The Raven' s Blog, Web Log of Eric Ferguson: Second Half of September 2005 Archive

September 28
Am I the only who finds the indictment of Tom DeLay feels a bit like Al Capone getting charged with tax evasion? Here's the indictment. Don't get me wrong. It's good it finally happened, but it seems pretty low on the list of the crap he's pulled. I don't understand how congressional Republicans have so little integrity left that he can have any public office at all after being spanked by the ethics committee three times. Laundering some campaign funds seems small by comparison to gerrymandering the Texas US House districts and and protecting the sweatshop owners of Saipan. Maybe this is the only thing technically illegal. So be it. I just remind readers that the Republicans managed a distraction when corruption was the issue of the 2002 elections (Enron is the issue? Oh look, we need to vote for war on Iraq RIGHT NOW). We mustn't let them do it this time, and they will try. My guess is we'll have to bomb Syria RIGHT NOW, or there will be a federal constitutional amendment on gay marriage.

As long as I'm putting things together, the corruption of DeLay, Frist et al might look like a separate issue from election reform, which I write about often, but it isn't. If you've been reading, you know I think the problem isn't technical but rather deliberate cheating. It's the same people. The people stealing elections and stealing money are the same people. They are two manifestations of the same corruption.

Is Michael Brown a scapegoat? He really is pretty awful, but that just makes him a more plausible scapegoat, especially with such telling quotes as "I think it's wrong for the federal government to be in the ice business, providing ice so I can keep my beer and Diet Coke cool". His boss, homeland secretary Michael Chertoff, screwed up too and was just as oblivious, besides participating in the lie that there were newspaper headlines saying "New Orleans dodged a bullet." He should have gotten a chewing too. Then how about former FEMA head and the guy who picked Brown, Jim Albaugh, and has reacted to Katrina by enriching himself and his buddies. Above all, don't forget the acting president who picked Chertoff, who picked Albaugh, who accepted the recommendation of Brown, and who ultimately stopped the levees being improved.

The weird thing is I actually felt sorry for Brown. I figured it must feel awful to know you've screwed up that bad and everyone hates you for it. There wasn't a lot of sympathy, because he could have refused a job he knew he was unqualified for and he couldn't be bothered to pay attention, but how unimaginably awful about himself he must have felt...so I imagined. Then he "admits" the mistake of not realizing how badly Louisiana was doing things. He was such an arrogant bastard that he seemed like, well, a modern day Republican leader...which I suppose as a high government official he was. Now even if there is some scapegoating going on, I hope they prosecute him for lying to Congress, the legislative equivalent of perjury.

By the way, in case anyone still thinks this is a one-time screw-up, it turns out things aren't going great after Rita either.

September 26
Let's see, we haven't had a Take the Red Pill Award for while. So, here's an award to William Buckingham, a member of the Dover, PA, school board. Taking the side for requiring the teaching of intelligent design, he apparently saw no problem with imposing his faith on the curriculum, saying, "Nearly 2,000 years ago, someone died on a cross for us. Shouldn't we have the courage to stand up for him?" That's right, evolutionists, who include every scientist on the planet except a few religious fundamentalists, aren't trying to explain the natural history of life on Earth, they're trying to attack Jesus --- whom many of them believe in. How about this for a compromise: science classes must teach the biblical view of science, and religion classes must teach the absurdity of virgin births. Seriously, I'm not saying intelligent design and it's forerunner, creationism, shouldn't be taught in science class, because students are going to hear about them so they might as well get the straight scoop. However, that means they won't be taught as equally valid theories, but as what they are, belief systems that depend on faith and in no sense qualify as science. That is of course not what Buckingham was getting at, so as a proxy for the fundamentalists on the Dover school board, he gets the Take the Red Pill Award.

September 21
There was an item buried in the inside pages a couple days ago I would like to call attention to. A French soldier was killed in Afghanistan. They are there you may recall to help us after 911. So, I have a question for those of you who think bigotry against the French is socially acceptable, particularly the remarks indicating the French give up fast in war, "surrender monkeys" and such: would you be to say those things to the soldier's family? You wouldn't? Then maybe you ought to think before you say them at all. More here if you read French. If you don't, try Babelfish.

Alberto "Torture Memo" Gonzales has engendered some derision by ordering the FBI to focus on pornography, including an agent being quoted saying, "I guess this means we've won the war on terror." This is adult porn, not child porn. I have a thought. Could Gonzales be trying to make the religious right happy before being nominated for the Supreme Court? He must know this move generally looks like misplaced priorities, but will make the right constituency happy. He needs unanimous conservative support, because the left will oppose the man behind the torture policy much more than we have Roberts. The man should be a defendant, not a judge.

Let's not jump to the conclusion Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Republican from Tennessee, in case you're new here) committed insider trading. It could be pure coincidence he sold all his stock and that of his wife and children as well right before the company, Hospital Corporation of America, announced an earnings report that caused the stock to drop. Just because this company made his family fortune and made up his personal fortune, that's no reason to assume he knew what was going on. He didn't, after all, know exactly how much stock he had. $10 million? $20 million? Who knows! Come on, it's not a huge amount, at least not when you're as wealthy as, say, Bill Frist. Moreover, it be grossly unfair to assume he had inside information just because his brother is a director. The idea that Frist was following closely the company his family founded and on which his extensive personal wealth depended is just ludicrous.

OK, maybe he did it, but maybe despite the extensive holding of stocks and long and deep inside connection, he just didn't know securities laws. After all, despite being a doctor, he diagnosed Terri Schiavo from a video, got it completely wrong, then denied it as if, as Jon Stewart said, "Not only do I believe Senator Bill Frist may be a terrible doctor, I think he doesn't realize C-SPAN has cameras." This was after being unwilling to AIDS can't be caught from tears and sweat. So maybe he just isn't that smart.

OK, I was being sarcastic, but I would point out that the Martha Stewart investigation was launched on less evidence for a crime only a fraction of the size. This might even get Frist up to a DeLay level.

September 17
If you're still in any doubt the Bush administration completely screwed up after Katrina as well as ignoring warnings about the levees for years before, then you ought to hear it directly from people in FEMA as they tell how they tried to get Brown and Chertoff to do something in the days before the hurricane hit.

So a question for those of you still backing Bush: what will it take for you to admit he has to go? You've seen him lie, you've seen him screw up big time, you've seen he's an idiot, you've seen he surrounds himself with people who are robbing us blind --- so what are you waiting for? Does he have to get caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy? Yesterday was declared by the acting president to be a national day of prayer. How about a national day of responsibility? We can celebrate by demanding that Bush fire Chertoff and then show that accepting responsibility means something by resigning.

Today would be particularly appropriate for a day of responsibility because this is also Constitution Day. Let us mark it telling our members of congress that investigating the president is part of their responsibilities regardless of party, and refusing to investigate Bush will have negative effects on their reelection. And you do have to tell them. You can't just sit and grumble. Tell your Democratic members to stand up to the Republicans, and tell your Republican members that refusing to investigate corruption and incompetence within their own party will cost them votes.

"You don't care about me."
16 year old Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, when he realized the Canadian agent he thought had come to take him out of Hell and home to Canada was just another interrogator.

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at his pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose."
Abraham Lincoln in 1848, during the Mexican War, expressing why allowing a president sole discretion to decide when to invade another country is dangerous to the liberty of his own country.

"The OPR [the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility]also has been far behind in producing required annual public reports summarizing its activities. Last month, it released its report covering fiscal year 2005. That means many investigations undertaken during the tenure of former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales remain under wraps."
LA Times reporter Richard B. Schmit, in an article written in July 2008, on how the OPR is hiding the results of investigations --- assuming they actually are investigating.

"Mr. Chairman, I think the number's actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108, and the total number that were declared homicides by the military services, or by the CIA, or others doing investigations, CID, and so forth � was 25, 26, 27."
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, on the number of detainees killed in Bush's prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and locations still secret.

"Democracy works, but sometimes churns slowly. Time is short. The 2008 election is critical for the planet. If Americans turn out to pasture the most brontosaurian congressmen, if Washington adapts to address climate change, our children and grandchildren can still hold great expectations."
James Hansen, on the 20th anniversary of his testimony before Congress where he informed them global warming was now certain, and how little time remains to prevent catastrophes.

"Who will chair the commission investigating the secrets of warrantless spying, years from today? Will it be a young senator in this body today? Will it be someone not yet elected? What will that senator say when he or she comes to our actions, reads in the records how we let outrage after outrage after outrage slide, with nothing more than a promise to stop the next one? I imagine that senator will ask of us, 'Why didn't they do anything? Why didn't they fight back? In June 2008, when no one could doubt anymore what the administration was doing---why did they sit on their hands?'"
Sen. Chris Dodd, in his speech on the Senate floor opposing the FISA bill and retroactive immunity.

"We had the worst natural disaster in the history of this country Katrina, and there wasn't a drop of oil spilled."
Sen. Norm Coleman, proposing more offshore oil drilling. There was actually enough oil spilled to match the Exxon Valdez. Whether Coleman is lying, or ignorantly repeating Republican talking points, is unknown.

"I'll go back to square one on this: We squandered a lot of gifts. Human beings were given a lot of great gifts. We were given the ability to reason, this extra-large brain, walking erect, having binocular vision and the opposable thumb, and all of these things, and we had such promise, but we squandered it on goods and superstition. We gave ourselves over to the high priests and the traders, and they are the ones we allow to control us."
George Carlin, in an interview with Salon, on how he became a disappointed idealist.

"To date, seven long years after we scooped up our first detainees in Afghanistan, not a single one of them has faced evidence, his accusers, or anything remotely resembling a legal court hearing on his guilt or innocence."
Joseph Galloway, military correspondent for McClatchy, on how responsibility for war crimes goes right to the top, despite efforts to confine consequences to the bottom, in light of the recent McClatchy series on detainees.

"As I was leaving the UN food distribution center in Damascus, Layla Atiya, the widow with seven children, touched my arm. 'Can you tell me one thing?,' she pleaded. 'Why did America do this to us? What did we do to America to make her hate us so?'"
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink, writing about her visit to Iraqi refugee camps.

"So we're sitting here and, for example, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who said that he wanted to be a martyr on 9/11, make no mistake about it --- he said that he just couldn't get a visa --- launched into a description of what kind of psychotropic drugs he's taking here at the prison camp, or being given here at the prison camp. And the media monitors hit the white noise button. We didn't get to hear what exactly he's being given and we didn't exactly hear his explanation about why he's on medication.

And one of the escorts here explained that this was HIPAA protection, the Health and Information Protection Act on a place where the Bush Administration says the Constitution doesn't apply."
Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg, on the restrictions placed on the press and mistreatment of detainees.

"If the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court was really concerned about fairness, it could have simply asked the Florida Supreme Court to devise a universal standard, appoint a judge to enforce it, and then extend the state's meaningless 'safe harbor' deadline to make it possible to complete the recount. It did not do so because it was not interested in counting the votes. It wanted George W. Bush to win."
Gary Kamiya, Salon writer at large, in a review of the HBO's "Recount", on how the Supreme Court stole the election for Bush.

"Convicting and imprisoning Paul Minor on corruption charges could be a powerful way to curtail contributions to the local Democratic Party."
U.S. House Judiciary Committee report on political prosecutions by the Bush DOJ. Minor was a vital contributor to the Mississippi Democratic Party.

"Where does the madness end? Where do words lose their meaning? Al-Qa'ida is not being defeated. Hizbollah has just won a domestic war in Lebanon, as total as Hamas's war in Gaza. Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon and Gaza are hell disasters � I need no apology to quote Churchill's description of 1948 Palestine yet again � and this foolish, stupid, vicious man is lying to the world yet again."
Robert Fisk, columnist and resident of Lebanon, responding to remarks by Bush that show he hasn't the least understanding of the region he's mucking up.

"The short version: Republicans in Congress, McCain included, have slashed the United States budget for wind energy since Carter was president, which is why McCain has to speak at a Danish turbine manufacturer instead of an American one."
Mother Jones reporter/blogger Jonathan Stein, noting that McCain made his climate change speech in a Danish wind turbine factory after repeatedly cutting funding for wind development here.

"We get off on warfare."
Rev. Rod Parsley, McCain's spiritual advisor, who calls for mass murder, in a snippet of a sermon in a video by Mother Jones and Brave New Films. That line of Christian charity comes about 1:25 into the video.

Quotes Archives