November 2006 Archives

This time, the radicals in the Bush Administration choose big business over science. The scientist who refuses to comply with this business-based revision faces a 10-day suspension without pay. The Baltimore Sun's Andrew Schneider reports:

It took six years to get federal worker safety officials to issue warnings to auto mechanics that the brakes they're working on could contain lethal asbestos fibers. But it took only three weeks after the warnings were posted before a former top federal official with ties to the auto industry reportedly pushed to have them removed.

John Henshaw, a former head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, called Aug. 15 for the agency to make changes to its warnings, according to documents obtained by The Sun.

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But Ira Wainless, an OSHA scientist who wrote the advisory bulletin about asbestos in brakes, refused, according to agency documents. Wainless cited dozens of studies, including work at his own agency, to show that his presentation of the medical risk to mechanics was solid.

Last week, David Ippolito, an official with OSHA's Directorate of Science, Technology and Medicine, told Wainless that he would be suspended without pay for 10 days if the changes weren't made, according to documents.

Wainless refused again, and the advisory bulletin remains online.

"It is outrageous that OSHA would try to intimidate one of its own scientists for doing his job with integrity," said Ed Stern of Local 12 of the American Federation of Government Employees.

It is outrageous. But from this White House, unsurprising. I realize the list of items requiring Congressional oversight is long, but I do hope there is some time to look at the Bush Administration's war against scientists who disagree with its political decisions.

(Hat tip: Americablog)

Attaturk provides a graphic that is about as reasonable explanation for the Bush Administration's enablers as any I've seen. Read this Atrios post for more context.

Mr. O'Reilly has no respect for his audience. Otherwise he wouldn't even try to peddle this idiotic spin:

"Fox Broadcasting has nothing to do with the Fox News Channel."

Right. Sure. That shared ownership by Rupert Murdoch has nothing to do with anything.

More common sense political analysis from Keith Olbermann:

Funny, how when Trent Lott defeated Lamar Alexander by one vote for the Senate minority leadership yesterday, it was characterized in the media as a remarkable comeback story, with the random kidding reference to that ironical word “minority.” But when Steny Hoyer and Jack Murtha both stood for the House majority leadership today, that was characterized in the media as Democratic infighting, with frequent implications that the Dems were already coming apart at the seams.

As Atrios pointed out so well:

This has all been very silly. Pelosi backed her friend out of loyalty, he lost, everybody moves on. I can never keep up with whether the Democrats are intolerant of dissenting views or in disarray over disagreement.

It is hard keeping up with the radical right's talking points.

While I am thinking about religious bigotry, how could I not mention this gem by CNN's Glenn Beck earlier this week. Media Matters has the video and transcript:

On the November 14 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck interviewed Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), who became the first Muslim ever elected to Congress on November 7, and asked Ellison if he could "have five minutes here where we're just politically incorrect and I play the cards up on the table." After Ellison agreed, Beck said: "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' " Beck added: "I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way."

CNN Headline News must be very proud to have this type of person as a part of their programming family.

Via Sepia Mutiny, we learn about a Minnesota State Senate race where the loser Republican does not call to concede, but instead e-mails a pseudo-sermon to the winner Satveer Chaudhary, a practicing Hindu, apparently trying to convert him to Christianity.

Pay attention...this is very important, Satveer. Have you noticed Jesus for yourself...at some moment in time, yet???

Klassy. Those theocratic-wannabees do not give up easily -- even when losing by a landslide. What happened to showing respect for other people? Other cultures? Other religions? Imagine what the reaction would be if the situation was reversed.

Via WCCO-TV, here's the text of the "concession" e-mail:

This leaked Fox News Channel memo certainly does not help the case of those who continue to say that the network is actually fair and balanced.

During the 1990s, the American people were repeatedly told by politicians and leading pundits that a president lying threatened the very fabric of this Republic. What about the children?

If we could not trust the president to tell us the truth about a private consensual sexual matter, how could we trust him when he said he had to try to kill, say, Osama bin Laden? Since he lied about the sex, should not we assume he is only "Wagging the Dog?"

So, count me more than a little confused that President George W. Bush's admission that he lied to the American people prior to the election about Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is just not that big of a deal. Media Matters recaps the soft-peddling of what should be a major scandal for the president.

Only inside the beltway and among the members of our so-called liberal media would the status of the person who is leading the Department of Defense during a self-proclaimed period of war be seen as less important than the status of a consensual sexual encounter.

It sure looks like it did. There's nothing like some vote suppression each election season, eh, national Republican leaders? From TPMuckraker:

As we did our best to document, the National Republican Congressional Committee was responsible for repetitive, often harrassing robo calls in more than two dozen districts across the country in the runup to the election.

In at least seven of those districts, the Democrat failed to unseat the incumbent by only a couple thousand votes. The NRCC's calls may have been the difference in those races.

Consider, for example, Florida's 13th District, where Christine Jennings is currently locked in a recount battle. The final tally shows her down 386 votes. In the last three weeks of the election, the NRCC spent $58,326.78 on robo calls against Jennings, according to FEC reports. At five to fifteen cents a call, the NRCC bought itself between 388,000 and 1.17 million calls in the district. Approximately 250,000 people voted in the 13th on Tuesday.

Voters there report being inundated with calls -- so much so that some decided not to vote for Jennings.

Dirty tricks and voter suppression. That's today's Grand Old Party.

My profound thanks to every person who has worn the uniform of this nation. Your sacrifice is a gift.

I hope that in the coming years this nation and its government will treat all of our 24.5 million Veterans better and live up to the promises made when these brave men and women agreed to serve.

E.J. Dionne writes about the results of the 2006 election:

American voters, in their wisdom, ended an era on Tuesday. They rejected a poorly conceived war policy in Iraq that has weakened the United States. They rejected a harshly ideological approach to politics that cast opponents as enemies of the country's survival. They rejected a president so determined to win an election that he was willing to slander his opponents by saying: "The Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses." The voters decided there was no decency in that.

Reflect for a second about how toxic our political life must be to have a situation in which a president could utter such a phrase.

I am thankful the American people remembered that Congress was not designed to be a rubber stamp, but a check-and-balance upon the self-proclaimed unitary executive.

Via Atrios, a Simpsons commentary that is all too sad and true.

At least that is the most generous excuse I can give her breaktakingly stupid comments about how hard it has been for President George W. Bush to govern during this time of unified Republican rule of Congress and unprecedented party loyalty and deference to the executive branch.

Really, her punditry card should be revoked after such a statement.

(Hat tip: Talking Points Memo.)

Today marks the 1,875th day since President George W. Bush promised to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

You know: the guy behind the September 11 terrorist attacks.

I won't argue with this prediction from Talking Points Memo reader JD:

"But first this Breaking News, Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death today in Iraq."

That is how the Sunday talk shows will begin tomorrow, two days before the U.S. elections. All indications are that capital punishment is a go, a curfew is tentatively scheduled for tonight or tomorrow morning in much of Iraq to protect against the likely backlash. Saddam will be able to appeal, probably over about two months. The appeal to voters, though, will be how important it is to remain strong, stay the course, during the next two days -- most particularly Tuesday: this time, we've really turned the corner. . . .

Saddam will likely be sentenced during the wee hours EST, in plenty of time to round up "experts" for the panel shows: "Despite the violent reaction we are seeing, this really is one of the key indicators of progress and ongoing commitment we have been looking for..." You know the drill.

That's the beauty of delaying the verdict for a few weeks, eh?

At the order of the Iraqi Prime Minister, our military took down the blockade of a section of Sadr City, a blockade designed to help with the search of a missing United States soldier.

Since when does the United States cut-and-run from the search for a missing soldier, Mr. President? Just who is commanding our troops in Iraq, Mr. President?

I know our president does not want the buck to stop anywhere near him, but this is reprehensible. But don't take my word for it. Andrew Sullivan expresses nearly the right level of outrage:

The U.S. military does not have a tradition of abandoning its own soldiers to foreign militias, or of taking orders from foreign governments. No commander-in-chief who actually walks the walk, rather than swaggering the swagger, would acquiesce to such a thing. The soldier appears to be of Iraqi descent who is married to an Iraqi woman. Who authorized abandoning him to the enemy? Who is really giving the orders to the U.S. military in Iraq? These are real questions about honor and sacrifice and a war that is now careening out of any control. They are not phony questions drummed up by a partisan media machine to appeal to emotions to maintain power.

And where, by the way, is McCain on this? Silent on Cheney's "no-brainer" on waterboarding. Silent recently on Iraq. But vocal - oh, how vocal - on Kerry. It tells you something about what has happened to him. And to America.

Indeed.

I would like some Republican, especially one of the pathetic liars attacking Sen. John Kerry, to explain how these facts below could possibly support the claim that only the GOP and this president support the troops. From the Senate Democratic Policy Committee's Top Twenty Iraq Oversight Outrages:

Halliburton served the troops food that had spoiled or passed its expiration date. Halliburton managers ordered employees to remove bullets from food in trucks that had come under attack, then saved the bullets as souvenirs while giving the food to unwitting soldiers and Marines.

Or this one?

Halliburton employees threw themselves a lavish Super Bowl Party, but passed the cost on to taxpayers by claiming they had purchased supplies for the troops.

Or, of course, the incident on which I focused yesterday:

Halliburton allowed our troops in Iraq to shower, bathe, and sometimes brush their teeth with water that tested positive for e. coli and coliform bacteria. One expert has said that the troops would have been better off using water straight from the highly polluted Euphrates River. Halliburton has admitted that it lacked “an organizational structure to ensure that water was being treated in accordance with Army standards and its contractual requirements.”

While the Republicans want to focus on Sen. John Kerry's ill-told joke in a dishonest attempt to make it into an attack on our troops, why isn't there much focus on the fact that the House Majority Leader made it clear that we should not blame Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for Iraq but the generals on the ground?

Americablog's John in DC asks us how we can interpret this CNN interview in any other way.

House Majority Leader John Boehner: Wolf, I understand that, but let's not blame what's happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld.

Wolf Blitzer: But he's in charge of the military.

House Majority Leader John Boehner: But the fact is the generals on the ground are in charge and he works closely with them and the president. [CNN, 11/1/06]

Thank you, Keith Olbermann, for saying what few others dare to say, even if it is something that should be obvious to all of us.

Olbermann's latest special comment takes on the latest Republican attacks on Senator John Kerry, Michael J. Fox, and Rep. Harold Ford and puts them into their necessary context.

There is tonight no political division in this country that he and his party will not exploit, nor have not exploited; no anxiety that he and his party will not inflame.

There is no line this President has not crossed — nor will not cross — to keep one political party, in power.

He has spread any and every fear among us, in a desperate effort to avoid that which he most fears — some check, some balance against what has become not an imperial, but a unilateral presidency.

And now it is evident that it no longer matters to him, whether that effort to avoid the judgment of the people, is subtle and nuanced — or laughably transparent.

For a former resident of Maine, this for me is something of a local story. Via Climate Progress, we learn of another television station general manager who puts his politics ahead of science.

How important is global warming in Maine? Not important enough for local television.

Michael Palmer, the general manager of television stations WVII and WFVX, ABC and Fox affiliates in Bangor, has told his joint staff of nine men and women that when “Bar Harbor is underwater, then we can do global warming stories.”

“Until then,” he added. “No more.”

This is quite a news judgement. Of course, if we reach a point where Bar Harbor is underwater, our problems will much more severe than an idiot news station general manager in one of my beloved former states of residence.

Dr. James Hansen, the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University, said in an interview yesterday that the station’s policy on coverage was irresponsible.

“If you wait until Bar Harbor is underwater, it’s too late,” Dr. Hansen said. “It won’t be just Bar Harbor that is underwater, but many places around the globe including parts of Florida, Bangladesh and the Nile Delta.”

No, really, Mr. President: are you or the Iraqi Prime Minister in charge of our military strategy in Iraq? And really, how much spin can overcome this little tidbit included in Kirk Semple's New York Times report:

Late Tuesday night, after hours of silence, a senior American Embassy official who had been delegated to return reporters’ phone calls said the prime minister’s order was “the result of a meeting” between Mr. Maliki, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq. “It was essentially something that Maliki wanted to do and Casey agreed to it,” the official said.

But Mr. Maliki’s announcement may have been a foregone conclusion: the meeting was at 1 p.m., officials said, and the prime minister’s office issued his press release at about 1:20 p.m.

Oh, that sounds like one heck of a consultation.

I remember when Republicans would go completely apoplectic whenever it would be suggested that some of our troops could end up under United Nations command. Funny how they seem very quiet about this not-so-little incident.

Firedoglake's Christy Hardin Smith links to a list of 20 Iraq policy outrages compiled by the Democratic Policy Committee -- 20 major items that have been ignored because the Republican-led Congress has failed in its Constitutional duty to provide oversight on the exective branch.

For example, here is something our troops have been forced to confront while our Congressional leaders genuflect to the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime:

Halliburton allowed our troops in Iraq to shower, bathe, and sometimes brush their teeth with water that tested positive for e. coli and coliform bacteria. One expert has said that the troops would have been better off using water straight from the highly polluted Euphrates River. Halliburton has admitted that it lacked “an organizational structure to ensure that water was being treated in accordance with Army standards and its contractual requirements.”

It is just another example about how the Republicans say they love our troops while doing quite the opposite. After all, as long as Vice President Cheney continues to take money from Halliburton, we really cannot expect our government to force the company to do the right thing.

We need a new Congress. One that is not afraid to ask tough questions. Get the truth. President Bush may not like the answer, but I think the American people will be able to figure out just exactly where the buck should stop on all of these scandals.

Don't take my word for it, just ask the United States military. The New York Times has a powerpoint slide that was used in a military briefing two weeks ago.

The president, unsurprisingly, is not focusing on this information when he goes around the country saying only Republicans want to win in Iraq. Michael R. Gordon reports:

A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.

A one-page slide shown at the Oct. 18 briefing provides a rare glimpse into how the military command that oversees the war is trying to track its trajectory, particularly in terms of sectarian fighting.

The slide includes a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate an “Index of Civil Conflict.” It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad.

In fashioning the index, the military is weighing factors like the ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling influence of moderate religious and political figures, rather than more traditional military measures such as the enemy’s fighting strength and the control of territory.

The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart.

Not that anyone actually paying attention to what is happening in Iraq needed a power point slide to notice that fact.

But the president thinks he is some great wartime leader because he can go around the country and speak to radical right donors and proclaim that only he has the answer for Iraq.

I wish he had an answer, rather than just Rovian talking points to fire up his base.