saying lately about mass impeachment of judges and eliminating some courts, which of course would be replaced with no courts packed with Bush appointees. There's the Constitutional Restoration Act, removing Supreme Court jurisdiction in any case where a government entity acknowledges God as the source of law. So if some federal officer acts illegally because the law is overruled by the bible, the Supreme Court can't look into it. If they go so far as to gut the judiciary, and appoint judges who will enforce biblical law, will we have the balls to take to the streets too? They are trying to overturn a key principle of the Constitution -- the separation of church and state -- and replace the rule of law with a fundamentalist theocracy. It's nothing less than that.
While we're on the subject of the Republican War on Law, Sen. Rick Santorum had an op-ed piece with a convincing looking half-truth. He said, "Of the 52 men and women the president nominated to U.S. courts of appeals, the Democratic leadership carried out filibusters against 10 and threatened filibusters against six more." There are a lot more judges than just the appeals courts. Of Bush's 205 nominations, Democrats have blocked just ten. That's less than 5%. Somehow we're missing something because those ten aren't approved? Just like Friday, when I asked readers to look into global warming for themselves, look into these ten individuals. For example, Santorum makes Priscilla Owen sound good when he says, "Owen has shown time and again that the American Bar Association got it right when it unanimously awarded her its highest possible rating. She was also reelected with 84 percent of the vote in 2000 and had the endorsement of every newspaper in Texas." He didn't say why she's opposed: that she took campaign money from Enron, then not only ruled in cases involving Enron when any ethical judge recuses herself, but she found in Enron's favor. So what if she won by a big margin: how often do state supreme court justices not win by huge margins. Also notice Santorum said "2000", which was the year before the Enron scandal broke. She hasn't faced the voters since. By the way, those Texas newspapers seem to be backing off their endorsements. Besides, shouldn't conservatives be glad liberals aren't just saying, "She's a woman, so approve her," but instead we're judging her as an individual?
April 22
Today being Earth Day (OK, almost over by the time I'm posting this), I ask, make that plead, with those of you who refuse to believe global warming is real and man-made to just look at the evidence. You don't have to take my word for it that this is the planet's most serious environmental problem, and if not the most serious problem of any sort then it's in the top few. You don't have to merely believe me that global warming deniers go far beyond skepticism into willful blindness. Look at the consensus among the scientific community, or better yet try to find a scientist on the opposing side who isn't on an oil or coal company payroll, even if indirectly through an industry funded think tank or 527. Tonight's NOW was devoted to the subject. So was the first segment on Science Friday. You still don't have to believe them. Follow links, look at the reports, just don't satisfy yourself that some people say one thing and some another, so nobody really knows. That simply isn't the case. The people on one side are the scientists, and the other side are the people who've been bought and the people who bought them.
April 20
So thanks to Republican senators who are having doubts that the UN ambassador should be a nutcase bully, there is more time before the Foreign Relations Committee vote on John Bolton. This seems a prime moment to remind my fellow Minnesotans that Norm Coleman is a member of that committee. Tell him to vote no.
Asked about Bolton, Scott McClellan said, "I'm suggesting that what the facts are, that Democrats on the committee are playing politics with this nomination." Apparently appointing a diplomat with no diplomatic skill and a record of being consistently wrong, but with good neocon credentials, isn't playing politics at all. Republicans would never play politics with nominations, would they? They wouldn't, say, kill the filibuster to push through rejected judicial nominations?
Speaking of Republican bullies in trouble, the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune has called on DeLay to step down as majority leader. More smears from a left wing rag? Actually, they endorsed Bush last year despite being in safely Democratic Chicago. I've always known them to be a Republican leaning editorial board. This is another sign of how much trouble DeLay has.
This is exactly the sort of underreported story for which blogs were made. It was page A17 of the Star Tribune on Saturday, and probably released late Friday in hopes of burying it. The Energy Information Administration said mandatory limits on greenhouse gases won't significantly affect economic growth rates through 2025. The acting president won't go for it of course the report is science based instead of faith based, and thereby failed to arrive at the predetermined conclusion.
April 19
Today is the tenth anniversary of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. The federal building near me at Ft. Snelling has been a fortress ever since. Some other effects have been more short-lived, as witnessed by the full-throated howls of right wing hatemongers against judges. They did the same sort of thing in the 90's against government in general, sometimes specifying bureaucrats. Maybe thinking of government employees as faceless bureaucrats made them easier to hate. I have this recollection I'm not now sure of that Rush Limbaugh and his clones toned it down for while, but judging by the extreme right's current rhetoric, they learned nothing. For a while at least though, they had to busy themselves with getting distance from the bombers who clearly came from their end of the political spectrum and acted on the hate they lapped up.
(A parenthetical side story --- thus the parentheses: after some right wing nuts had shot at the White House, I wrote a sketch (called a ten minute play in theater jargon) called The Bomber. It was going to be read at a fundraiser for The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. The day before the fundraiser was the bombing. The play was understandably removed from the program.)
Also forgotten was that not all terrorists are Muslim. We've had plenty of native-born non-Muslim American terrorists too. It's part of why "the war on terror" is such a stupid name for our struggle with fundamentalist Islam --- we might was well call World War I "the war on trench warfare". What brings this to mind is that I heard part of an interview Michael Medved did on his radio show today with Jayna Davis, the author of a book claiming there was a third conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing. That's not new, as the third bomber has been fodder for conspiracy theories just like the JFK assassination and the "fake" moon landing. What was different this time was she asserted the third bomber was a Muslim. The right still can't accept that two of theirs carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in the US before 911. When a caller sincerely asked why Clinton covered it up, not being skeptical enough to wonder if he actually did, she said obviously because he would have to retaliate, but he was afraid of a war while he was working on Middle East peace at the time. Neither Medved nor any caller I heard pointed out Clinton worked on Middle East peace his whole administration, not just then. They didn't mention the right criticized Clinton for using the armed forces too much, and now he was afraid to use them. They didn't mention that among those uses was attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for terrorist attacks. Moreover, does anyone doubt that if there were really evidence of Muslim involvement, the acting president would be all over it, to show up Clinton if nothing else? It's amazing anybody believes this, but this sort of denial helps explain how they can engage in this hatemongering again. This time though I'm not writing a sketch about a courthouse being blown up. I avoided an FBI visit last time. Maybe I won't stay lucky. On the upside, I give Medved credit for denouncing the conference on The Judicial War on Faith, even if it was along the lines of he thought it was a small event overblown in the press. I must point out the conference included a speech by Tom DeLay and the cameras of C-SPAN, so a quiet conference was probably not the goal. You hate to think the goal was to encourage the murder of judges, and they're probably just thinking of gaining political cover for when the Senate Republicans use the nuclear option to approve noxious judges, but they seem oblivious to the possibility someone will act on their words as McVeigh and Nichols did.
April 17
I've several times used the phrase Take the Red Pill or "Take the Red Pill Award". Now it's a new feature. The Take the Red Pill Award takes it's name from what is probably the best known scene in the "Matrix" trilogy. This is the scene in the first film where Neo first meets Morpheus, who tells Neo he's been living in a fake world. Morpheus offers a choice of a blue pill or a red pill. The blue pill will knock out Neo, who will wake up in his own bed and tell himself whatever he wants to believe, whereas the red pill will get him out of the Matrix and into the real world. He's not promised he'll like the real world, only that he'll learn the truth. Neo took the red pill. Out here in the real world, many religious fundamentalists seem to have taken the blue pill, and tell themselves whatever they want to believe. This goes beyond some misinformation, the ignorance all of us may be subject to, beyond severe misapprehension of the facts, and certainly beyond mere difference of opinion, and into delusion based on religious faith. I refer here to faith in willful contravention of unavoidable fact. Call the winners "fundamentalists," "conservatives," or "literalists". They seem to be found in all organized religions. Those faithful put themselves in line for the Take the Red Pill Award, given for faith-based utter disconnection from reality.
Kind of in line with the Take the Red Pill Award, I happened to see some of the Judicial War on Faith conference on C-SPAN. It's rich with the sort of right wing nuttiness that makes good quotes over on the right column. I've got one over there, by Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association: "If about 40 of them get impeached, suddenly a lot of these guys would be retiring." That's hardly all. I saw one panelist, I didn't catch the name, who sounded reasonable as he talked about the federal constitution, including the separation of church and state, which I hardly expected from that conference. Then he said it was left to the states to control religion. Maybe he didn't say "control", but it was a synonym. So mixing church and state is fine as long as it's done at the state level, though it seemed the general Christian conservative opinion was it's fine at the federal level too.
There was an attendee who described himself as a former liberal Democrat who got religion. He claimed whenever looked at the mainstream but relied entirely on conservative web sites. He was upset about the Schiavo case, as anyone would be if they not only believed the lies handed out by the right wing media, but never allowed themselves access to another source. He was hardly the most extreme, but maybe the most disappointing, because he was plainly a sincere person who had taken in by plainly insincere people.
On the extreme end was Edwin Vieira, who made the quote the appeared to get the most repetition. Referring to Joseph Stalin, he said, "He had a slogan and it worked very well for him whenever he ran into difficulty: 'No man, no problem.'" He left off Stalin's preparatory clause: "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." That wasn't the only chilling statement. Michael Schwartz, chief of staff for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, who told The Nation's Max Blumenthal, "I'm a radical! I'm a real extremist. I don't want to impeach judges. I want to impale them!" Now it might have been just a rhetorical flourish, but when the fundamentalist right threatens something vague and nasty against judges, they usually are taken to mean nasty as in impeachment. This lunatic went a step beyond impeachment. So what's it mean? And what does it say about Coburn that this is his chief of staff?
Blumenthal also heard David Gibbs, the attorney for the parents in the Schiavo case, accuse Michael Schiavo of attempting to kill his wife. I hope Schiavo sues him for slander, though I could hardly blame the guy for wanting all this to be over. I will plead with those of you who believe Gibbs to just check it out. He's saying something for which he knows there is no evidence. Don't believe this propaganda. You don't have to believe me either. Just go look for yourself.
April 16
Today I award another Take the Red Pill award, the award for faith-based utter disconnection from reality. The winner is the new TV series Revelations. NBC must be expecting good ratings, because they not only ran it on the network, but also on CNBC and on the SCI Fi Channel. That last one must get the Christian fundamentalists upset. The premise is the characters are seeing signs of the end of the world as predicted in the bible. Weird things are happening and the scientists can't explain them. The series could yet belie me, and the weird happenings won't really be the end as predicted by the rapture right. However, in a replay of the Terri Schiavo case (obviously this was filmed before Congress had it's special session, but the story has been in the news and big among conservatives for the last year, at least), a girl who is struck by lightning -- twice -- supposedly starts spouting the text of the book of Revelations while brain dead -- or comatose -- they use those terms interchangeably. That's what got the show the Take the Red Pill award. They later threw in the term "permanent vegetative state" once, which isn't the same as either of the other two. Gee, wonder where they got that from. This was written by someone who followed the Schiavo story but, like the religious right, didn't bother finding out any facts. They tried to undercut the doctors who, like in real life, weren't buying that someone whose higher brain functions are gone is going to recover, by coming up with a cockamamie explanation for how she could talk. Fillings from her teeth were driven into her brain by the lightning and picked up radio signals. No, really. I couldn't help chuckling either. The girl's face was immaculate by the way, rather than looking like someone whose teeth got blown up.
The main religious character, a nun who is investigating the miraculous talking comatose brain dead girl with missing fillings, is made annoying by constantly spouting if not shouting bible verses. I don't know if the annoyance was to balance her against the other characters, maybe giving her a personal journey as she learns not to do that, or if the writers didn't realize she was annoying. What was another Red Pill moment was she and the other religious characters were desperate the girl be kept alive. This sounds like the Schiavo case, where some of the right said she should be kept alive in hopes of a miracle. Apparently God's ability to work a miracle stops at death. Lazarus must be spinning in his grave. It's like a reversion to pagan times, when even the gods had rules they were stuck with. Look folks, if God was going to work a miracle, he not only could have restored her brain (either Schiavo or the girl in the show), or kept her alive without human intervention, or bring her back from the dead before she was buried, but he could do it NOW. So if you're hoping for a miracle, you can keep hoping, but since no one else has been brought since Lazarus (assuming you take the story literally which, of course, you shouldn't), don't get your hopes up.
See the archives for earlier entries.
