Dirty hands...

Apparently, if you sent money to help finance the Minutemen's border vigilante patrol group, you may have been schemed.

Alan Keyes seems to have found his way to your money. And the Minutemen "organization" is long on silence, short on accountability... though that is hardly surprising.

-R.

LIEberman...

OK, this was found a week ago... but I know that factcheck.org is notoriously low-traffic, so I only check in sporadically.

It just goes to show that LIEberman is following in the dirty-tricks lying tactics employed by his new-found Republican friends. Too bad Lamont is now ahead of LIEberman in the primary race for LIEberman's Senate seat.

VOTE NED LAMONT!

-R.

Catch-up: Bush at NAACP

Wednesday, Bush spoke to the NAACP for the first time in his presidency.

Who wrote this piece of crap speech?

Firstly, Bush constantly re-opens the wounds of racial intolerance, hammering home reminders akin to, "Don't you dare forget you were once slaves." Conjuring imagery of Martin Luther King's assassination and other graphic representations of enslavement (e.g.: "Most of your forefathers didn't come to this land seeking a better life; most came in chains as the property of other people.") was probably not the best way to endear yourself to a group of people whom you even admit is not already in your pocket ("I understand that many African Americans distrust my political party.").

Secondly, and far more important, Bush's speech talked a heck of a lot about "want"s - what we "want to do" about problems - and not so much about "do"s. It's the typical Republican doublespeaking, say-nothing hyperbole that we've been hearing every 2 years since at least 2000. Every topic he touched on - voting rights, education, health care, faith-based initiatives, the estate tax - covered no new ground, nor pointed to any new policy initiatives.

It's just more of the same - a Republican desperately pandering to a group that votes 9-to-1 against them, offering more of the same empty words that they have heard for years from politicians on both sides of the fence.

-R. (have to remember to add this. J. ... where are you, brother?)

Voinovich (heart) Bolton...

Last year, when John Bolton was nominated as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) made a public display of his dislike for Bolton, making an impassioned and principled speech that caused Bolton's nomination to move to the full Senate without a favorable recommendation from the Foreign Relations Committee.

What a difference a year makes.

Instead of pushing Congress to find a suitable replacement for Bolton, Voinovich has done a complete 180-degree turn, now endorsing Bolton and recommending that he receive confirmation from Congress when applicable. Why? To quote: "For the betterment of our country we need to clarify our position regarding John Bolton so that the world knows we speak with one voice."

Can we not clarify our position by saying, "John Bolton is a chump, and we'll replace him posthaste"?

Voinovich. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop.

Then again, Republicans are no strangers to flip-flopping...

-R.

Israel v. Lebanon, week-ending edition

Read today's news here.

Not much more to report. The Israeli request for "evacuation" of southern Lebanon continues, as Israel's ground forces begin the invasion. They have also called up their reserves - a sure sign that invasion is imminent.

Lebanon, right now, is in a difficult position. Does it protect its people from Hezbollah, potentially angering Syria and any Hezbollah sympathizers already in-country, inviting more attacks, but from those forces instead of Israel, or another potential occupation by Syria? Or does it fight against the Israeli invasion, as Israel has already shown complete disregard for the lives of Lebanese non-combatant citizens?

Members of Lebanon's government - specifically their Minister for Social Affairs, Nayla Moawad - believe that the Syrian government has spurred Hezbollah to action to intentionally destabilize Lebanon, leaving it ripe for a re-occupation.

They're going to have to learn how to play nice with each other out there. The warmongering, shoot-first mentality of the Bush administration is not providing a good role model. No idea when Condi is going out there, but Tony Snow is still spouting the party line: We won't tell Israel to stop, but they should "exercise restraint." Good comment, Tony, saying this as Israel promises to show no restraint.

-R.

As a side note, the Lebanese family in my building returned, safe and sound, Wednesday evening. Welcome home!

Sorry, no morning blogs...

Hello to the three people who are probably reading this :)

I'm shirking work until late this afternoon... I got free tickets to see our hometown Brooklyn Cyclones this afternoon!!! Let's go Cyclones - even though they are a Mets A-ball team, they are still the real hometown team. Keyspan Park is a pretty kickass place to see a game... as long as it doesn't rain too hard!

Smaller = ineffective

In 2003, a drought made it difficult for ranchers to afford to keep their livestock. In response to this situation, the federal government released stockpiles of powdered milk to the ranchers, in order to help offset their costs.

This was a good thing.

The problem lied, however, in the methodolgy used to distribute the milk. The federal government released an allotment to each state. It also put a few restrictions on its use. It then wiped its hands clean of the situation, providing no assistance in enforcing these restrictions. One of those restrictions capped the quantity that may be sold to middle-men and feed brokers. Another forbade any quantity of stockpiled milk from being exported outside the U.S.

It should be no surprise that chaos ensued. States were unable to enforce the restrictions themselves, and the milk was limitlessly sold and re-sold through various brokers. Suddenly, mills were wondering why they were repackaging U.S. government powdered milk in packages with Spanish labeling.

When you reduce the size and role of the federal government, laws are bound to be ignored, let alone broken. This fiasco reminds me, in a sense, of the kinds of things we hear about in places like Somalia and Ethiopia - where shipments of food are "hijacked" and "redistributed" by the local militia, as opposed to otherwise-authorized aid associations or the local/national government itself - when, of course, the local militia isn't itself the government.

This is proof that, when you leave people to their own devices, telling them what they can and cannot do without making sure that they actually obey the rules, they will do whatever they damn well please.

War, war, war, and more war...

Recalling Juan Wallace's challenge to Bill Kristol (talked about here on Monday) on Fox News this past weekend, more ultra-conservative, ultra-authoritarian freakazoid conservatives have come out of their holes to criticize Bush on his perceived weakness in foreign policy.

They've got part of it right. Bush is the worst foreign policy president in history. However, their solution is, as the title indicates, more war. They want the U.S. to bomb Iran now, not later. Same for North Korea. As if dropping bombs is the answer to every challenge.

Republicans in government are placing themselves firmly behind whatever the Doofus-in-Chief decides. Republicans in the punditry are divided - either Bush has overstepped his powers (see Buchanan, Will, and Buckley all question whether Iraq was a good idea) or he's not being aggressive enough (Kristol, Gingrich, et al. believe that we should make war, war, war...).

It's just too bad that all this division will be eradicated by the chest-thumping, red-meat placebos of "ban abortion," "ban gay marriage," "ban flag burning," and "screw the environment and Al Gore."

The end of the 2006 "defense of marriage"

The "Defense of Marriage" Act has failed to garner amendment-level support from the House. This vote was symbolic, as the Senate didn't get it passed either, but the House wasted our time with it anyway. The final vote: 237 hate homosexuals, 187 have no hangups.

Let's ask a Republican Representative, Phil Gingrey of Georgia (who also voted against the Voting Rights Act renewal last week). Rep. Gingrey believes that limiting marriage to a man and a woman “is perhaps the best message we can give to the Middle East and all the trouble they’re having over there right now.”

WHAT?!?!?!

This man is clearly insane. Someone call Bellevue; in the meantime, I'm willing to donate a straitjacket to the cause.

Two Democratic Representatives offer some reason amidst the insanity. Both are from Massachusetts, the only state unafraid of homosexuals - and it should be no surprise that Rep. Barney Frank expressed the question that is on most Americans' minds: “How does the existence of same-sex marriage discourage or retard heterosexual marriage?” Rep. Jim McGovern gave a more lighthearted response: “It’s had no effect on my marriage, except we get invited to more weddings.”

The oblivious Ms. Spellings

Dismissing the data in a report released by the Education Department last week (and reported on this blog on Monday), Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education, lent her support to a Republican-backed plan for a $100-million school voucher plan.

How about spending that money to improve public education instead of taking away from it? "We don't have enough certified teachers," they say. TRAIN SOME. Private institutions don't care about hiring certified teachers - and it shows, where it counts.

Read more about this here.

End the "ghetto tax"!

OK, stop laughing now, I'm serious.

The cost of living in low-income areas is higher than you'd expect. Because of fears of crime, banks and large stores tend to avoid such areas. Banks charge people living there higher interest rates on loans (if/when the loan is actually approved). The lack of larger stores typically means higher prices for goods and services than in higher-income areas. It's like shopping in a corner store as opposed to a supermarket - you'll pay up to 25% more for what you want, because often that is the only store in the area.

Add to that insult the fact that these people make less money (duh). When your income is low, and most of the money you earn goes to your housing and food, how do you buy a TV, or furniture? You rent to own - and wind up paying up to (and maybe over) 300% OVER the one-time cost over the life of the rental period.

Good luck putting your child(ren) through college... especially now, with federal monies drying up.

Helping residents of poor areas escape some of the financial burdens placed on them is essential, given our government's unwillingness to increase the minimum wage, or provide universal health care... two changes which would make the insults described above a little more bearable.

Watching history...

Don't forget... today may be the day that President Bush exercises his FIRST veto ever... to ban federal funding for new lines of embryonic stem-cell research.

What a "perfect" way to break a "perfect" streak. Veto something that might actually do some good for some people, without harming anyone, and without costing billions of dollars a day.

Keep in mind, though, that even this proposal is not the end of the debate. All it says is that any embryos that are currently in storage in fertility clinics can be opened up to research. In addition, it does not allow for the "destruction" of embryos in order to create the new stem-cell lines - sure to be a limiting factor. It also prohibits a procedure called "therapeutic cloning," which is a form of cloning used to imbue stem cells with the proper genetic information, potentially greatly reducing the risk of rejection of the structures created by the stem cells.

Israel v. Lebanon, still.

Not a heck of a lot has changed in the physical-violence sense. Israel is still bombing all over Lebanon, killing more people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah, and destroying trucks carrying donated medical supplies. Hezbollah is still firing at Israel, of course, though one would suspect that they will run out of missiles before Israel's military might is exhausted.

Israel has backed off its demand that Hezbollah disarm BEFORE a cease-fire agreement is reached - a provision they surely had to know they were not going to get. And the U.S. government came to its senses a day late, deciding now that the Blair/Annan multinational force plan may be a good one. However, all is not lost for Israel and the U.S., because the U.S. plans on letting Israel continue having its boom-boom fun for about one more week before sending Condi Rice out there to set up this "border patrol."

A lot can happen in a week, though. The president of Iran's Parliament is actively picking a fight with the U.S. and Israel, calling Israel a "filthy tumor... in the body of the Islamic world," and says that, as long as Israel exists, that "Muslims will always hate America." Turkey is planning on taking advantage of the Israel/Lebanon conflict by invading (at least) the Kurdish part of Iraq. Other Arab neighbors, including Hamas and the Palestinians, may join the fray on the side of Hezbollah as well.

Read today's latest here.

Oh, and the U.S. government, in all its concern for the safety of its citizens in Lebanon, had considered CHARGING American citizens money for the "privilege" of being rescued from the war zone. Fortunately for them, the government rescinded that demand.

A conservative without conscience...

John Bolton. Read his comments on Lebanese civilian deaths here.

I am totally, undeniably, speechless - with the exception of the adjectives necessary to describe my speechlessness.

Lindsay Graham, occasionally sensible Republican

From the New York Times article found here:

“What I’m trying to do with my time in the Senate during this whole debate we’re having is to remind the Senate that the rules we set up speak more about us than it does the enemy,” Mr. Graham said in an interview. “The enemy has no rules. They don’t give people trials, they summarily execute them and they’re brutal, inhuman creatures. But when we capture one of them, what we do is about us, not about them.

“Do they deserve, the bad ones, all the rights that are afforded? No. But are we required to do it because of what we believe? Yes.”

There is someone thinking as am American first, and a partisan second.

For once, Sen. Graham, you've got it right. For once.

Iraq v. itself.

Civil war continues in Iraq. More of the same - bombing in front of a Shiite market, killing 48; torture taking place in detention centers run by the Interior Ministry; a rise in demand for authoritarian Muslim leaders to protect Iraqi civilians.

Wow... sounds familiar... again!

Yes, sir, we ARE bringing American "democracy" (if by "democracy" we actually mean "authoritarian fascist oligarchy under a guise of democracy") to the world.

How to get away with crime.

AG Gonzales clues us in to how Bush got his wiretapping problem past checks and balances.

By denying security clearance to the Justice Department's apparently uselessly named Office of Professional Responsibility, Bush and his authoritarian Big Brother comrades have avoided any sort of expose of their ILLEGAL wiretapping scheme.

Bastards.

Israel v. Lebanon, continued.

Yeah, it's still going on. Did you think World War III would end this soon?

Olmert is a real hard-line chickenhawk. A top Israeli general also said the war would last at least a week, perhaps a "few" weeks, but it would "not take months." Olmert has also referred to a "Tehran-Damascus axis of evil." Sound familiar, anyone? Thought so. It's almost no surprise that Israel's only international friend is the U.S., a country run by hard-line chickenhawks.

Blair and Annan have officially proposed the UN border patrol/peacekeeper solution. John Bolton, unsurprisingly, rejected it. Olmert initially did as well, though he was advised that it would probably look good on Israel if they accepted the help. Duh. Olmert's standing cease-fire proposal, as it stands now, requires Hezbollah to essentially self-destruct. Yeah, these guys did all this crap to just give up now...

As it is, the possibility exists that elements of Lebanon's military may be Hezbollah agents/sympathizers, though Olmert accuses the government itself of aiding a radar-guided rocket attack on an Israeli naval ship. Again, sadly, all too familiar to these eyes and ears.

Is it just me, by the way, or does the press have a little too much detail regarding strikes and casualties?

Dubai Ports World owns us... still.

Hey, I thought we weren't going to let a foreign company control our ports?

What happened?

Congress killed the stopping the deal bit.

Good job, guys and gals, good job.

Scumbags. Vote them ALL OUT.

War lies exposed here...

A doozy of one here...

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker went off-script today in a stunning moment of candor, letting Americans know that "we're closer to the beginning than we are to the end of all this."

Recall Rummy a few years ago, his "six days, six weeks, I doubt six months" that the war in Iraq would take? Three years later, and we're closer to the BEGINNING than the END? Wait a minute here... something just isn't right. I can't put my finger on it, but... I think three years is longer than six months. Just a hunch.

But Schoomaker didn't only go off-script once. He let another one fly, this one as an answer to a simple question: Is the U.S. winning the war in Iraq?

His reply: "I think I would answer that by telling you I don't think we're losing."

I think I would answer that by telling you I don't think we're losing."

Wow.

Putin owns Bush

From a press conference today...

BUSH: I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq, where there’s a free press and free religion. And I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia will do the same thing. I fully understand, however, that there will be a Russian-style democracy.

PUTIN: We certainly would not want to have same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, quite honestly.

BUSH: Just wait.

See this here.

Stem cells up for debate in the Senate

The Senate, this week, will look at three proposals regarding the funding of stem-cell research. Sadly, only one of these will expand research into the field, while the other two are political ploys so that the Christian dominionists can say they voted for stem-cell research.

The two artificial proposals are blatantly pointless. One would only serve to promote research into adult stem-cell research; adult stem-cells have been shown to be limited in practical application. The other would just ban "fetal farming," the process of creating fetuses (feti?) strictly for scientific research.

The real proposal would essentially override the Bush administration's 2001 decision which only funded research on a small number of stem-cell lines that, as of 2006, have aged and degraded beyond the point of practical use in studies. It would presumably open up study into lines that originate with blastocysts prepared through in-vitro fertilization techniques for families who have trouble conceiving. These blastocysts are currently being thrown out after a certain point, as they, too, degrade beyond usefulness. Why not put them to good use?

Bush has vowed to veto this proposal, which has already passed the House, if it passes the Senate, which seems likely. This would be his FIRST veto. Great way to break a streak, by veto-ing something that might actually be GOOD for people.

Many dominionists, and Bush, argue that a fertilized egg is a human life and should not be destroyed. Well, they will be destroyed, unutilized, as policy stands now. Unless, of course, the dominionist women all start impregnating themselves with them in response - like that would happen. Some of those babies might be Jews, or blacks, or... well, you get the point.

A stem-cell researcher once said (on the Al Franken show), "If there was a fire in a fertility clinic, with 2,000 blastocysts in a freezer, and one human baby, inside, and you could save either the baby or the freezer, what would you save?" A comparison of 2,000 "lives" to one actual life. Not a single person on either side of the stem-cell debate would allow the baby to die in favor of the blastocysts.

So... are they life? More importantly - can they best be used to support life, or should we just let them degrade into uselessness?

Which values life more?

Welcome back, Discovery!

OK, I'm a space goober... :)

I would like to extend a warm "Welcome back to Earth" to the crew of STS-121, landing Space Shuttle Discovery at Cape Canaveral at 9:21AM EDT.

World War III? Come on, Newt...

Newt's just silly.

Bush and his authoritarian Republican cohorts should make this into World War III?

Why? Because we're the "victims"??? The United States is an OCCUPYING FORCE in Iraq, whose people are now in the middle of a civil war. Israel has gone just a notch overboard in its response to Hezbollah.

At some point, we have to acknowledge the oppression of American and Israeli policies in dealing with other nations. We must account for the role of our country in enabling already-bad situations to spiral out of control.

Children's behinds left... again...

In a study released on weekly Bad News Day (known to the rest of us as Friday), it has been shown that children in public schools typically performed at least as well in reading and mathematics as comparable children in private schools. The study finds that, when compared with students in similar racial, economic, and social situations, private school students were not performing as well as their public-school-educated counterparts.

On top of this, the study found that the worst-performing private schools tended to be...

...Wait for it...

... conservative Catholic schools! Surprise! (NOT)

As someone in the education field, it is so not surprising that most private school students underperform. Private schools tend to have a shorter school year, longer vacations, more "off days," and less-qualified teachers than public schools. In addition, their school day, typically the same length as a public-school day, is "shortened" as soon as the first "religious" lesson of the day starts.

I have found that 8th-graders in private schools are woefully behind in math and science compared to their public-schooled peers.

Who wants vouchers now?

Smarter heads?

Tony Blair and Kofi Annan have an idea which is far more logical than Bush's "tell them to stop!" plan - increase the UN forces already stationed in southern Lebanon from its current 2,000-strong force.

Perhaps they can help secure the Israel-Lebanon border.

Perhaps they can assist the Lebanese army in shutting down the Hezbollah units in southern Lebanon. Lebanon doesn't want their country in any more ruins than it has to be; however, their army's ability to stop Hezbollah on their own is, well, lacking... Don't you think that, if their army or police were capable of restraining Hezbollah, they would have done it as soon as the bombing campaign started?

Just some food for thought...

Another job Mexicans will do that Americans won't...

...defending the sanctity of their votes.

The Democrats are wusses compared to Mr. Lopez Obrador in Mexico, and previous election manipulation victim (and now PM) Yushchenko of the Ukraine. Not to forget the fight Washington Governor Gregoire endured in 2004. Both Yushchenko and Gregoire fought back against right-wing candidates who told them, "Just give it up, you lost, get over it," to find that they were the rightful winners. Lopez Obrador is taking a stand, and the Mexican people are rallying behind him, just as the Ukrainians did in 2004 for Yushchenko.

Why can't we take to the streets en masse to demand strict integrity in our own elections? We won't - because the "liberal" (NOT) media in this country did everything it could to convince John Q. Public that there was no way voter fraud could - or would - happen here.

Bob Novak, the shifty bastard...

In an interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press (transcript here), Bob Novak tried to weasel his way out of responsibility for outing Valerie Plame. I would recount all the different ways here, but virtually every question Russert asked was responded to with a new excuse from Novak. My favorites:

"That was a misstatement on my part... I hope I’m not screwing up on this interview because I’m much better interviewing than I am giving interviews. They didn’t give me the name. And of course it was not a “they,” it was one person, which I later checked out with Mr. Rove." (why did he have to check this out with Rove?!)

"...there’s a difference between undercover and being a covert agent."

"...she had been outed by the traitor Aldridge Aimes many years ago."

and my full-on, A#1 favorite, in response to Russert's comment, "[Bill] Harlow [a source for Novak's Plame column] works as an NBC News consultant. I talked to him on Friday. He said that he told you, 'It’d be really bad if you wrote her publicly'."

Novak's reply?

"Now he may—he may, he may think he said it, but he, he never—he never said that to me."

Oh, come on, Bob. Come on.

Do my eyes and ears deceive me?

Conservative pundit William Kristol was challenged on the effectiveness of his warmongering ways...

...on FOX NEWS!

I'm feeling a little faint...

Simple strategies from a simple President.

According to Bush, the United Nations should, and I quote, "get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over."

Oh yeah, the United Nations sure could ask Syria to ask Hezbollah to stop. Seems simple enough, does it not? However, Syria doesn't have to ask Hezbollah anything. More importantly, Hezbollah is certainly under NO obligation to stop, just because Syria - or anyone else - asks them to.

If this is the best idea that Bush can come up with, another schoolyard solution to a grown-up problem, maybe he should just shut his trap and look good for the cameras.

I thought these guys didn't like the UN, anyway...?