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1. Mission Accomplished
For a look back at the media's fawning coverage of Bush's premature declaration of victory in Iraq go to http://mediamatters.org/items/200604270005?f=h_top
2. GOP objects to bill allowing recounts
Voting rights activists who hoped the federal government would help local governments pay for paper trails and audits for electronic voting machines have gone from elation to frustration as they watched Republicans who supported such a proposal in committee vote against bringing it to the House floor.
The result: The elections in November will likely be marred by the same accusations of fraud and error involving voting machines that arose in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential race. Ben Adler 4.25.08 http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=7D294509-3048-5C12-00015B2FD7DE0D76
3. THE END OF SUBURBIA: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream
Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness.
Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.
But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary. http://www.endofsuburbia.com/
Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHr8OzaloLM
4. Craig Ferguson roasts President Bush (video)
http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Play/28746/2/wh-corresp-dinner-ferguson-042608.mov/
5. From the DAILY GRILL
- "We took an extremely strongly pro-Geneva Convention position in the Pentagon." -- Iraq war architect Doug Feith, 4/23/08 <
VERSUS
"Doug Feith described to me how he and General Myers worked together, and that he, in particular, took the steps to ensure that none of these [U.S.] detainees could rely on Geneva." -- International lawyer Phillippe Sands, 4/3/08
"[T]he entire program has been legal." -- Press Secretary Dana Perino on the administration's interrogation program. 12/11/07
VERSUS
"The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law." -- New York Times, 4/27/08
"I went out of my way to write a book that I do not believe that anybody who actually bothers to read even just substantial piece of it, would find is a blame-laying and finger-pointing book." -- Iraq war architect Doug Feith, 4/28/08
VERSUS
"Secretary Powell, I think, would have done the country a much greater service...if he had actually debated [the Iraq war strategy] and put forward an alternative strategy." -- Feith, 4/12/08
"[N]o one anticipated this insurgency [in Iraq], a lot of people were slow to recognize it once it had started." -- Former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, 4/28/08
VERSUS
"The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and subsequent U.S. occupation of Iraq could lead to internal violence and provide a boost to Islamic extremists and terrorists in the region." -- Two pre-war National Intelligence Council assessments, 1/03
"We didn't invade Iraq." -- Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, 4/29/08
VERSUS
"I'll submit that most folks still have no idea why the Bush administration invaded Iraq." -- O'Reilly, 1/28/08
6. Mark Fiore: America Decides Network (animation)
http://www.markfiore.com/america_decides_network_0
7. DNC Ad on John McCain: Better Off? (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFDc4M_PMNk
8. Brave New Films: Pop-Up DoubleTalk: New Orleans (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlnMjB6LNGA
9. Criminal, ethical questions surround Yoo's torture memos
At the end of World War II, the United States took a different view in one narrow area. When the legal advice had to do with the treatment of detainees in wartime, the United States argued, lawyers had to adhere closely to the law or face prosecution. In one case, two German Justice Ministry lawyers were charged and sentenced to 10 years in prison for giving advice that allowed the creation of a special internment system for suspected insurgents. Their advice was close to that dispensed by John C. Yoo. second in command at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel .
The Bush administration came to Washington promising a culture of accountability. In this area, as in others, it has delivered just the opposite. Scott Horton 4/27/08 http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_9073103?nclick_check=1
10. John McCain's Miserable Record on Hurricane Katrina
Forty Senators and 100 members of Congress visited New Orleans before McCain did. McCain voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local responses to Katrina in med-September 2005. He repeated that vote in 2006. He voted against allowing up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to people affected by the hurricane, and in 2006 voted against appropriating $109 billion in supplemental emergency funding, including $28 billion for hurricane relief.
McCain may talk sympathetically about New Orleans' recovery, but the record shows that when it mattered most, McCain failed to act. His passion for fiscal conservatism blinded him to a city and a region in need, and his Time for Action is simply too late. 0=4/25/08 http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/04/8059_john_mccains_mi.html
11. Cable news nets run ad attacking Obama over and over -- even as pundits note win-win for McCain
Beginning on the afternoon of 4.23, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN aired a controversial ad by the North Carolina Republican Party attacking Sen. Barack Obama and two Democratic gubernatorial candidates at least 22 times combined. As media figures on MSNBC and CNN pointed out, the repeated broadcasts benefit the North Carolina Republican Party, which does not have to pay for them, and they presumably benefit McCain, even as he is credited with taking the high road for criticizing the ad. http://mediamatters.org/items/200804240010?f=h_clips
See also http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/americandebate/18174809.html
12. “Ode To Pious John McCain,” By Madeleine Begun Kane
- Watch the press fall for pious McCain,
As he calls for a lofty campaign.
They’re so easily spun,
As his dirty work’s done
With an ad he pretends to disdain.
http://www.madkane.com/madness/2008/04/25/ode-to-pious-john-mccain/
13. FOX EXPOSED: The Pentagon is Alright! (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3QY6Rawshw
14. Late-Night Political Jokes for Dems
- "Tomorrow I go to Washington D.C. to perform at the White House Correspondents Dinner. It's thrown by the press corps for the president and his staff. Everyone who works for the president will be there. Dick Cheney will be there; Condoleezza Rice will be there; Fox News will be there." --Craig Ferguson
"John McCain has spent this week campaigning in what he calls the 'forgotten areas' of the country. He is visiting places that are being ignored by our leaders, places like Pennsylvania now, now that the primary is over. See, unfortunately, at McCain's age, as soon as he leaves these forgotten areas, he forgot he was there." --Jay Leno
"President Bush says that the $300 rebate we've been promised, the rebate checks from the government, will finally be mailed out on Monday. It's nice. Good news, yeah. Then Americans can decide whether to save the $300 or use it to buy half a tank of gas. You're right, that was more sad than funny. Ha ha ha. We're screwed" --Conan O'Brien
"This campaign is very tough on the Democrats because they have to fight it out even longer. McCain, see, the only thing he has to fight is regularity." --Jay Leno
"Hillary, very confident, says she is ready for the 3 am phone call, and McCain says he is ready for the 3 pm nap." --David Letterman
"John McCain, no one talks about John McCain anymore because he won his side of the thing, and now he's just wandering around. He's just wandering around, nobody's talking about him. So he's trying to do things to get press, this week John McCain is on a tour of what he calls 'Forgotten Places in America.' Forgotten places, yeah. Which, at his age, means just about everywhere." --Conan O'Brien
"And Monday night, President Bush made a surprise appearance on the TV show 'Deal or No Deal.' Yesterday morning, first lady Laura Bush was a guest host on the 'Today' show. I understand tomorrow, Vice President Dick Cheney is set to play his own evil twin on 'Days of Our Lives.'" --Jay Leno
"And John McCain is now beginning a campaign to try and attract African-American voters. Now, McCain says that although he never marched with Martin Luther King, he did march with General Sherman through the South during the Civil War. So that's got to count for something." --Jay Len
"President Bush now has the highest disapproval rating of any president in the history of disapproval ratings, or approval ratings. 70% Of Americans disapprove of the job he's doing. That's even worse than Nixon, right, before he left office? So way to go, Mr. President. It goes to show you with hard work and determination, you can accomplish anything." --Jimmy Kimmel
"Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, working on a new book about his strategy for the war in Iraq. The book just came out, we have a first copy here. It's called, 'Don't Blame Me. It was Cheney's Idea.'" --Jay Leno
"This is weird. I'm not making this up. ... Earlier tonight, President Bush made a special taped appearance on the game show 'Deal or No Deal.' President Bush was on 'Deal or No Deal.' Afterwards, Bush said, 'I like this show, because randomly pointing at boxes is how I make decisions, too.'" --Conan O'Brien
"Do you like John McCain? John McCain looks like the kind of guy that doesn't pick the phone up until the 12th ring. You know what I mean? He looks like the kind of guy who has a cupboard full of canned peaches. John McCain looks like the kind of guy who thinks the cleaning woman will love any crap he's tossing out" --David Letterman
"Now here's something interesting. You know the Howie Mandel blockbuster quiz show, the game show 'Deal or No Deal?' Earlier tonight, appearing on 'Deal or No Deal,' President Bush. Meanwhile, over at ABC's 'Dancing with the Stars,' Dick Cheney collapsed."
"But it's true, Bush was on 'Deal or No Deal.' Apparently he didn't feel he was ready for 'Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?'" --David Letterman
"According to some of the political blogs, Democratic operatives have been looking for dirt on John McCain since February. You know what you call someone who digs up dirt on John McCain? An archaeologist." --Jay Leno
"You know that since George Bush has become president, gas has basically tripled in price. Now, Bush is an oil man. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm just saying that if we had elected Colonel Sanders president, and the price of chicken had tripled, I'd be a little suspicious." --Bill Maher
"But wait a second, because there is one man who has a solution. John McCain ... presented his proposal. He says that over the summer we should have a 'Gas Tax Holiday.' For summer drivers, the 18 cent a gallon federal gas tax, he wants that lifted over the summer. Or as it used to be called, 'Grandpa is giving you $5.'" --Bill Maher
"And Ralph Nader, God bless him. Ralph Nader said today, he has not taken $1 in campaign contributions. Oh, he wants to. He just can't get anybody to give him $1." --Jay Leno
"How many watched the debate last night? [on screen: Light cheers and a few boos]. How many watched 'American Idol?' [on screen: Loud cheers and applause]. You get the government you deserve." --Jay Leno
"And at the party yesterday, Pope Benedict spoke out against evil, and then Dick Cheney gave the rebuttal." --Jay Leno
15. US scraps $20 million prototype of virtual fence
The government is scrapping a $20 million prototype of its highly touted "virtual fence" on the Arizona-Mexico border because the system is failing to adequately alert border patrol agents to illegal crossings, officials said.
The move comes just two months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced his approval of the fence built by The Boeing Co. The fence consists of nine electronic surveillance towers along a 28-mile section of border southwest of Tucson. 4.23.08 http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=139361
16. Detainees’ Mental Health Is Latest Legal Battle
Next month, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was once a driver for Osama bin Laden, could become the first detainee to be tried for war crimes in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. By now, he should be busily working on his defense.
But his lawyers say he cannot. They say Mr. Hamdan has essentially been driven crazy by solitary confinement in an 8-foot-by-12-foot cell where he spends at least 22 hours a day, goes to the bathroom and eats all his meals. His defense team says he is suicidal, hears voices, has flashbacks, talks to himself and says the restrictions of Guantánamo “boil his mind.”
Critics have long asserted that Guantánamo’s climate-controlled isolation is a breeding ground for madness. But turning that into a legal claim marks a new stage for the military commissions at Guantánamo. As military prosecutors push to get trials under way, they are being met with challenges not just to the charges, but to Guantánamo itself. WILLIAM GLABERSON 4.26.08. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/washington/26gitmo.html
17. Many Americans OK With Increasing Taxes on Rich
Slightly over half of Americans believe the government should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich.
The percentage holding this view, similar to that found in Gallup polling last year, is up from 1998 and in particular is higher than was found in a Roper poll conducted for Fortune Magazine back in 1939. Although the methods and sampling of polling done in the 1930s may differ significantly from those of today, the rough comparison suggests that Americans appear to have become even more "redistributionist" in their views than they were at the tail end of the Depression. Frank Newport 4.25.08 http://www.gallup.com/poll/106813/Many-Americans-Increasing-Taxes-Rich.aspx
18. GOP Putting Big Money On Anti-Obama Ads (video)
The Republicans have been sharpening their message against Barack Obama with $500,000 in new ads in the ongoing special House elections in Mississippi and Louisiana. Eric Kleefeld 4.29.08 http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/gop_putting_big_money_on_antio.php
19. Support the "Stop Outsourcing Security Act"
Blackwater has announced plans to open a 61,600 square-foot "training facility" in San Diego just three blocks from Mexican border.
For what you can do to stop Blackwater and to reverse the trend of outsourcing "mission critical and emergency essential functions that historically have been performed by United States military or government personnel.go to http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/banblackwater
20. Breaking: McCain Ups the Ante to a million years in Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eivkAjyN_tQ
21. McCain’s Health Care Plan: Increases Taxes, Decreases Coverage
Today in Tampa, Fla., Sen. John McCain gave an address his advisers claimed would “unveil” his health care proposal—but he essentially offered the same tired proposal he’s been touting for months. Most policy analysts agree this plan won’t cut costs, won’t cover more people and won’t fix the real problems in the health care system.
McCain wants to address our nation’s health care crisis by merely shifting costs around—and millions of people would pay higher health care costs as a result. McCain would tax health care benefits as income and push more people out of group insurance pools and into the often-predatory private market. In short, McCain would increase our taxes and ensure fewer of us could afford quality health care. Seth Michaels, 4.29.08 http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/04/29/mccains-health-care-plan-increases-taxes-decreases-coverage/
22. Army Barracks conditions in 82nd Fort Bragg (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4P-camUjjk
23. U.S. has Mandela on terrorist list
WASHINGTON — Nobel Peace Prize winner and international symbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watch lists and needs special permission to visit the USA. Mimi Hall 5.01.08 http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-04-30-watchlist_N.htm
24. Jon Stewart: Supreme Torture
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/05/supreme_torture.html
25. Stephen Colbert: McCain’s Lucky Charms
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20080430_mccains_lucky_charms/
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1. J. Goodrich: Who Would Joe Sixpack Vote For?
As all other political wonks, I have followed the public discussion about Hillary Clinton's cleavage and voice and Barack Obama's bowling scores and bad orange juice habit. I have struggled through Maureen Dowd's columns on Hillary "the Queen Bee" and Barack "the Bambi," and I have often wondered why we are offered this soap-opera treatment of the Democratic presidential candidates (remember John Edwards and his haircuts?) while similar sit-coms on the Republican candidates don't seem to interest any of the pundits. Hence, I still don't know what John McCain drinks, what his bowling score might be, how much his haircuts cost or whether he can play basketball at all.
This is wrong. Imagine what juicy morsels we might be missing because nobody is digging through the menu and clothing choices of Senator McCain. Surely a reporter could be placed in at least one of his many properties to find if he is someone the average Joe Sixpack might want to have a beer with. You know, the way everyone was told that George Bush (a teetotaller) is just such a politician, albeit with roots deep in old money and elite schools.
Paul Waldman has written a fascinating piece on these issues and on the deeper reasons why certain pundits keep asking the question about the blue-collar roots of the Democratic presidential candidates. Waldman suggests that it might be because the pundits themselves belong to the elites that they so scorn. 4/21/08 http://www.thenation.com/blogs/passingthrough/313596
2. Paul Waldman: How Blue Is Your Collar?
The cover story of last Sunday's New York Times Magazine profiled Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and leading light of the political-media universe. The article portrays Matthews as a pathetically insecure man, searching for his face on barroom television screens -- desperate for everyone to acknowledge his importance. In a different time, someone like Matthews would be eagerly casting off his modest Philadelphia upbringing and embracing the accoutrements of the upper crust, assuring all who cared to look that he indeed belonged among the country's elite.
But not today. With Matthews, as with so many of our media and political figures, the premium now is on those with collars dyed the deepest blue, claiming to speak for the man and woman in the street. "I don't think people look at me as the establishment, do you?" Matthews plaintively asks the profile's author, Mark Leibovich. "Am I part of the winner's circle in American life? I don't think so." Please, he seems to be saying, don't consider me part of the elite.
This will be no surprise to viewers of Hardball, on which Matthews regularly trumpets his connection to the masses. This has never been more true than in the last few weeks, as the upcoming primary in his native Pennsylvania has sent Matthews into paroxysms of self-congratulatory rhapsodizing on the regular folks among whom he so desperately wants us to believe he still resides. Every night at 5 and 7, Matthews acts like a psychic channeling the spirit of the working class. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, he insightfully informs his viewers, are just not the type to whom Joe Sixpack takes a liking: "Pennsylvania prefers a beefier sort to either of these people, Matthews claimed, "a more rustic, tougher sort than either of them." When neither Obama nor Clinton turned out to be particularly skilled bowlers, Matthews said gravely, "Maybe that tells you something about the Democratic party." 4.15.08 http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_blue_is_your_collar
3. Mark Morford: All the president's liars
Did it work? Were you duped?
Were you calmly and methodically and rather nefariously led to believe that maybe, just maybe, the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and the rest, right along with tales of soldier suicides and torture and staggering civilian body counts and the utterly disastrous Bush military policy weren't really all that bad after all?
Did you watch any CNN or Fox News or MSNBC, lo, these past five or six years, listen to the pundits and ponder the wise, informed comments of all the military experts the networks brought on to discuss Iraq policy, then conclude that maybe this war, this appalling invasion might actually be positive, that maybe the surge is working and torture ain't all that bad and the democracy is taking root and America is proud and perky and victorious once again?
Did you believe any of it? Because oh my God, they sure as hell worked us over like a rabid dog works a hunk of gristle.
Who are "they," exactly? Why, they're the newly discovered and rather unexpected fraternity of expert BS artists, a highly specialized group known to gullible Americans as stoic, stern-faced retired generals, colonels, majors, military advisers, former Pentagon officials, the ones you've heard and seen on TV news for years, but who are known to the Bush administration as a delightfully dishonest gaggle of preferred liars, lackeys, shills, puppets and mouthpieces for Dick Cheney and Donny Rumsfeld and Dubya himself.
The truth is as sad as it is revolting: You have been lied to, again and again, perhaps even more than you imagined, in a rather unexpected way, perhaps like no other time in American history, in a more carefully orchestrated and widespread effort than any presidential administration has managed to attempt in the past. 4.25.08 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/04/25/notes042508.DTL&nl=fix
4. John Nichols: The World Food Crisis
The only surprising thing about the global food crisis to Jim Goodman is the notion that anyone finds it surprising. "So," says the Wisconsin dairy farmer, "they finally figured out, after all these years of pushing globalization and genetically modified [GM] seeds, that instead of feeding the world we've created a food system that leaves more people hungry. If they'd listened to farmers instead of corporations, they would've known this was going to happen." Goodman has traveled the world to speak, organize and rally with groups such as La Via Campesina, the global movement of peasant and farm organizations that has been warning for years that "solutions" promoted by agribusiness conglomerates were designed to maximize corporate profits, not help farmers or feed people. The food shortages, suddenly front-page news, are not new. Hundreds of millions of people were starving and malnourished last year; the only change is that as the scope of the crisis has grown, it has become more difficult to "manage" the hunger that a failed food system accepts rather than feeds. 4.24.08 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/nichols
5. Chalmers Johnson: The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke
The military adventurers in the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room" -- the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.
As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries. Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay or repudiate. This fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching. 4.26.08 http://www.alternet.org/story/83555/
6. Dana Milbank: Iraq War Is Everyone Else's Fault, Feith Explains
Mistakes were made. But not by him.
Doug Feith, the No. 3 man at the Pentagon before, during and after the invasion of Iraq, has come in for his share of blame for the failures there -- in large part because he led the Pentagon policy shop that badly misstated the case for war and bungled the planning for the aftermath. Gen. Tommy Franks called him "the dumbest [bad word] guy on the planet." George Tenet of the CIA called his work on Iraq "total crap." And Jay Garner, once the American administrator in Iraq, deduced that Feith is "incredibly dangerous" and, "He's a smart guy whose electrons aren't connected."
Now Feith, whatever the state of his electrons, is showing just how dangerous he can be. He's written a book designed to settle the score with his many opponents in the administration, and in a book-launch event last night at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he pointed his finger every which way but inward.
It must have been very difficult being Doug Feith: correct all the time, and surrounded by idiots. 4.25.08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR2008042403481.html
7. Gail Collins: McCain’s Compassion Tour
John McCain — this is the guy, you may remember, who’s going to be the Republican presidential nominee — has been visiting the poor lately. Appalachia, New Orleans, Rust Belt factory towns. This is a good thing, and we applaud his efforts to show compassion and interest in people for whom his actual policies are of no use whatsoever.
McCain’s special It’s Time for Action Tour was in the impoverished Kentucky town of Inez on Wednesday, so he was unable to make it to Washington to vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This is the bill that would restore workers’ ability to go to court in cases of pay discrimination.
But McCain was not ducking the issue. After all, this is a man who told the folks in Youngstown, Ohio — where most of the working single mothers cannot make it above the poverty line — that the answer to their problems is larger tax deductions. He is fearless when it comes to delivering unpleasant news to people who are probably not going to vote for him anyway.
So McCain made it clear that if he had been in Washington, he would have voted no because the bill “opens us up for lawsuits, for all kinds of problems and difficulties.”
How much straighter can talk get? True, this is pretty much like saying that you’re voting against the federal budget because it involves spending. Still, there is no denying that a bill making it possible for people who have been discriminated against to go to court for redress would open somebody up to the possibility of a lawsuit. 4.26.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/opinion/26collins.html?ex=1366948800
8. FRANK RICH: How McCain Lost in Pennsylvania
Last week found Mr. McCain visiting economically stricken and “forgotten” communities (forgotten by Republicans, that is) in what his campaign bills as the “It’s Time for Action Tour.” It kicked off in Selma, Ala., a predominantly black town where he confirmed his maverick image by drawing an almost exclusively white audience.
The “action” the candidate outlined in the text of his speeches may strike many voters as running the gamut from inaction to inertia. Mr. McCain vowed that he would not “roll out a long list of policy initiatives.” (He can’t, given his long list of tax cuts.) He said he would not bring back lost jobs, lost wages or lost houses. But, as The Birmingham News reported, this stand against government bailouts for struggling Americans didn’t prevent his campaign from helping itself to free labor underwritten by taxpayers: inmates from a local jail were recruited to set up tables and chairs for a private fund-raiser.
The Democrats’ unending brawl may be supplying prime time with a goodly share of melodrama right now, but there will be laughter aplenty once the Republican campaign that’s not ready for prime time emerges from the wings. 4.27.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/opinion/27rich.html
9. Elizabeth Edwards: Bowling 1, Health Care 0
FOR the last month, news media attention was focused on Pennsylvania and its Democratic primary. Given the gargantuan effort, what did we learn?
Well, the rancor of the campaign was covered. The amount of money spent was covered. But in Pennsylvania, as in the rest of the country this political season, the information about the candidates’ priorities, policies and principles — information that voters will need to choose the next president — too often did not make the cut. After having spent more than a year on the campaign trail with my husband, John Edwards, I’m not surprised.
Why? Here’s my guess: The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.
But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.
The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet.
Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties. 4.27.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/opinion/27edwards.html
10. Paul Krugman: Bush Made Permanent
As the designated political heir of a deeply unpopular president — according to Gallup, President Bush has the highest disapproval rating recorded in 70 years of polling — John McCain should have little hope of winning in November. In fact, however, current polls show him roughly tied with either Democrat.
In part this may reflect the Democrats’ problems. For the most part, however, it probably reflects the perception, eagerly propagated by Mr. McCain’s many admirers in the news media, that he’s very different from Mr. Bush — a responsible guy, a straight talker.
But is this perception at all true? During the 2000 campaign people said much the same thing about Mr. Bush; those of us who looked hard at his policy proposals, especially on taxes, saw the shape of things to come.
And a look at what Mr. McCain says about taxes shows the same combination of irresponsibility and double-talk that, back in 2000, foreshadowed the character of the Bush administration.
More and more, Mr. McCain sounds like a man who will say anything to become president. 4.28.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/opinion/28krugman.html
11. James Ridgeway: Scrubbing King Coal
Across the board, the companies that control fossil fuels have begun to respond to rising concern about global warming with what amounts to a three-point strategy: First, make small overtures toward developing renewable energy, and milk them for maximum PR value. Second, invest more generously in carbon-based "alternative energy" that gets passed off as green. Third, invoke the goal of energy independence to pump, mine, transport, and sell more and more of the same old fuels to an ever-hungrier market.
One of the slipperiest tactics involves redefining what constitutes clean energy. In a 2006 report, the ike global warming, -industry-friendly Institute for Energy Research said that U.S. oil and gas companies had invested $98 billion in "emerging energy technologies" in North America from 2000 to 2005. But the vast majority of this funding went to develop "frontier hydrocarbons"—new, often filthy methods of producing more oil and gas. In fact, a report from the Center for American Progress found that between 2001 and 2007, a period of unprecedented profits, the top five private oil companies spent an average of just one-half of one percent of total profits on renewable fuels. (BP and Shell topped the list at 1.2 percent; ExxonMobil occupied the bottom at 0.)
From Big Fuel's point of view, the logic makes sense: Energy generated by the sun, wind, and tides is not a tangible commodity in the same way that oil, gas, and coal are; thus, a better way to preserve control of the market is to tap frontier or speculative resources, such as drilling farther offshore and in protected areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Perhaps the greatest beneficiary of industry's "alternative" efforts is coal, America's most abundant fossil fuel. There are about 600 coal-fired power plants around the country providing nearly 50 percent of our electricity. But since 2006, at least three dozen of the 153 new conventional coal plants planned for the coming decade have been canceled due to resistance from citizens and state and local governments. May/June 2008 Issue http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/05/scrubbing-king-coal.html
12. Deborah Zabarenko: Human warming hobbles ancient climate cycle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Before humans began burning fossil fuels, there was an eons-long balance between carbon dioxide emissions and Earth's ability to absorb them, but now the planet can't keep up, scientists said on Sunday.
The finding, reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, relies on ancient Antarctic ice bubbles that contain air samples going back 610,000 years.
Climate scientists for the last 25 years or so have suggested that some kind of natural mechanism regulates our planet's temperature and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Those skeptical about human influence on global warming point to this as the cause for recent climate change.
This research is likely the first observable evidence for this natural mechanism.
This mechanism, known as "feedback," has been thrown out of whack by a steep rise in carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal and petroleum for the last 200 years or so, said Richard Zeebe, a co-author of the report.
"These feedbacks operate so slowly that they will not help us in terms of climate change ... that we're going to see in the next several hundred years," Zeebe said by telephone from the University of Hawaii. "Right now we have put the system entirely out of equilibrium." 4.27.08 http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN2541737720080427?sp=true
13. Eugene Robinson: I’ve Had It With Rev. Wright
WASHINGTON—We all have our crosses to bear. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has become Barack Obama’s.
I’m sorry, but I’ve had it with Wright. I would never try to diminish the service he performed as pastor of his Chicago megachurch, and it’s obvious that he’s a man of great charisma and great faith. But this media tour he’s conducting is doing a disservice that goes beyond any impact it might have on Obama’s presidential campaign.
The problem is that Wright insists on being seen as something he’s not: an archetypal representative of the African-American church. In fact, he represents one twig of one branch of a very large tree.
It’s understandable, given how Wright has been treated, that he would want to attempt to set the record straight. No one would enjoy seeing his 36-year career reduced to a couple of radioactive sound bites. No preacher would want his entire philosophy to be assessed based on a few rhetorical excesses committed in the heat of a passionate sermon. No former Marine would stomach having his love of country questioned by armchair patriots who have done far less to protect the United States from its enemies.
Given Wright’s long silence, I thought he had taken to heart Jesus’ admonition to turn the other cheek. Obviously, I was wrong. 4.28.08 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080428_ive_had_it_with_rev_wright/
14. Marie Cocco: The Cutting Edge of Backward Thinking
When you conjure up a mental image of modernity, the Senate cloakroom doesn’t come quickly to mind. Still, you would think the guys who run the place—as of now there are only 16 female senators—would get it. They don’t.
There is no other way to explain Senate Republicans’ obstinate refusal to allow women to sue for pay discrimination under rules that were in place for years. That is, years before a five-man majority on the U.S. Supreme Court decided only last year to set the bar higher—in essence, impossibly high—for a woman to bring a successful suit over discriminatory pay.
The point in contention last week was whether the Senate would allow a vote on a measure to restore what had been the practice before the Supreme Court took the case of Lilly Ledbetter, a former Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant supervisor from Alabama, and used it to turn settled discrimination law on its head. Before the Ledbetter decision, discriminatory pay lawsuits could be brought on the premise that each and every paycheck was a violation. The high court reversed this principle, stating that a victim had to bring suit only at the time a first discriminatory decision is made—and if that was a decade or two earlier, and she had no way to know about it—well then, tough luck.
This is how Senate Republicans want the workplace to be for American women.
They used a filibuster to block action on a measure that would have counteracted the Supreme Court ruling. They acted in concert with the White House, which threatened to veto the measure, and of course, with the usual lineup of GOP-friendly business groups that saw in the Supreme Court decision an opening and took it.
And what of John McCain, the presumed Republican standard-bearer? He proved to be as ignorant about pay discrimination as he once professed to be about the economy. It’s not just that he refused to leave the campaign trail in order to vote. It was worse. What women need, McCain offered, is more “education and training.” 4.28.08 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080428_the_cutting_edge_of_backward_thinking/
15. Supreme Court OKs voter ID
It is particularly dismaying to see the court retreat from that history, as it did Monday in upholding a voter identification system in Indiana. The state's voter ID law, enacted in 2005, nominally aims to stamp out the phenomenon of people not on the rolls casting ballots by impersonating registered voters. Never mind that America's principal voting problem is disinterest, not over-interest -- Indiana nevertheless requires that all voters obtain a state-issued photo ID, which entails a personal visit to a motor vehicle office (the law allows for some exemptions, but those involve casting a provisional ballot, then appearing before a clerk or board to complete an affidavit within 10 days).
With its decision in this case, the Supreme Court encourages mischief and undermines its great history as an engine of democracy. As it ruled in 1964, in earlier, better days: "Especially since the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized." Would that the court had done so this week. 4.29.08 http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-vote29apr29,0,613953.story
16. Peter Collorafi: Trouble In The VA: Bush Goes To Court To Deny Mental Care For Vets
In February, Bush administration lawyers argued that veterans from the "war on terror," have no right to "any particular medical service" other than what the VA deems is best. This is due to another class-action lawsuit against the Bush administration by veterans who are being denied mental health care because the administration alleges that money appropriated by Congress for that purpose was meant "to authorize, but not require, medical [mental] care for veterans."
This begs the question, why else was the money appropriated if it was not meant for mental care? Imagine the administration using the same reasoning for defense appropriations. I hardly doubt I would ever hear administration lawyers denying the military tanks or planes because they claimed that the money appropriated for them did not "require" their use.
Yet, we have a President who fights in court to deny mental care for veterans while officials at his Veterans Affairs Department tells each other in emails that 18 veterans are committing suicide every day, while denying the very same facts in public.
The president has said that our veterans have created "a debt that we can never fully repay." One way to start would be to give them the medical care that they need. 4.25.08 http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/59868
17. Dana Milbank: The Escape Artist
The incredible shrinking presidency of George Walker Bush hit a new milestone yesterday: The commander in chief turned to sorcery.
"You know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I'd be waving it," Bush informed Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times in a Rose Garden news conference. She had asked him about the recession, which everybody seems to be acknowledging but Bush.
Further, the wizard of the West Wing said he would use his supernatural powers, if he had them, to conjure up lower gas prices. "I think that if there was a magic wand and say, 'Okay, drop price,' I'd do that," said the illusionist.
Abracadabra! Watch the president pull a rabbit out of a hat! See his low ratings vanish before your very eyes!
Well, not this time. "There is no magic wand to wave right now," Bush finally confessed to Stolberg.
But the president had something else up his sleeve. He used his appearance before the White House press corps to perform one of the oldest tricks in the book: blaming Congress. He faulted lawmakers 16 times in his opening statement alone. 4.30.08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042902548.html
18. The SUPREMES do it again
Cousin Betty Jo writes,
It must be coincidence that only 9 days before the Indiana Primary, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Indiana’s photo ID voting law may be applied to the May 6 election.
What’s the problem with that? Suppose you don’t drive, so don’t have a government ID? Well, of course, you can go wait in line at the DMV to get an id.
Wait! you need a birth certificate. No, you don’t have a computer. Heck, you can barely afford to buy nonfat dry milk for your kids. So, you panhandle some spare change to buy a phone card, make some long distance calls to your state of birth. Get the right office, and they’ll be happy to send your their form. Once it arrives in 5 - 7 business days, just fill it out, include a two sided copy of a photo id, and mail it back with a check.
Wait! No checking account? you can go to the post office, wait in line and get a money order, then mail it back. Once they receive it, they will process in 2-3 days (unless they are busy), and then mail it back in 5-7 business days.
Wait! You don’t have a photo id. Well, you can contact a direct relative (like a parent or natural sibling (no step parents or step siblings allowed), and get a signed affidavit from them and a copy of both sides of their photo id, have them send you that and use it to apply for a copy of your birth certificate, after which in a while, you will have the certificate and can then go down to the DMV and wait in line for a photo id. They’ll take your pic and send you the id in 5-7 business days.
Woops. The election is over. You are TOO LATE. 4.29.08 http://listics.com/200804294048
19. Jay Bookman: America could use a little 'tough love' from leaders
We Americans have a high regard for ourselves. We are — or so we tell ourselves — the richest, the most generous, the most powerful, the most peace-loving, the most productive, the most wise and most lovable nation on the face of the earth.
We also love politicians who dare to tell us all those wonderful things about ourselves. Like any people, we want to think well of our country and take pride in it, and we want leaders who take pride in it as well.
But there's a difference between justified pride and illusion. Too many Americans seem to believe that our place in the world has been divinely ordained and thus permanent, when in fact it is the product of past sacrifice and wise choices. It can all be lost if we also lose the capacity to look at ourselves and our problems honestly.
For example, it is no longer true that we are the richest nation in the world. Quite the contrary, in recent years we have become the world's biggest debtor nation. We are financing our prosperity in the manner of an old but declining aristocratic family, living beyond our means year by year by pawning off the assets earned by earlier generations. 05/01/08 http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/bookman/index.html
20. Amy Goodman: Ticker Tape Ain’t Spaghetti
Food riots are erupting around the world. Protests have occurred in Egypt, Cameroon, the Philippines, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Senegal. Sarata Guisse, a Senegalese demonstrator, told Reuters: “We are holding this demonstration because we are hungry. We need to eat, we need to work, we are hungry. That’s all. We are hungry.” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has convened a task force to confront the problem, which threatens, he said, “the specter of widespread hunger, malnutrition and social unrest on an unprecedented scale.” The World Food Program has called the food crisis the worst in 45 years, dubbing it a “silent tsunami” that will plunge 100 million more people into hunger.
Behind the hunger, behind the riots, are so-called free-trade agreements, and the brutal emergency-loan agreements imposed on poor countries by financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund. Food riots in Haiti have killed six, injured hundreds and led to the ousting of Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis. The Rev. Jesse Jackson just returned from Haiti and writes that “hunger is on the march here. Garbage is carefully sifted for whatever food might be left. Young babies wail in frustration, seeking milk from a mother too anemic to produce it.” Jackson is calling for debt relief so that Haiti can direct the $70 million per year it spends on interest to the World Bank and other loans into schools, infrastructure and agriculture.
The rise in food prices is generally attributed to a perfect storm caused by increased food demand from India and China, diminished food supplies caused by drought and other climate-change-related problems, increased fuel costs to grow and transport the food, and the increased demand for biofuels, which has diverted food supplies like corn into ethanol production. 4.30.08 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080430_ticker_tape_aint_spaghetti/
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