President George W. Bush says:
"I made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money to promote science which destroys life in order to save life is - I'm against that. And therefore, if the bill does that, I will veto it.''Digby shows how the president is full of it.
From today's The Note from ABC News:
At 8:30 am ET, the Senate Judiciary Committee opened its hearing to examine issues relating to protecting judges at home and in the courthouse. United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois Joan Lefkow, accompanied by her four daughters and two staff members, will discuss the murder of her mother and husband by a plaintiff in a civil malpractice suit which she dismissed. Others testifying: Jane Roth, United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; Benigno Reyna, director of the United States Marshals Service; Kim Widup, United States Marshal for the Northern District of Illinois; and Samuel Alba, chief United States Magistrate Judge in Salt Lake City, UT.Protecting judges is a good idea.
Perhaps one suggestion for the committee to consider is a suggestion to our United States Senators and United States Representatives (and especially House Majority Leaders) to refrain from threatening judges or from explaining away such violence just because they do not like their decisions.
It seems like a good idea to me. But then, unlike some radical leaders, I believe in separation of powers and an independent judiciary.
Keith Olbermann rightly believes that Scott McClellan should resign for his pathetic performance around the Newsweek story. Olbermann writes:
But Monday afternoon, while offering himself up to the networks for a series of rare, almost unprecedented sit-down interviews on the White House lawn, Press Secretary McClellan said, in effect, that General Myers, and the head of the after-action report following the disturbances in Jalalabad, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, were dead wrong. The Newsweek story, McClellan said, “has done damage to our image abroad and it has done damage to the credibility of the media and Newsweek in particular. People have lost lives. This report has had serious consequences.”Whenever I hear Scott McClellan talking about ‘media credibility,’ I strain to remember who it was who admitted Jeff Gannon to the White House press room and called on him all those times.
Whenever I hear this White House talking about ‘doing to damage to our image abroad’ and how ‘people have lost lives,’ I strain to remember who it was who went traipsing into Iraq looking for WMD that will apparently turn up just after the Holy Grail will - and at what human cost.
Andrew Sullivan makes an excellent point about the hysteria surrounding Newsweek's reporting error:
We have yet to see what's at the root, if anything, of the Newsweek story. But I think it's telling that some bloggers have devoted much, much more energy to covering the Newsweek error than they ever have to covering any sliver of the widespread evidence of detainee abuse that made the Newsweek piece credible in the first place. A simple question: after U.S. interrogators have tortured over two dozen detainees to death, after they have wrapped one in an Israeli flag, after they have smeared naked detainees with fake menstrual blood, after they have told one detainee to "Fuck Allah," after they have ordered detainees to pray to Allah in order to kick them from behind in the head, is it completely beyond credibility that they would also have desecrated the Koran?Those darn facts sure can be stubborn things when people are willing to mention them.
The radical right-wingers are at full feeding frenzy about Newsweek's error. There's an agenda behind this outrage, as Sullivan aptly describes:
Yes, Newsweek bears complete responsibility for any errors it has made; and, depending on what we now find, should not be let off the hook. But the outrage from the White House is beyond belief. It seems to me particularly worrying if this incident further intimidates the press from seeking the truth about what the government is doing in the war on terror. It is not being "basically, on the side of the enemy," as Glenn Reynolds calls it, to resist the notion of government-sanctioned torture and to report on it. It is patriotism and serving the cause that this war is about: religious pluralism and tolerance.Yes, it is. But those ideals cannot get in the way of what the radicals really want: to keep anyone from daring to criticize this president and his decisions.
If Newsweek was wrong, then they were wrong. There should be consequences.
But when, I must ask, will this White House take any responsibility for its errors and lies that have led, so far, to the deaths of over 1,600 United States soldiers in Iraq?
Where does that buck stop, radicals?
Dan Kennedy makes a great point about the New York Times' stunning decision to hide is op-ed page behind a subscription barrier later this year:
Second, this is a real blow to the idea of a blog-driven national conversation - a point made by many bloggers already, and put especially well here by Andrew Sullivan. It's hard to link to Times columnists if you can't be sure your readers don't have access to them. The Wall Street Journal realized this and started up OpinionJournal.com, a free site for its opinion-mongers. But the Times is moving in precisely the opposite direction, charging only for its opinion writers. The Journal also has a workaround that allows bloggers who are subscribers to provide links that will work even for non-subscribers. I hope the Times does the same. A cautionary example: the New Republic has virtually disappeared from this conversation since it went to a subscription based model, despite offering oodles of sharp political commentary.
Because we apparently live in a world where as long as you say you support the troops, that rhetoric is enough to overcome any sort of inaction or failure to actually do so. As Holden writes at First Draft:
That liberal mouthpiece known as the Air Force Times reports that the Marine Corps overrode the objections of its own inspectors and purchased 10,000 units of faulty body armor that won't stop a 9mm bullet, distributing the vests to Our Troops! in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
You can take off your tin foil hat. It turns out the Bush Administration may indeed have been playing (politics?) with the terrorist threat warnings.
Our source? Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Yes, he may have some knowledge of these events. USA Today's Mimi Hall writes:
The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.If we had a Congress that was even remotely interested in fulfilling its Constitutional duty to provide oversight of our (out-of-control) Executive Branch, there would be hearings scheduled today to find out more about this.Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.
His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus.
Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.
If the Department of Homeland Security did not want the terror alert raised, then why was it raised? Why did a majority of the other members of the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council vote to raise it when Ridge was against the move?
Was politics a factor? After all, we have seen that President George W. Bush enjoyed positive bumps in the polls after the threat level was raised.
Or is this all just a bit of a game? One designed to make us think that this administration is trying to make our nation safer even though it has other priorities?
Do not worry, America. This Congress almost certainly will not be interested in these or other related questions.
(Hat tip: Americablog.)
Think Progess gives us a baker's dozen worth of lowlights from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's career.
As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee draws closer to a vote on whether to send John Bolton's nomination as United Nations Ambassador to the full Senate floor, Steve Clemons at the Washington Note keeps uncovering new information about this horrible nominee.
I suggest that the Washington Note is a must-read as the Bolton nomination vote draws near. As Clemons makes clear, the Republicans will not be able to use the "I didn't know" excuse. Bolton's misdeeds are in their briefing materials.
If a Republican votes to confirm this nomination, then they have decided helping the White House win is more important than whether a nominee lied while testifying under oath (among other misdeeds).
Such is the radical agenda brought to us by the Bush Republican Party.
I'm sure it made his radical base happy. But we should not let President George W. Bush's pathetic analysis of the Yalta agreement stand without the criticism it so rightly deserves.
As Josh Marshall writes:
To compare the results of the Yalta Conference to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the key element of which was a secret agreement by which the 20th century's two great dictators agreed to carve up the defenseless neighbour between them, is truly unconscionable. And to compare it to Munich is little less so.But hey, how nitpicky. The radical right enjoys the red meat. Does anything else matter in the Bush White House?
But those of us who remain in the reality-based community would do well to remember what was happening at the time. As Marshall explains:
Roosevelt didn't hand the Baltics, Poland and the rest of what became the Warsaw Pact countries over to Soviet rule. The Red Army was there in force already. The question was whether we were able and willing to remove them by force.If anything, that's a generous view.The president also makes common cause, though whether he's familiar with the history he's wading into I don't know, with those who argued before the war and after that the US and the UK made their fundamental error in the war itself, by allying with the Soviets against Nazism rather than with Nazism against the Soviets.
Now, no one can expect that Latvians or Poles are going to have warm or cordial feelings about the Great Power agreements at the end of the war. The plain fact is that the outcome of the war led to the imposition of Communist dictatorships across Eastern Europe that lasted for more than forty years. But one cannot assess the morality or political insight of American and British decision-making in the late stages of the war without standing them up against the real alternatives they faced. Anything else is just cheap posturing or folly. In the president's case, perhaps both.
Paul Krugman exposes the fuzzy math and lies behind claims that President George W. Bush's latest Social Security proposal is a better deal for the poor than the rich. It is another valuable must-read column.
Let's consider the Bush tax cuts and the Bush benefit cuts as a package. Who gains? Who loses?Indeed, the only kind of winner today's radical Republicans seem willing to support. If only they were upfront about their plans instead of trying to be populists. As Krugman writes:Suppose you're a full-time Wal-Mart employee, earning $17,000 a year. You probably didn't get any tax cut. But Mr. Bush says, generously, that he won't cut your Social Security benefits.
Suppose you're earning $60,000 a year. On average, Mr. Bush cut taxes for workers like you by about $1,000 per year. But by 2045 the Bush Social Security plan would cut benefits for workers like you by about $6,500 per year. Not a very good deal.
Suppose, finally, that you're making $1 million a year. You received a tax cut worth about $50,000 per year. By 2045 the Bush plan would reduce benefits for people like you by about $9,400 per year. We have a winner!
The point is that the privatizers consider four years of policies that relentlessly favored the wealthy a fait accompli, not subject to reconsideration. Now that tax cuts have busted the budget, they want us to accept large cuts in Social Security benefits as inevitable. But they demand that we praise Mr. Bush's sense of social justice, because he proposes bigger benefit cuts for the middle class than for the poor.I, for one, will not praise President Bush for his radical fiscal irresponsibility.
No one who adds $2 billion a day to the national debt in order to finance tax cuts for the rich should ever be allowed to claim the populist mantle.
Joe at Americablog does a nice job of explaining why a group of radical politicians is about to radically change the United States Senate by invoking the nuclear option.
Major papers seem to think this is the week of the nuclear option. And, when you read the articles one thing is clear: It is all about the theocracy. This issue is being driven by radical religious leaders who want to impose their extreme views on the rest of us.Senator Charles Schumer was right to point out during the weekly Democratic radio address who is at the top of the effort. Yes, I know that President George W. Bush does not like it when people try to hold him accountable.
But on this subject, as with so many others, we need to make sure the buck stops in the right place. What does President Bush think of his supporters' radical words threatening our independent judiciary? As Schumer explained:
"I am making a heartfelt plea to you, Mr. President. When you came to Washington, you said you wanted to change the climate in D.C.," Schumer said. "Those stating these abhorrent views count themselves as your political allies. One word from you will bring a halt to these un-American statements. That would be a way to strengthen democracy here at home."That's right. One word from this president.
We will not get it. So, while we condemn those who hate our judiciary and our Constitutional system of government, let us not forget who has decided to be their chief enabler because it plays well with his political base.
Just how many times does the Bush Administration have to pull this stunt before our so-called liberal media stops falling for it? It appears that the terrorist credentials of the "critical" Al Qaeda member captured this week may be exaggerated just a bit.
Of course, we will have to see if this story crosses the pond from Europe. The Sunday Times' Christina Lamb and Mohammad Shehzad Islamabad report:
THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation.In a sane world, we would be asking President Bush to account for this discrepancy. At some point we have to start, right?Al-Libbi’s arrest in Pakistan, announced last Wednesday, was described in the United States as “a major breakthrough” in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.
Bush called him a “top general” and “a major facilitator and chief planner for the Al- Qaeda network”. Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, said he was “a very important figure”. Yet the backslapping in Washington and Islamabad has astonished European terrorism experts, who point out that the Libyan was neither on the FBI’s most wanted list, nor on that of the State Department “rewards for justice” programme.
(Hat tip: Attaturk.)
Well, that is what Pat Robertson thinks. Air America Radio's Rachel Maddow has posted the audio clips of Robertson's appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Just what does this man have to say before he is ignored by the mainstream media? Where is the line? How outrageous must he be?
I have to admit it: I loved the Connection radio program when it was hosted by Christopher Lydon. I've missed his regular voice on the radio the past four (!) years.
Well, he's almost back. His new show with producer Mary McGrath, Open Source, begins on May 30.
Lydon and McGrath are promising to try some innovative ideas to bring together the internet and their radio program. As Boston Phoenix media columnist Dan Kennedy writes:
Lydon and McGrath are promising something revolutionary in terms of tying together radio and the Internet. I'm skeptical but intrigued. Frankly, if it just turns out to be a good radio show with a website (and a podcast!), that's enough.
Rep. John Conyers thankfully tries to draw attention to a story that we must not overlook -- regardless of the tabloid stories drawing most of our nation's attention. The Raw Story reprints a statement by Rep. Conyers:
"Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."Click here to read Conyers' letter. You can also read the memo yourself, as printed in The Sunday Times."The Times reports, based on a newly discovered document, that in 2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a meeting in which he expressed his support for "regime change" through the use of force in Iraq and was warned by the nation's top lawyer that such an action would be illegal," he adds. "Blair also discussed the need for America to "create" conditions to justify the war."
Conyers says he is seeking an inquiry.
"This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride," he remarks. "To prevent that from occuring, I am circulating the following letter among my House colleagues and asking them to sign on to it."
I doubt the White House will be quick to form a response to this letter. I am also sure this radical Republican Congress will once again fail in its Constitutional duty to provide oversight of the executive branch.
That doesn't mean our reporters should ignore this important story.
David Sirota writes that radical right-wing Sen. Rick Santorum is concerned he may not win re-election next year. As Sirota explains, the people of Pennsylvania have many reasons to reject Santorum at the ballot box:
Santorum has a lot to answer for in his upcoming race. It was the supposedly "compassionate conservative" Santorum who publicly said he wanted poor people to suffer. "Making people struggle a little bit is not necessarily the worst thing," Santorum said in justifying his efforts to slash welfare. It was Santorum who crassly likened homosexuality to bestiality, prompting criticism from his own party. It was Santorum who tried to eliminate all minimum wage protections for roughly 7 million workers. And it was Santorum who tried to rip off taxpayers by attempting to force a Pennsylvania school district to pay for his children's education, even though he has abandoned his home state and become a fulltime resident of Virginia.
The Washington Post's Charles Babington and Mike Allen report that:
National Journal asked 85 GOP members of Congress, party officials and strategists to predict who would win the party's nod in three years.It is, after all, never too early to start thinking about the next election cycle.
One wonders, however, whether some GOP insiders may be rethinking their prediction this morning.
The man of edged out the victory in this poll did not distinguish himself on Meet the Press yesterday. As Think Progress summarized:
The choice was pretty clear this morning for Sen. George Allen (R-VA) on Meet the Press: oppose strict Social Security benefit cuts, or offer supreme partisan loyalty to President Bush, who wants to cut benefits. Allen tried to do both, and it was quite the train wreck:
