One more voice

late night update... sort of

2006-03-13T21:26:00.000-08:00

this isn't a serious post. I just feel bad that I haven't updated this blog of mine since last November. I've been working my tail off in a US Senate race and just haven't had the time and energy to do the kind of writing I'd be proud to publish. So now I've decided... fuck it! I'm not going to worry about posting brilliant missives on the state of our nation. I'm not even going to wory bout spel'n. I think I'll just use this forum to vent to my none existent audience. After all nothing is more private than a diary that anybody can read but no one will bother to. lol. So any ways
FUCK BUSH!

Republicans are still weak on defense

2005-11-14T16:22:00.000-08:00

I've been known to say that for all of their tough talk conservatives are in fact weak on defense. Now it seems the 9/11 commission agree with me. Today they issued a stern rebuke to the White House for its failures to secure WMD materials and loose nukes around the world. "Preventing terrorists from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction must be elevated above all other problems of national security," was one quote from their statement.

The Bush admin has dropped the ball on so many aspects of our national defense that its hard to know where to begin, but counter proliferation is as good a place as any. The more nukes in the world the easier it will be for one to fall into terrorist hands its as simple as that. Yet Mr. Bush has consistently failed to adress the proliferation of nuclear weapons in an effective manner. Indeed, under Bush's "leadership" the US was scrapped the ABM treaty a landmark anti-proliferation agreement. This combined with our experiments into new nuclear weapons for "bunker busting" has ruined our credibility as a counter proliferation force. AS a resuklt Bush has been unable to deal effectively with proliferating states like Iran and North Korea.

The problem with conservatives is that they think defense is simply a matter of blowing up other people rather then preventing other people from blowing us up. The old "the best defense is a good offense" meme doesn't work in a counter insurgency where forceful military action only encourages support for your enemies. And the war on terror is a global counter insurgency campaign which requires political as well as military solutions. Other wise for every terrorist we kill two more will be recruited. How many times do we have to kill or capture the no. three guy in Al Quaeda before we realize that simply killing terrorists will not solve our problem.

No More Cookies for Mike Steele

2005-11-14T11:39:00.000-08:00

For some time I've been hearing outrage over the treatment of Mike Steele in the Maryland Senate campaign. For those of you who don't follow Maryland politics, Mike Steele is the Republican Lieutenant Governor and candidate for the Senate seat that Paul Sarbanes is retiring from in '06. He is also an African American. The outrage amongst republicans arises is because some members of the black community have launched racially charged attacks against Mr. Steele calling him an "uncle Tom." In one famed event Mr. Steele was pelted with Oreo cookies after a debate. Unfortunately for the Steele campaign it now appears that event never happened.

Gov Ehrlich and Lt Gov Steele in Maryland caught in race-baiting lie over "Oreo" incident that never happened

Apparently no one outside of Steele's circle of supporters can recall ever seeing him pelted with oreos, including attendees of the debate where it supposedly happened.

There have been some ugly things said about Mike Steele by some members of the black community but the outrage on the part of Republicans has been manufactured in order to protect Steele from the legitimate criticism any black republican will face. I am confident in making that accusation because the Republican party has never been shy about using race for political gain. Indeed, their selection of Steele as their candidate is a transparent attempt to exploit the diversity of Maryland's population in the vauge hope of pealing away black votes from the democratic party.

Race has been a part of the Republican political strategy for over forty years now. After the Democratic party under Johnson embraced the civil rights movement and alienated southern conservatives the Republican party in a display of rank political opportunism embraced the racism prevalent in the south to increase their base. Richard Nixon rose to power on a "southern strategy" based on fighting civil rights legislation. Ronald Regan endeared himself to southern conservatives with his race baiting talk of "Cadillac driving welfare-queens." The Republican party's longstanding and on going promotion of "state's rights" has it's origins in the anger of southern states at being forced by the federal government to treat their black residents with the respect due all American citizens. Now the Bush Department of inJustice is suing Southern Illinios University for "reverse discrimination" as part of the Republican attack on affirmative action.

Republican strategists should know better then to expect blacks to simply forget the abuse they've suffered at the hands of the Republican party for the past four decades. They are not likely to forget that the party of Lincoln deliberately remade itself into the party of Dixie. Republican attempts to brand the small handful of black activists who are denouncing Steele as 'the real racists' is nothing more than a transparent attempt to innoculate their candidate. Any member of any community will face inevitable and legitimate criticism from within that community for supporting a party that attacks that its interests. I don't doubt that Mike Steele has what he thinks are good reasons for being a republican and supporting his party, but he would be better off explaining those reasons to the black community then hiding behind rhetorical tricks like 'calling me an uncle Tom makes you a racist.'

But I could be way off. I'm not myself a member of the black community and thus must rely on inference and supposition when discussing the black community. My insight on these matters is a product of the fact that I am a proud member of the American community. Given the harm the Republican party has done to my community recent years I have trouble understanding why any American support them. So I have some small understanding of the mistrust and resentment that members of the black community confront black republicans with.

Impeach Rove

2005-11-04T14:13:00.000-08:00

Though it has mainly been used against sitting Presidents, impeachment is not reserved for that highest of offices.  The constitution allows for the impeachment of “all civil officers of the United States.”  What constitutes a “civil officer” is not, to my knowledge, well defined but could be interpreted to include the office White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.  Which brings me to the point of this essay, congressional Democrats should immediately begin submitting resolutions of inquiry into the involvement of Rove in the White House leak case, the manipulation of prewar intelligence and whether his conduct on the White House Iraq Group violated federal anti-propaganda laws.  Resolutions of Inquiry are always the first step in an impeachment case and this resolution should be made explicitly as part of a call for Roves impeachment.

The President promised the American people that anyone involved in the leak case would be fired.  Rove is clearly involved, but the President as to date refused to fire him. Indeed, Rove still possesses a security clearance that he clearly can’t be trusted with.  Many republicans have begun calling for his resignation and the words “cancer on the presidency” are being thrown around by the media in stories involving him.  Though the Republican leadership would dismiss a call for his impeachment as a “political stunt” some Republicans would support it in order to pressure Rove to resign or to pressure the President to fire him.

Though the success of a move to impeach Rove would be uncertain at best, Democrats spearheading such an effort would be drawing a clear distinction between themselves and the Republican party that they will need to win in 06.  Indeed, even if defeated, such a move would play in the Democrats favor by energizing the Democratic base and revealing republicans as corrupt obstructionists.  “Respect for the Law,” can be and should be a major theme in the 06 races and Democrats can easily capitalize on the inevitable resistance by the Republican leadership to any move against Rove.  More over such a move will help further aggravate the internal divisions afflicting the Republican party by pitting the handful of republican moderates against their conservative leadership and by pitting the few genuine “law and order” republicans against the party loyalists who want block any investigation into the conduct of the administration.

Alito Helps Prove Conservatism Unpopular

2005-11-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

Gallup: New Poll Holds Warnings on Alito Nomination

This EP article proves yet again that the country’s rightward shift is a lie.  Public opinion research continues to show that Americans are moderates, and are increasingly distrustful of conservatives.  A recent Gallup poll illuminates profound misgivings amongst the majority of Americans over Judge Alito’s extreme conservatism.  The key findings:

--“If it becomes clear Alito would vote to reverse the abortion ruling Roe v. Wade, Americans would not want the Senate to confirm him, by 53% to 37%.”--“If most Senate Democrats oppose the nomination and decide to filibuster against Alito, 50% of Americans believe they would be justified, while 40% say they would not.”

The fact is that abortion is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Alito.  This is a man who said it was ok for police to strip-search a woman and her ten-year-old daughter without a warrant specifically authorizing such a search.  This is a man who ruled against the family and medical leave act.  This is a man ruled for racial and disability discrimination.  This is a man who has dissented from numerous decisions supporting the fundamental rights of Americans.

Finally, and the most damning thing, is his disregard for judicial ethics.  In 2002 he sat on a panel considering a case that involved Vanguard Group, in which he has extensive investments.  Despite the obvious conflict of interest this represented he refused to recuse himself from the case.  As a result the decision reached by the panel he sat on had to be set aside and the case retried by a different panel, an inexcusable waste of the court’s time and the taxpayers’ money.

No One To Blame But Themselves

2005-11-01T22:23:00.000-08:00

In a bold move yesterday the Democratic leaders in the Senate demanded a closed session to discuss the fact that the Republican majority on the Senate Intelligence committee has been obstructing a promised investigation into the manipulation of prewar intelligence by Bush administration officials.  Now conservative Republicans are howling about the fact that the Dems didn’t warn them ahead of time.  Majority leader Bill “SEC’s most wanted” Frist called it a slap in the face.  You know what?  I agree! It was a slap in the face, and he had it coming.

The chairman of the Senate intelligence committee promised us this investigation “after the election.”  Well tomorrow it will have been a year since the last election and nothing has been done.  The Democrats aren’t complaining that the investigation is taking to long, or claiming that it is a whitewash. They’re pointing out that there has been no investigation at all.  Hearings haven’t been scheduled.  Witnesses haven’t been called.  Subpoenas haven’t been issued.  Nothing has been done!  Today the Democratic leadership stood up and struck a blow for the American people and the constitution of the United States.

The current lack of comity in the senate is a direct reflection on its current leadership.  It was conservative Republicans who threatened a “nuclear option” to illegally rewrite the Senate filibuster rules.    It was conservative Republicans who dragged the senate into the private affairs of the Schaivo family.  It was conservative Republicans who, in the run up to the failed Iraq war, attacked any voice of reason or dissent as unpatriotic.

For years now the conservatives ruling the republican party have waged a bitter ideologically war on both Democrats and moderates in their own party.  Whenever they have been presented an opportunity to reach across the isle, unite the nation and build a consensus they’ve chosen instead to pander to their extremist followers and further divide the country.  Indeed, one refrain I have heard disturbingly often from political historians is that America under George Bush is more divided than it has ever been in its history, including the years leading up to the Civil War.  This is no accident.

Conservatives have to divide people to get elected.  Public opinion research consistently shows that their policy positions on substantive issues like retirement, education, the environment and healthcare are extremely unpopular.  To get elected conservatives have to demonize their opponents and exploit “wedge issues” like abortion and gay marriage.  The fact that they now have the gall to complain about partisanship is just another demonstration of the fact that their hypocrisy know no bounds.

My only regret about yesterday’s events in the Senate is that it has taken the Democrats so long to wake up to the fact that the Senate isn’t what it used to be.  It used to be, “the worlds greatest deliberative body,” now it’s an ideological war zone, because that’s what conservatives have turned it into.  The fact that the Dems have finally decided to start fighting back is actually a relief.  Let the conservatives bitch all they want.  When it comes to the breakdown of civility in public discourse they have no one to blame but themselves.

'Bout Friggin' Time!

2005-11-01T13:32:00.000-08:00

Democrats Force Senate Into Iraq Meeting

Before the 04 elections the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Commitee promised to look into the manipulation of intelligence by the Bush administration and since then has blocked all efforts to actually move that investigation forward. It seems that the DEmocratic leadership has finally learned that going along to get along with conservative republicans just gets you screwed. They seem to finally realize that it's high time to fight.

uber rare morning post

2005-11-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

I am by nature a night owl and generally despise morings, but here I am up at 8 am. Why? Because there's something wrong with this country and the only solution is to back candidates who can turn it arround. So I'm hauling my butt out of bed to go to a campaign meeting for Maryland senate candidate Allan Lichtman. Check out his campaign website to find out why.

The Perfect Solution

2005-10-31T22:12:00.000-08:00

Over the past few years, radical conservatives have launched an unprecedented assault upon our liberties.  The Patriot act was an understandable, knee-jerk reaction to 9/11, but through it our constitutional safeguards were eroded.  The only things now standing between a free America and an American police state are the restraint of law enforcement officers in the use of their new powers under the Patriot act and, of course, the power of the Supreme Court to rule the act, in whole or in part, unconstitutional.  With Mr. Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito the radical right has revealed its intention to undermine the last line of defense the American people posses for their rights and liberties.

Fortunately I have stumbled across a perfect solution: a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the American people a right to privacy.  For years now conservatives have been attacking the right to privacy that the Supreme Court found in Griswold v. Connecticut, because it became the basis for Roe v. Wade and undermine all other conservative attempts to impose their idea of morality on the American people.  They have derided it as “the so-called ‘right to privacy.’”   Indeed, conservative complaints about Judicial activism and the need for “strict constructionists” who won’t “invent new rights” or “legislate from the bench” all come back to Griswold and its impact on Roe.  Their reasoning is spurious, but that’s no reason we can’t use it against them.  They claim the constitution contains no right to privacy, fine, let's add one.

A moderate-liberal coalition pushing a privacy amendment would put the conservatives on the defensive.  It would, I believe, enjoy broad public support.  It would shift the focus of the abortion debate away from the rights of the un-born to the rights of the living.  It would force them to explain why the movement that argues, “government should get off of peoples backs,” supports government intrusion into our private lives.  If passed it would protect Roe and de-fang the patriot act.  Which is why conservatives will fight it.  Which force them to try to explain to the American people why they oppose privacy.  Making a Privacy amendment an issue in 06 is a sure winner for moderates and progressives and a sure looser for conservatives.

Here’s my first draft:

“The American people shall hence forth posses an explicit Right of Privacy protecting them from the scrutiny of, and interference by, the government or any other legal entity regarding their conduct in their homes or other private settings, their personal communications, their intimate relations with others, their family affairs, and medical decisions, excepting that a warrant is issued, upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing a crime under investigation, and the persons or things to be examined.”

I’m no legal or constitutional scholar, I cobbled that together by cutting and pasting bits from the bill of rights and adding my own thoughts, so the real thing should be done by someone else and would likely be very different.  But you get the general idea.  So long as it includes a bit specifically protecting communications and medical matters the patriot act would be blown out of the water and Roe would be engraved in stone.  Write your congressmen and demand a constitutional Right of Privacy today!

Dems need to fight

2005-10-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

"If you don't want to fight for the future and you can't figure out how to beat these people then find something else to do." Former President Bill Clinton, Oct 29, 2005.

Clinton to Dems: Don't Fear Tough Issues

It would finally appear that some Democratic leaders are waking up to the fact that they need to fight for Democratic values, but Bill should really be talking to congressional Dems like Ben Cardin (D - Md.) about their ineffectual “opposition” to the conservative agenda.

Oh Canada

2005-10-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

Canada is one of America's oldest and most trusted allies.  On September 11th 2001 as our nation reeled from an unexpected attack our air travel system was brought to a screeching halt.  Numerous planes bound for US cities where redirected to Canadian air fields and hundreds of our citizens found themselves temporary refugees stranded on Canada's shores.  They were not, however, treated as refugees as many Canadians opened their hearts and their homes to their displaced American brethren.  Sadly the policies of the Bush administration have thrown away that goodwill and driven relations between our nations to an all time low.  Bush's abandonment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty for the sake of his non-functional missile defense boondoggle was seen as extremely reckless and as a result the Canadian government announced that it would not participate in the missile defense program.  Then as Bush began pushing for war in Iraq the Canadians, quite wisely, saw the war as a recipe for disaster and doubted the case (now prove false) Bush was making.  Conservatives, in a typical display of juvenile vindictiveness, decided to take these honest policy disagreements as personal attacks and began publicly deriding Canada for not pulling their weight in defense, i.e. relying on the American military for their security while not backing America when we need them.  (It is worth noting that if we had listened to the Canadians we would not now be stuck in Iraq and our military, not to mention our standing in the world, would be stronger for it.)  Relations quickly soured.

The Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin, was elected, in part, on a promise to repair relations with the US but the obstinacy of the Bush administration has made this impossible.  Indeed our divisions have grown beyond disputes over world affairs.  We are now embroiled in a trade dispute created solely by the Bush administration’s unwillingness to honor agreements made in good faith and its eagerness to pander to special interests.  In 2002 the U.S. placed a 27% tariff on Canadian soft lumber to protect U.S. lumber companies from competition.  Canada protested as it was a clear violation of both the spirit and letter of NAFTA.  The Bush administration ignored the Canadians forcing them to appeal to an arbitration board, as the treaty calls for.  The board ruled in Canada's favor and ordered the tariff lifted, the Bush administration refused.  Condolisa Rice is now visiting Canada to negotiate a resolution to this dispute, but the Canadian Prime Minister is adamant that there will be no negotiation on this point.  This has grown beyond the price of soft lumber and become a matter of principal for the Canadians.  The negotiations were finished ten years ago when NAFTA was signed.

While I am no fan of NAFTA, it was negotiated in good faith by the US government, signed by the President and ratified into law by the Senate.  It's the "into law" part that's significant.  Conservatives have taken to attacking, and defying, international law when they find its provisions inconvenient.  Indeed they assail the very idea of international law as an affront to American sovereignty, but it is "international" only in so far as it governs our relations with other nations and is formulated in consultation with those nations.  For all that the unilateralists and isolationists who run the Conservative movement object to its internationalism, international law is none-the-less LAW.  Indeed, clause 2 of Article VI of the constitution states that treaties ratified by the Senate are "the supreme law of the land."  The Bush administration's tariff on soft-lumber is thus a violation of US law and symptomatic of the contempt for the rule of law that is now such a clear element of the Conservative character.

It is this lack of credibility on the part of our nation's Conservative leaders that has done such harm to our relations with Canada and our other allies.  The Canadian Prime Minister is unwilling to negotiate with Secretary Rice because only a fool makes deals with deal breakers, and that is what George W. Bush and his Conservative followers have proven to be.

So Much For Commpassionate Conservatism

2005-10-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

This report from Reuters' Richard Cowan should give you an idea of how harmful Conservatism really is:

"(Republican Congressman Mike) Pence has warned that conservatives might try to block future hurricane relief funds unless there is progress toward paying for the aid with spending cuts."

America, and in particular the Gulf coast, appears to be screwed until November '06.

Real Conservatism

2005-10-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

As detailed in a recent Washington Post Article fiscal conservatives are reasserting their authority in the House of Representatives and taking control back from Tom Delay and the other movement conservatives who won their elections for them. Lead by the Republican Study Committee they will be pushing spending cuts in a wide array of government programs that benefit poor and middle class Americans.  As the Post’s Jonathan Weisman writes:

“Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs.”

Keep in mind folks that these cuts are the conservative alternative to rolling back Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.  These policies will be hard on many, perhaps most, Americans, but ultimately I think they will be good for the nation.  Not good in and of themselves, mind you, but good because they will help push the Republicans out of office in ‘06.

What ‘movement’ conservatives like Tom Delay understood and ‘fiscal’ and ‘social’ conservatives don’t get is that the majority of Americans oppose the conservative agenda.  Or they would if they knew what it was.  Conservatives win elections because the public is generally misinformed, or simply ignorant, about the policies conservatives pursue while in office.   This is why conservative campaigns are typified by demonizing their opponents, using “hot-button issues” to manipulate public passions and by portraying themselves as moderates.  Conservatives have gained ground by “repackaging” their ideas with deceptive slogans; like calling the estate tax a “death tax,” a name that implies everyone will pay it when in fact less than two percent of Americans are actually effected.

To give you an idea of just how far outside the mainstream conservatives are consider this: in July a panel of leading conservatives were asked to identify the “ten most harmful government programs”.  Amongst the top 5 were Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.  Do you think most Americans would describe Social Security as “harmful?”  What about Medicaid and Medicare?  In fact the vast majority of Americans support these programs.  True, many believe these programs could be improved, and conservatives like to use that to claim they have public support.  Such claims are fundamentally dishonest, however, because conservatives aren’t saying Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare need to be improved, they’re saying they need to be abolished.  That’s what you do with “harmful” programs.

The idea that the country has shifted to the political right is as widespread as it is false.  What has really happened is that Social Security, and other triumphs of America’s political left, are now taken for granted.  Most Americans can’t even conceive of the fact that Mr. Bush and his supporters would want to abolish the Social Security system, which is why he had to market his privatization plan as “Strengthening Social Security.”  This from an administration that issued rules to allow air polluter to pollute more while calling it their “Clear Skies Initiative,” and made plans that allowed more logging on public lands and dubbed it “Preserving Our Forests.”  Given Mr. Bush’s fondness for Orwellian “New Speak” one can easily imagine what his idea of “Strengthening” social security would be.  But of course you don’t have to imagine it, as many economists pointed out the results were easy to predict.  His plan would have taken money out of the system weakening it and eventually leading to its collapse.  Fortunately the American people saw through Mr. Bush’s rhetoric this time and his plan was dead from the get go, but that doesn’t mean that he and other conservatives have given up the dream of demolishing it and all other aspects of America’s social infrastructure.

If anything the fact that Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, which are considered tantamount to socialism by conservatives, are so widely supported would indicate that the country has moved to the left, not the right.  But, honestly, I don’t think that’s really the case either.  America is actually a moderate country and moderates like government programs that work.  Conservative propaganda claims that all government programs have failed and should be shut down, but when it comes to basic services most Americans aren’t buying what they’re selling.  Conservatives have gained some ground by exploiting “wedge issues” to distract people and create a false sense of their moral superiority, but few Americans have been or will be directly effected by abortion or gay rights.  On the issues that really matter in most peoples lives the Conservative agenda is a non-starter.  Bush knows that, which is why he campaigned in 2000 as a moderate “compassionate” conservative and why he hasn’t vetoed any spending bills.  Tom Delay knows that which is why he declared that there was “no more fat to cut” in the federal budget.

The ‘fiscal’ conservatives who are so upset about deficit spending and the ‘social’ conservatives who are angry over Bush’s failure to appoint radical-conservatives to the Supreme Court both seem to have fallen for their own propaganda about American being a rightward leaning nation.  The next few months will be hard on the nation as the Republican Party moves hard to the right to appease their base, but there is some comfort in knowing that the pursuit of their profoundly unpopular policies will likely cost them at the polls in 06.

A Candidate Who Deserves Our Support

2005-10-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

With the retirement of Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes Democrats are looking at the possible loss of a vital seat in congress' upper house. Maryland would normally be considered a safely blue state but with the election of a Republican governor in 2002 it can no longer be taken for granted. The Republican Party has nominated a popular African American "moderate" as their candidate and the state's Democratic establishment is playing to lose. The current party favorite is Rep. Benjamin Cardin a sitting congressman, but Cardin, who supported the Patriot Act and opposes withdrawinng from Iraq, lacks grass-roots support. His most notable competitor is Kweisi Mfume who, despite high name recognition, cannot win a general election outside of Baltimore. Other contenders for the democratic nomination include FOX News Anchor Greta van Sustren's sister, and a businessman who's entrepreneur/politician pitch reminds me of nothing so much as the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign. It was from this dismal field Maryland democrats were supposed to pick their champion and many, myself included, were ready to walk away out of disgust. Then Allan Lichtman entered the race.

Allan Lichtman is a professor and formerly chair of the History Department at American University. He is a political historian and voting rights activist who has often been called as an expert witness in voting rights and redistricting cases. He has never run for office before and is not a professional politician. He threw his hat into the ring two weeks ago because, like many of us, he is sick of the politics as usual game the Democratic party leaders are playing. He's tired of seeing Democrats bend-over for the conservative agenda and thinks that the people of Maryland, and of America, deserve Democratic leaders who will actually fight for them. He has even gone so far as to mortgage his own home to finance his run, an act of personal sacrifice and risk taking that I can't help but admire. Unlike so many other candidates he is a man who genuinely deserves our support and needs it if he's going to win in this uphill battle against the Democratic party establishment. So now I'm asking you to lend him your support for the sake of our nation and the renewal of the Democratic Party. Please visit http://www.allanlichtman.com/ and make a donation.

Policy Is As Policy Does

2005-10-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday Al Gore committed the one sin that the Conservative movement can never forgive, he told the truth.  When asked how America would be different if his election had not been stolen by the Republican political machine and its allies on the Supreme Court he said, “We would not be routinely torturing people.”  Ok, in all honesty he said more than that, but it was those words that really seem to have the rights’ panties in a bunch.  Unable to rebut his statements with facts, conservative commentators have been reduced to simply calling him insane.  A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, called Gore's comments "fictitious rants that border on dangerous," and went on to say, "To accuse Americans of participating in 'routine torture' is absurd.”

Ever since the first allegations of abuse of prisoners began to surface conservatives have loudly labeled such allegations fictitious, insane, absurd and/or dangerous.  And when proof was produced we were told that it was “an isolated incident” and the work of “a few bad apples.”  The argument has always been that these were crimes committed by individuals and not the official policy of the Bush regime, but policy is as policy does.  That acts of torture have been committed on our nation’s behalf by members of its military and intelligence apparatus is now a matter of public record.  That these acts were part of a pattern is painfully clear.

We have the photos from Abu Ghraib.  We have the FBI reports from Gitmo.  We have the account from Captain Fishback of the 82nd Airborne.  We have the flight records of prisoners who have been “rendered” to other nations to be tortured.  We have the memo in which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed off on specific torture techniques.  We have the memo in which then White House Counsel, and current Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales provided the legal defense for those acts.  But the single greatest proof that torture is the policy of the Bush White House is summed up in one word “veto.”  Mr. Bush, who has to-date lacked the moral courage and political balls to veto anything, has threatened to veto a vital military spending bill because the Senate attached an anti-torture amendment to it.  The only reason to veto anti-torture legislation is if torture is policy.

So why, if torture is policy, are the conservatives so upset?  Why don’t they just get behind Mr. Bush and defend the policy rather than pretend it doesn’t exist?  Are they afraid that Dear Leader and his cronies will be brought up on war-crimes?  Maybe, but the law never seemed to get the way of other conservative leaders like Tom Delay and Bill Frist, and besides, as I noted earlier, they’ve got AG Gonzales’ providing legal cover.  The answer to these questions is made clear by Jonah Goldberg, an editor at large of the National Review Online and well-known conservative opinion maker;

"what undermines what we stand for… is the publication of all this information."

That’s right, as far as conservatives are concerned torture isn’t a crime against humanity, it’s a PR problem.  The simple truth that under conservative leadership America is “routinely torturing people,” would hurt them in the polls so they are trying to keep it quite.  The fact that they are dishonoring our nation in the process seems to be irrelevant to them.

'Don' Delay Indicted

2005-09-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Republicans have long portrayed themselves as the law and order party, but they act more like the mafia than a legitimate political organization.  They have placed loyalty to the “family” above serving the common good and respect for the rule of law.  They have sought to rule by intimidation, even going so far as to threaten judges whose rulings they disagree with.  They have sought to bribe those they could not intimidate.  They have stifled the ethics process in the house in order to shield their members from the repercussions of corrupt behavior.

Thankfully this contempt for the rule of law and common decency is finally beginning to catch up with them.  Jack Abramoff’s ‘pay to play’ political machine that funneled millions of dollars in laundered contributions to conservative groups is being disassembled.  Senator Bill Frist, the republican majority leader, is under SEC investigation for insider trading.  A white house procurement official has been arrested on corruption charges.  And now house majority leader Tom Delay has been indicted for criminal conspiracy.

The conservative spin machine has already shifted into high gear to confuse the issue.  To this end a Republican talking head on CNN based his defense of Delay on an assertion that “no reporter is going to be able to clearly explain what Delay has been charged with.”  Apparently this is an application of the same conservative logic used to refute evolution and global warming: ‘If it’s too complicated for me to understand then it isn’t real.’  So let me explain it now in simple terms.  This indictment means a grand jury has been convinced that; A, a crime has been committed, and B, Tom Delay helped plan the crime.

It should be noted that a grand jury indictment is not a criminal conviction.  A conviction requires a finding of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” which is why conservatives are now trying to manufacture doubt about this indictment.  Unfortunately for them the only doubt they can produce is of the unreasonable variety.  Only a fool would accept the argument that something isn’t real if it’s hard to understand.  Reasonable people know that where there is smoke there is usually fire.  The conservative defense of Delay rests upon the assertion that one of the most powerful politicians in the country knew nothing about a PAC that he setup in his home state to expand his congressional majority.  What reasonable person would believe that?

The Anti-Government Government

2005-09-27T23:36:00.000-07:00

“Government isn’t the solution to our problems, government is the problem,” – Ronald Reagan.

The biggest problem facing the Bush administration is that they are conservatives.  Terrorism, Iraq, Katrina, high gas prices and the healthcare crisis are all challenges to be sure, but they are challenges that could be overcome if not for the people trying to deal with them.  Conservatives have long been telling us government is the source of all evil and if we just got it out of the way the market would provide for all our demands and we’d all be better off.  The problem with this view is that it flies in the face of reality.  The history of 20th century America is in many ways a tale of the failure of conservative policies to provide for the public’s needs and the success of government in meeting societies demands.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some radical lefty that thinks government can solve all of our problems, but it can solve some.  Indeed, there are some issues which only government can address effectively and efficiently.  I learned that in my first year economics course.  It was chapter 2: “Public-goods.”  Ask any competent economist about “public-goods” and he or she will explain to you that there are certain demands that the market cannot by its very nature meet efficiently.  National defense and law enforcement are the most commonly cited examples of this because they are the most obvious. Less obvious are things like healthcare, communications and infrastructure.

The refusal of conservatives to admit, even to themselves, that government can and often does work prevents them from even looking for real solutions to our national crises.  Instead they constantly turn to the private sector to meet the demand for public goods, a demand the free-market cannot by its very nature fulfill.  It is now painfully obvious that this irrational obedience to ideology has crippled our government’s ability to respond to national emergencies.  One can only hope that by the time the ’06 elections come around a sufficient number of Americans will respond to this failure of leadership by voting the Republican party out of power.

Bush Deliberately Screwing Katrina's Victims

2005-09-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

If you give someone a job they don’t believe they can't do they will find a way to screw it up. America is discovering to its sorrow that this is as true in politics as in anything else. Conservatives have spent decades telling us government can’t do anything right and sure enough now that they are the government they just can’t help screwing up. For a while now I was assuming this was a largely sub-conscious effect, that conservatives are so blinded by their ideology that they just can’t see the solutions to the problems they’ve faced. Thanks to this article in the L.A. Times I now know better:

Limiting Government's Role

This article illustrates that, in a conscious betrayal of the public trust, the Bush administration is pursuing “one shot” policy options it knows will be less effective and more expensive than existing government programs to which Mr. Bush is ideologically opposed. Here’s my favorite quote:

“As President Bush tackles the monumental task of easing the social problems wrought by Katrina, he is proving deeply reluctant to use some of the big-government tools at his disposal, apparently out of fear of permanently enlarging programs that he opposes or has sought to cut.”

“Big-government” has long been the favorite boogieman of conservatives. They like to blame it for everything from teen-pregnancy to hair-loss, and as a result they bitterly oppose any program that even hints at expanding the role government. Even when its needed and especially when it works. Mr. Bush and his cronies are so afraid that HUD will be effective in helping people that they are willing to waste taxpayer dollars and cram Americans into trailer-park ghettos to keep people from seeing that sometimes “big-government” is exactly what we need.

Compassionate Conservative? No Such Thing!

2005-09-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

David Brooks made a rather revealing comment on Meet The Press today, "And sometimes in my dark moments, I think he's "The Manchurian Candidate" designed to discredit all the ideas I believe in." He said this in a joking manner after bringing up the issue of competence. Brooks may not be the rabid conservative that many of his compatriots in the right-wing noise machine are but he has been acting as an apologist for the Bush regime for the past 5 years so it was refreshing to hear such frankness from him. Sadly this rare moment of honesty stood in contrast to the previous five minutes in which David once again tried to portray Mr. Bush as a “compassionate conservative” who “was concerned about” and “had a feel for” the poor.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that Mr. Brooks was being intentionally dishonest. I’m sure he genuinely wants to believe that Bush is a caring human being who feels the pain of others deeply, but by now any rational person should realize that “compassionate conservative” is an oxymoron. A serial killer who feels bad for his victims even as he is choking the life out of them doesn’t qualify as compassionate, and neither do conservatives who pursue policies that deliberately exacerbate poverty for the sake of economic advantage. If you think its out of line for me to suggest that the conservative agenda is making Americans poor on purpose then I suggest you read this article from David Westphal:
America's poverty rate no better than '68 (MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS/News & Observer). Pay particular attention to the last paragraph;

Douglas Besharov, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, says American poverty is not so much a matter of neglect as it is a purposeful decision to concentrate more on faster economic growth and lower rates of unemployment - at the expense of higher poverty. "I think what you're seeing now in Europe, with very slow economic growth, is an understanding that their big welfare systems extract too high a price." (Emphasis added)

Keep in mind folks that the American Enterprise Institute is a leading conservative think tank. This isn’t some lefty professor trying to bad mouth the right. Douglas Besharov is one of their own. What Mr. Besharov doesn’t seem to realize, or perhaps just doesn’t care about, is the fact that the “high price” Europeans are paying for their “big welfare systems” is economic, its measured in money. Where as the price Americans are paying for their poverty is human, it’s measured in lives.

False Economies

2005-09-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

Most people know what a false economy is but many in congress, it seems, do not. For the record, a false economy is a cost cutting measure that saves some money, but ends up costing more. For example: deciding not drive anymore to save on gas money, only to end up spending even more money on bus fare, train tickets and taxis than you ever spent on gas. False economies most often represent the triumph of narrow interests and/or short-term thinking over broad vision and long-term planning; which brings us back to the current conservative congress. Fiscal conservatives in the current congress have long complained about the huge deficits the Bush regime has been running. The fact that those deficits are the product of tax cuts those selfsame conservatives supported is irrelevant to them; their ideology calls for tax cuts so tax cuts are what they gave us. Now faced with the massive spending requirements of post Katrina reconstruction these conservatives are howling even louder, while still claiming their tax cuts should be untouchable.

“I think if we were going to address the issue of taxes, it would be almost a cop out. What we need to do is cut spending and waste before we ask the American people to pay more taxes.” Senator John McCain.

Sigh… John McCain isn’t a bad sort, and I’m sure that the cuts he’s envisioning would come from genuinely wasteful programs. Unfortunately, what McCain fails to understand is that cuts will never come from politically protected pork barrel projects. Such programs are created in the first place because they have politically powerful patrons. Patrons who are sufficiently shameless that even the tragedy of Katrina will not sway them from fighting tooth and nail to protect their pet projects. You can call this a cop out or you can call it political reality. Indeed it seems this reality was recognized by the House Majority Whip Tom Delay when he recently claimed there was no fat left to trim. Delay’s assertion is absurd on its face and one would be tempted to write it off as nothing more than political grandstanding, but the congressman didn’t become a major player in his party by being a fatuous fool. He is in fact a canny politician and his statement constitutes a tacit admission that the Republican Party lacks the political will to force its more powerful members to give up their pork.

If the spending cuts McCain and others are calling for cannot be made in genuinely wasteful. but politically protected. programs the only place they can come from are the politically vulnerable programs vital to the poor. Conservatives are ideologically opposed to such social programs anyway, which will make them all the more tempting. The fact that millions of Americans depend on those programs for their very survival will not make a bit of difference. After all, millions depended on FEMA and that didn’t keep conservatives from down-sizing it. Indeed, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) just released a list of proposed spending cuts they call “Operation Offset,” which among other things proposes cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and school lunches. In all fairness to the RSC, they do suggest cutting some genuinely wasteful programs, like the Mr. Bush’s 40 billion dollar Prescription Drug boondoggle and the egregious pork barrel earmarks in the recent highway bill, but what person in their right mind would expect those to be on the chopping block when their patrons in congress are asked to make “Operation Offset” a reality?

Getting back to my point about false economies and the short-term trumping long-term dynamic often involved; it should be noted that “liberal agenda” social programs and pork barrel spending aren’t the only things that the RSC has set its sights upon. They proposed eliminating the National Science Foundation Math and Science Program; a program that promotes math and science education by improving teacher training and developing instructional material. Given that Indian and Chinese universities are now graduating more engineers then American universities cutting programs that boost science and math will undermine our nations long-term competitiveness. They’ve proposed eliminating the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, the Clean Coal Program and the Applied Research for Renewable Energy Sources Program. Given the fuel crisis hurricane Katrina has caused and the threat to our national security our dependence on foreign oil represents, such energy research programs are now more important than ever. And finally they’ve proposed eliminating the Domestic Dependent School System, which provides education to the children of this nation’s fighting men and women. Given the tremendous strain the Iraq war has placed on military recruitment I can’t think of a worse time to make military life even less attractive. It is worth noting that one thing which doesn’t appear in the Rational Reforms to Defense and Homeland Security section is eliminating Mr. Bush’s multi-billion dollar non-functioning Missile Defense System. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of missile defense in concept, but I think we should get the technology working before we pay to deploy it.

The saddest thing about the RSC’s Operation Offset pipedream isn’t that most of the cuts they’re proposing won’t happen, or that the ones which might would hurt the most vulnerable of America’s citizens. What makes it pathetic is that they are only being proposed as an argument against rolling back Mr. Bush’s ideologically motivated and thoroughly unnecessary tax cuts. Conservatives believe that taxation is equivalent to theft and that any tax hike will drag down the economy, but history refutes those ideas. The 1990’s was arguably one of the most, if not the most prosperous decade in U.S. history. To claim that returning to the tax levels we had at that time would cripple the U.S. economy is completely ridiculous, yet that is the argument conservatives have been making for 5 years. If their crackpot ideology was still relegated to the political fringe they would just be funny, but they’re in charge now and with the lunatics running the asylum its no surprise our nation has gotten poorer and weaker. Now, as our nation faces one of the greatest challenges in its history, isn’t it about time we reversed that trend?

"What has changed?"

2005-09-23T03:42:00.000-07:00

“What has changed?” This was the question asked by Senator Orin Hatch today as he complained about the contentious nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. Roberts is by all appearances less conservative than Antonin Scalia and Justice Scalia was confirmed with 98 votes in 1986. So why is it that the opposition to the far less confrontational Roberts is today so much more strident than the opposition to Scalia in ’86? “What has changed?” In 1992 this nation elected a progressive leader in Bill Clinton and over the next eight years our nation became more secure and more prosperous. President Clinton’s foreign policies strengthened our alliances by generating goodwill towards our nation even as his domestic policies expanded the economy by growing the middle class. Then in 2000 the conservative members of the Supreme Court, including Justice Scalia, appointed George W. Bush to the oval office and for five years our nation has become steadily less secure and less prosperous. In stark contrast to the accomplishments of the Clinton administration, Mr. Bush’s foreign policies have driven our allies away and generated hostility towards our nation all across the globe and his domestic policies have shrunk the middle class by pushing more Americans into poverty and crippled what would otherwise have been a robust economic recovery.

“What has changed?” Mr. Bush and his conservative supporters like to claim that the economy is strong and has been getting stronger because of his tax cuts. The only proof they have to support this assertion is the fact that average incomes have been going up, but many other measures of economic prosperity have been slipping. Median income has fallen and real wages have been dropping. The official poverty rate is near 15% and keeps going up and recent studies have found that as many as 30% of Americans don’t make enough in income to pay for necessities like rent, clothing, health care and food. Mr. Bush’s reckless and ideologically motivated tax cuts have primarily benefited the extremely wealthy while shifting the tax burden onto the middle class, and the deficits generated by those tax cuts has undermined the confidence of consumers and financiers alike further weakening the economy at large. As more and more Americans fall into poverty Mr. Bush and congressional conservatives push a repeal of the estate tax, which would benefit only the richest 2% of Americans. Conservatives plan to pay for this and other tax cuts that benefit the wealthy, by slashing Medicaid, a government program that many Americans depend on for their very survival. The fact that average income has risen in the midst of such wide spread hardship only proves that conservative policies make the rich richer to a greater extend than they make the poor, and middle-class, poorer.

“What has changed?” A 2002 comparison study of the mortality rates amongst the insured and uninsured found that over 18 thousand Americans died each year of treatable or preventable diseases because they had no health insurance and thus little or no access to healthcare. Since 2002 the number of uninsured Americans has swelled from 30 million to 42 million, so if mortality rates have stayed the same the number of Americans dying due to a lack of health insurance would be over 25 thousand annually. Yet, as millions of Americans lose their health insurance Mr. Bush has stayed true to his ideology and offered us tort reform and a Medicare package written by and for the pharmaceutical industry, neither of which do anything to solve the wider healthcare crisis afflicting this nation.

“What has changed?” Well Senator Hatch I’ll tell you, America has woken up, that’s what’s changed. Conservatives have traded budget surpluses for massive deficits and pursued economic policies that have pushed more Americans into poverty. Conservatives lead us into an unnecessary war that has alienated our allies, strained our military to near breaking and improved terrorist recruitment. All of this stands in contrast to the peace, prosperity and security our nation enjoyed under the progressive leadership of President Clinton and the Democratic Party. No wonder then, a majority of Americans now favor a pullout from Iraq. No wonder a majority are willing to pay higher taxes to help finance the reconstruction of the gulf coast. No wonder a majority don’t trust the conservative leadership of the current congress to investigate the conservative administration that failed and abandoned the residents of the gulf coast. After enduring 5 years of conservative leadership that made us weaker and poorer and, a growing majority of Americans has awakened to the simple fact that conservatives and conservatism are dangerous. The people of this great nation can now look back across the sweep of recent history and see for themselves that progressive leaders will make you better off and keep you safe while conservatives will at best make you poorer and at worst get you killed. That Senator Hatch is what has changed.