Daily Nonsense

The businesses of America have long been fans of a republican government.  Startling tax breaks, deregulation, and lack of oversight are the basis for many a republican administration.

All of that typically leads America into either the poor house or the shit house.  This most recent administration has managed to do both.  As a nation and as a people we’re economically bankrupt with the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, while the war in Iraq has managed to make the nation and the people morally bankrupt.

Thanks George.

But I digress.

Apparently John McCain’s revamped health care plans have American big business on edge.  In the end, McCain’s plan would do little to stem the tide of the uninsured and would add in excess of 1.3 TRILLION dollars in government spending over the next year. 

That doesn’t sound much like a solution to me….  Just more lies from the Republicans who are not satisfied with the $850 billion they stole from me in just the last week.

Business Cool Toward McCain’s Health Coverage Plan

By KEVIN SACK

Published: October 6, 2008

 

American business, typically a reliable Republican cheerleader, is decidedly lukewarm about Senator John McCain’s proposal to overhaul the health care system by revamping the tax treatment of health benefits, officials with leading trade groups say.

The officials, with organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business, predicted in recent interviews that the McCain plan, which eliminates the exclusion of health benefits from income taxes, would accelerate the erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance and do little to reduce the number of uninsured from 45 million.

That is largely the argument made in recent days by Mr. McCain’s opponent, Senator Barack Obama, who has revived a dormant campaign debate over health care with an intensified attack on the McCain plan. Conscious that the issue plays well with swing voters, Mr. Obama devoted a speech on Saturday to characterizing Mr. McCain’s plan as “radical” and a “Washington bait and switch,” and he has reinforced the message in four television advertisements.

That has set off a furious back-and-forth between the campaigns, with the McCain campaign countering that Mr. Obama’s plan also would undermine employer coverage by mandating that medium and large companies either provide insurance for their workers or pay a tax. The payments would help subsidize a new government health plan for low-income people, and some economists believe it would entice workers away from their employer-sponsored coverage.

Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, opened his assault two weeks ago by telling crowds that Mr. McCain “wants to tax your health benefits.” He did not explain that Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee, would offer tax credits in exchange to cover the increased liability for many Americans.

Over the weekend, Mr. Obama more accurately characterized the McCain plan as a swap but one that would work to the detriment of millions. Middle-class families, he said, would “watch the system they rely on begin to unravel before their eyes.”

The business leaders said that was also their fear. Despite steady declines this decade, employers still provide coverage to 62 percent of Americans younger than 65. Surveys show that they want to continue doing so to attract and maintain a productive workforce.

The business leaders forecast that Mr. McCain’s free-market approach would impose particular burdens on small businesses and old-line manufacturers that are already struggling.

“To some in the business community, this is very discomforting,” said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the Chamber of Commerce. “The private marketplace, in my opinion, is ill prepared today with an infrastructure for an individual-based health insurance system.”

Health economists are ideologically divided over Mr. McCain’s plan. Analysts who support it project that it might provide coverage to 25 million people, while critics predict that the number of newly insured would peak at five million and then decline.

Though Mr. McCain says his plan would not add to federal spending, the Tax Policy Center has estimated that it will cost at least $1.3 trillion over 10 years. And while right-leaning economists emphasize that the plan would provide a tax cut for the average American, opponents respond that certain high-earners will face an increase and that some in the middle class may break even only by reducing their coverage.

The centerpiece of Mr. McCain’s plan is the elimination of the provision that has, since 1954, excluded the value of employer-sponsored health benefits from a worker’s taxable income. The exclusion can be worth thousands of dollars for some workers.

In its place, Mr. McCain would offer all Americans income tax credits of $2,500 per person or $5,000 per family for heath coverage, regardless of how they bought it.

Mr. McCain would not change the ability of companies to deduct health benefits as a business expense on their corporate income taxes. And advisers have said he would continue to exclude the value of health benefits from the payroll taxes that finance Social Security and Medicare.

The income-tax exclusion benefits 162.5 million Americans but costs the federal government $145.3 billion in foregone revenue, second only to the tax break for retirement account contributions, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

[Thanks, NY Times]

Anne Kilkenny, long-time resident of Wasilla, Alaska writes about Ms. Palin, her ability to keep secrets and her inability to either balance a budget or live within one.  Anne also spends a few moments discussing Sarah’s abuse of power. 

Just what we need, another Vice President who believes they can make whatever rules serve them in the moment.  What is the difference between Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin?  Lipstick!

About Sarah Palin: A Letter From Anne Kilkenny
By admin on Sep 3, 2008 in John McCain

What follows is an open letter written by a resident of Wasilla, Alaska named Anne Kilkenny.

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months. She is “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby. She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just “puts things out there” and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit. Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans. Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters. She’s smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city. As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideasor compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job.

In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.

They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked toglobal warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President. There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she. However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT

•“Hockey mom”: true for a few years
•“PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
•“NRA supporter”: absolutely true
•social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
•pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.
•“Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation
•“Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
•political maverick: not at all
•gutsy: absolutely!
•open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
•has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
•”a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
•fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
•pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
•pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
•pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla’s history.
•pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can’t recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall–they are swamped. So I can’t verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my “about 5,000″, up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

[Thanks, ThePresidentialCandidates.us]

In a not very surprising reaction to yesterday’s Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision, John McCain has stated uncategorically that this decision is "..one of the worst.." decisions ever.  Why would he say something this inflammatory?  Oh, right, because he’s a nasty Republican Bush clone.

He’d like nothing more than to deny these so-called terrorists the right of habeas corpus.  Essentially, that is the reason that few, if any, of these prisoners have ever been transported to the U.S.  They would rather keep these people in limbo somewhere that does not have the same basis of law that America does.

Just imagine, these detainees will actually be able to have their day in court and allow someone with a background based in justice to determine their fate.  Bush and Cheney mush be wailing and gnashing their teeth.

Once someone decides that even one detainee has been held illegally the Bush and Cheney ‘officially’ become criminals.  God, I can’t wait to see the two people responsible for allowing our country to sink as low as it be brought to trial.  The indignities heaped upon our country and our citizens, all for a couple of bucks.  It’s sickening really.

McCain on Gitmo Ruling: “One of the Worst Decisions in the History of This Country.”

Posted by Jamie Heller

Yesterday we did a roundup of intraday reaction to the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision, which held that foreign prisoners at Guantanamo Bay may challenge their detention before a federal judge. Most of the reaction we identified was positive or at least not surprised.

Today, we have some strong articulations on the other side, in particular from Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, who, as the headline above notes, calls the ruling “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” See this report from the Journal’s Elizabeth Holmes, who covered a speech McCain gave in New Jersey today. McCain said he’d appoint justices like John Roberts, and cited his dissent in the case.

The Journal’s editorial page seemed equally displeased. In an editorial titled “President Kennedy,” the authors said: “We can say with confident horror that Americans are likely to die as a result” of the decision. The editorial called Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion “remarkable in its sweeping disregard for the decisions of both political branches” and his analysis “disengenuous.”

LB readers: Feel free to weigh in on the Boumediene decision and these analyses of it. We’d also like to hear what you think are the worst Supreme Court decisions in the history of this country.

[Thanks, Wall Street Journal]

During a speech in Munster, Indiana on Friday, Obama responded to the criticism aimed at him for not following along with the other Republican candidates in calling for a suspension of the national gas tax. 

Both the Clinton’s and McCain propose to eliminate the 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal gas tax as a short term measure.  Supposedly, the tax gap would be made up by assessing a ‘windfall’ profits tax on the oil companies.

But really, do you see these companies paying for your summer vacation travel?  That’s really the issue in Obama’s mind, the whole thing is a just a stunt to get votes rather than address the real issues.

Obama calls suspension of gas tax a political stunt
May 3, 2008

Barack Obama yesterday dismissed a proposed summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax as a political stunt that could cost thousands of construction jobs, including 6,000 in Indiana.

"It’s a shell game. Literally," Obama said to laughter from his audience in Munster, Ind.

He also accused Clinton and Republican John McCain of "reading from the same political playbook" by endorsing the idea. "This is a plan that would save you pennies a day for the summer months. That is unless gas prices are raised to fill in the gap," Obama said.

And he launched a new TV ad in Indiana replying to what his campaign calls "another negative ad" from Clinton that accuses him of ignoring the pain at the gas pump.

The ad calls the idea "an election year gimmick," then highlights Obama’s long-range plan to deal with record-high gas prices, which in broad strokes is similar to Clinton’s.

As a short-term fix, Clinton is proposing a summer gas tax holiday that would suspend the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal levy, to be paid for by imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies. The proposal is a rarity in the marathon battle for the Democratic nomination – a clear-cut policy difference between Obama and Clinton, and it is playing out in the final days before Tuesday’s primaries in Indiana and North Carolina.

Clinton yesterday reiterated her support for the gas tax suspension, and called for a vote in the Democratic-controlled Congress.

"All I hear about is gas prices. Gas and diesel, everywhere," she said at a John Deere tractor dealership in Kinston, N.C. "Some people say we don’t need to get a gas tax holiday at all, it’s a gimmick. . . . I want the Congress to stand up and vote. Are they for the oil companies, or are they for you?"

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Thanks, Boston.com]

We all know that the Department of Justice is a little shorthanded.  After the celebrated faux pas of firing 7 U.S. Attorneys for political reasons (rather than performance issues), the DoJ has had some problems not only filling those positions, but retaining other top performers.

Case in point is the chief of the DoJ’s criminal division, Alice S Fisher.  She tendered her resignation yesterday for a May 23rd departure.

In the sunset of any presidency you can expect some departures, but the exodus from all corners of the Bush administration started early and have gathered an incredible momentum.  The rats are fleeing the sinking ship that is the Bush/Cheney bloody dictatorship.

Top-Level Departures Continue
Justice Official Who Oversees Cases On Corruption, Fraud Is Quitting

Thursday, May 1, 2008; Page A17

Alice S. Fisher, chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said yesterday that she will leave government service at the end of the month after nearly three years overseeing major public corruption and corporate fraud cases.

Her departure leaves the Justice Department even more short-staffed. Fisher is one of only four remaining division chiefs who have navigated the Senate confirmation process.

Among the ongoing investigations Fisher has been overseeing are cases involving members of Congress and executives at mortgage companies caught up in the credit debacle. Her deputy, Barry M. Sabin, a former federal prosecutor in Miami, is serving in an acting capacity, and her chief of staff left for private practice earlier this year.

Justice Department officials said they are not ready to announce who will replace Fisher, who previously worked for several years at the law firm Latham & Watkins.

Fisher’s signature initiatives include a crackdown on corporate bribes and a new strategy to attack international organized crime. She developed a reputation as a tough-minded leader who marshaled resources and helped reenergize units that prosecute white-collar malfeasance and public-integrity offenses.

"She will leave a void that will be tough to fill," said Andrew C. Lourie, a former top aide to Fisher who is a defense lawyer in Washington.

– Carrie Johnson

[Thanks, Washington Post]

For quite some time George ‘Dumbya’ Bush has maintained that future historians will view him and his presidency in a different light and his actions will be vindicated.  I guess he feels that the current generations are too stupid to appreciate his magnificence.

Well, oddly enough, 109 historians were polled recently and a whopping 98.2 percent of them considered this presidency as the ‘WORST EVER’.  My math brings that to 107 out of 109 historians agree that Bush and his presidency suck!

George, nothing is really going to change in 20, 50, or even 100 years.  With all of your dishonesty, malfeasance, and cronyism being recorded on a daily basis your descendants will be vilified for hundreds of years to come.

The Bush Presidency: The Historians (Start to) Weigh In
By The Editorial Board
April 14, 2008,  12:51 pm

The nonprofit History News Network is reporting that in an informal survey of 109 historians, 98.2 percent considered President George W. Bush’s presidency to be a failure, while 1.8 percent called it a success.

On the question of whether he is the worst president in history, there was greater difference of opinion: 61 percent said he was, while others disagreed or are withholding their opinions. (The survey also made clear that James Buchanan has some work to do rehabilitating his whole catapulted-the-nation-into-Civil-War reputation.)

We take most unscientific surveys with a large grain of salt, and this certainly falls into that category. On the other hand, we like the idea of historians starting to think about the George W. Bush presidency, and how it fits into larger patterns of American history.

We’d be interested in knowing more about the 1.8 percent of historians who regard this presidency as a success.

Given the disastrous Iraq War, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, the economy hurtling toward recession, the huge budget deficits, the plummeting dollar — to name just a few problems — these historians sound a lot like the 20 percent of dentists who don’t recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum.

[Thanks, NY Times]

Additional Reading: Historians: Bush worst president

In spite of veto threats from the lame duck idiot in the White House, the house of Representatives passed the FISA Amendments Act with a 213 to 197 vote last Friday.  Choosing legality over cronyism, the House has send a strong massage to the Bush/Cheney administration that enough is enough.

We may just be able to hold on to a few of our civil and constitutional rights while we wait for a new, Democratic dawn 310 days from now.

Kudos go out to the brave 213 Reps and I hope the other 197 burn in hell.

House Passes Spy Bill, Rejects Telcom Amnesty Despite Veto Threat
By Ryan Singel

Democrats continued their defiance of President Bush on Friday over his secret wiretapping program, passing a spying bill that calls for a commission to investigate the program, and refusing to give amnesty to telecoms that collaborated with the warrantless surveillance.

House Democratic leaders secured passage of the spying bill known as the FISA Amendments Act by a vote of 213 to 197, four weeks after a similar measure was defeated by a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats. That defeat led to the expiration of a temporary spying measure, setting off a week-long Republican effort to scare the American people with phantoms of lost wiretaps.

Republicans were championing a Senate bill that includes amnesty for telecoms and gives the nation’s spies wide powers to wiretap using facilities inside the United States with little court oversight.

Instead of caving to that rhetoric, the House Democrats doubled down on their original legislation, by including a call for a commission, armed with subpoena power, that would investigate the secret spying. The bill also allows telecoms to defend themselves in court by showing secret documents to federal judge. The Bush administration had blocked them from using classified information in their own defense.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which brought the leading suit against the nation’s telecoms, applauded the House’s moxie.

"Amnesty proponents have been claiming on the Hill for months that phone companies like AT&T had a good faith belief that the NSA program was legal," EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston said. "Under this bill, the companies could do what they should have been able to do all along: tell that story to a judge."

The White House had no such kind words, saying the bill was "partisan" and would be "dead on arrival" in the Senate.

"The House of Representatives took a significant step backward in defending our country against terrorism and passed a partisan bill that will please class-action trial lawyers at the expense of our national security," White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto said in a statement. 

Now the House and Senate bills will need to be reconciled, and sent to the president, which won’t happen for weeks due to the pending Easter recess.

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said, "While the threat level remains high, some in this country, and in Congress, want us to let our guard down. The Pelosi Democrats are rolling the dice with our national security."

Threat Level would like to point out that Bond clearly hasn’t seen our threat meter, which is now green. Also the official threat level is yellow, or "elevated."

President Bush has repeatedly claimed that there’s an urgent national security need for new spying legislation. But he also says he’ll veto any surveillance bill that does not grant retroactive immunity to the companies that turned over phone records and access to internet cable fibers to the government.

Bush argues that the participating companies were patriots, and that they would stop complying with lawful court orders in the future if not freed from the lawsuits accusing them of conducting illegal surveillance for Bush.

But it will likely be politically difficult to veto a bill containing new spying powers Bush himself says are vital to American’s security, simply because a couple of deep-pocketed corporations are facing lawsuits for violating federal privacy laws.

The bill, H.R. 3773, is not immediately available on that THOMAS website, but when posted it will be here. A draft of the bill is available here (.pdf).

[Thanks, Wired]

Another good read:

EFF Applauds House Passage of Surveillance Bill with No Telecom Immunity

After a misguided attempt at trying to hold out for some kind of immunity in forthcoming prosecutions, client #9, otherwise known as New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, has resigned.  After incorporating enforcement of ethics into his political platform, #9 really had no recourse but to step down.  His real mistake in all of this was to have waited so long.

The Clinton’s will be directly influenced by this scandal, we can count on one less pledged superdelegate come the Denver Convention.

 Spitzer Resigns, Citing Personal Failings

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: March 12, 2008

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose rise to political power as a fierce enforcer of ethics in public life was undone by revelations of his own involvement with prostitutes, resigned on Wednesday, becoming the first New York governor to leave office amid scandal in nearly a century.

The resignation will be effective on Monday, and Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson will be sworn in to replace him.

In an appearance that lasted 140 seconds at his Midtown Manhattan office, the governor — with his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, at his side — offered an apology to his family and to the public and said he would devote himself to serving “the common good.”

“From those to whom much is given, much is expected,” Mr. Spitzer said. “I have been given much: the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me.”

[Thanks, NY Times]

The New York times reported that some of Clinton’s most stalwart supporters and donors are questioning her ability to manage her checkbook.  With $100,000 snack trays and $25,000 rooms at the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas, Hillary is having a real tough time managing her campaign funding.  She needed to loan her campaign $5,000,000 just a couple of weeks ago and my guess is that more of the Middle Eastern blood money will find its way into her coffers.

My question is how can we expect her to keep a balanced budget that will exceed $3.10 trillion dollars?  She gonna’ loan the government some quick cash if she gets elected?

 

Clinton Donors Worried by Campaign’s Spending
By MICHAEL LUO, JO BECKER and PATRICK HEALY

Published: February 22, 2008

This article was reported by Michael Luo, Jo Becker and Patrick Healy and was written by Mr. Healy.

Nearly $100,000 went for party platters and groceries before the Iowa caucuses, even though the partying mood evaporated quickly. Rooms at the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas consumed more than $25,000; the Four Seasons, another $5,000. And top consultants collected about $5 million in January, a month of crucial expenses and tough fund-raising.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s latest campaign finance report, published Wednesday night, appeared even to her most stalwart supporters and donors to be a road map of her political and management failings. Several of them, echoing political analysts, expressed concerns that Mrs. Clinton’s spending priorities amounted to costly errors in judgment that have hamstrung her competitiveness against Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“We didn’t raise all of this money to keep paying consultants who have pursued basically the wrong strategy for a year now,” said a prominent New York donor. “So much about her campaign needs to change — but it may be too late.”

The high-priced senior consultants to Mrs. Clinton, of New York, have emerged as particular targets of complaints, given that they conceived and executed a political strategy that has thus far proved unsuccessful.

The firm that includes Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster, and his team collected $3.8 million for fees and expenses in January; in total, including what the campaign still owes, the firm has billed more than $10 million for consulting, direct mail and other services, an amount other Democratic strategists who are not affiliated with either campaign called stunning.

Howard Wolfson, the communications director and a senior member of the advertising team, earned nearly $267,000 in January. His total, including the campaign’s debt to him, tops $730,000.

The advertising firm owned by Mandy Grunwald, the longtime media strategist for both Mrs. Clinton and Bill Clinton, the former president, has collected $2.3 million in fees and expenses, and is still owed another $240,000.

“Fees and payments are in line with industry standards,” Mr. Wolfson said. “Spending priorities have been consistent with overall strategic goals.”

But some Democrats are now asking if the money spent on a campaign that appears to be sputtering — $106 million so far — was worth it.

“It’s easy to be critical, but had she won Iowa, none of this would have mattered. It wouldn’t have mattered what she spent because money would have come pouring in,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political consultant and a veteran of Mr. Clinton’s successful 1996 re-election bid. “But the fact that she did not has made everyone focus on where the dollars went — and where they think the money should’ve gone.”

Mrs. Clinton came into January with a cash advantage over Mr. Obama, with about $19 million available for the primary, compared with about $13 million for him. She wound up spending at roughly the same rate as Mr. Obama, about a million dollars a day, but because she performed dismally compared to him in raising money, she ended the month essentially in the red and was forced to lend her campaign $5 million, while he had $19 million for the coming contests.

Over all, Mrs. Clinton has spent more than $35 million on media, polling and consulting. A comparison with Mr. Obama’s spending is difficult because of the ways the campaigns labeled expenses, but it appears he spent about $40 million in those areas.

In other notable expenditures during the lean month of January, Mrs. Clinton paid $275,000 to Sunrise Communications, a South Carolina firm that was supposed to turn out black voters for her and collected nearly $800,000 in total. She lost that state to Mr. Obama by a wide margin. Even small expenses piled up in January: the campaign spent more than $11,000 on pizza and $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts runs.

Mr. Penn, the chief strategist, said in an interview that, since 2001, he no longer owned any of the political consulting firm of Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates. He said the firm’s fees were capped at $20,000 a month and that the “great bulk” of the payments went for direct mail.

Joe Trippi, who was a senior adviser to John Edwards’s presidential campaign, said he believed that the Clinton team had made two fundamental errors.

First, he argued, Mrs. Clinton built a top-down fund-raising operation that relied on a core group of donors to write checks early on for the maximum amount, $4,600 for the primary and the general election, which left few of them to go back to when money became tight. Mr. Obama, by contrast, focused on building a network of small donors whose continued ability to give has been essential to his success this winter.

And second, Mr. Trippi said, the Clinton campaign spent money as though the race were going to be over after a handful of states had voted and was not prepared for a contest that would stretch for months.

“The problem is she ran a campaign like they were staying at the Ritz-Carlton,” Mr. Trippi said. “Everything was the best. The most expensive draping at events. The biggest charter. It was like, ‘We’re going to show you how presidential we are by making our events look presidential.’ ”

For instance, during the week before the Jan. 19 caucuses in Nevada, the Clinton campaign spent more than $25,000 for rooms at the Bellagio in Las Vegas; nearly $5,000 was spent at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas that week. Some staff members also stayed at Planet Hollywood nearby.

From the start of the campaign, some donors had concerns about the Clinton team’s ability to manage money.

Patti Solis Doyle, Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign manager until she was replaced on Feb. 10, also ran her Senate re-election bid in 2006. That campaign spent about $30 million even though Mrs. Clinton faced only token Democratic and Republican opposition.

“The Senate race spending in 2006 was an omen for a lot of us inside the campaign, but Hillary assured us that her presidential bid would be the best run in history,” said one major Clinton fund-raiser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations within the campaign.

Yet the Clinton campaign at times found itself spending money on items that were not ultimately helpful. As part of their get-out-the-vote effort in Iowa, the campaign came up with a plan to have a local supermarket deliver sandwich platters to pre-caucus parties. It spent more than $95,384 on Jan. 1 at Hy-Vee Inc., a local grocery chain in West Des Moines, Iowa, in addition to buying loads of snow shovels to clear the walks for caucusgoers. Mrs. Clinton came in third in the Jan. 3 caucus. It did not snow.

Mr. Obama’s fund-raising surged after his Iowa victory. In January, he brought in more than $2.50 for every $1 she was given, and from Jan. 5 to Feb. 5, Mr. Obama spent nearly $16 million on political advertisements — more than $4 million more than Mrs. Clinton, according to a survey by the Campaign Media Analysis Group at TNS Media Intelligence. Mr. Obama broadcast 3,000 more advertisements than she did, and he was able to air those ads not only in the states that were immediately up for grabs but also in contests on Feb. 5 and beyond.

For instance, Mr. Obama spent nearly $480,000 on 1,331 spots in Missouri; he won the state’s primary, a closely fought contest and a national political bellwether, by one percentage point.

Mr. Obama’s campaign is not without highly paid consultants. His top media strategist is David Axelrod, whose firm received $175,000 in January and has collected $1.2 million over all. Mr. Obama’s polling is spread between four firms that have received $2.8 million collectively.

“Obviously, some campaigns are more careful and wise with their money than others,” Jim Jordan, a Democratic consultant who ran John Kerry’s presidential campaign until November 2003. “But these budgetary post-mortems tend to follow a familiar pattern; winners are by definition smart, and losers are dumb and wasteful. In truth, campaign budgeting is hard and complicated and three-dimensional and just impossible to understand without the full time-and-place context of the whole race.”

[Thanks, NY Times]

With a sigh of despair I’m ready to give up on ever knowing the true answers that burn in my heart about the CIA torture tapes.  Bickering among members of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee is going to diminish the credibility of any investigation not conducted under the bipartisan rules of the House and committees.

Partisan rancor engulfs CIA tapes probe
By: Patrick O’Connor and Ryan Grim
Jan 23, 2008 10:36 PM EST

Squabbling and dissension have shredded the bipartisan unity that has so far propelled the House investigation into the destruction of interrogation tapes made by the CIA.

House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) and ranking Republican Pete Hoekstra of Michigan are at odds over witness lists, cooperating with the Senate and the very direction of the investigation itself. An agreement on how to structure the investigation fell apart on Wednesday.

“We will not reach a bipartisan agreement on that,” Hoekstra said, adding that the investigation “appears to be moving in a more partisan direction. … I’m disappointed by that.”

The result, Hoekstra said, will be a partisan investigation in which Democrats on the panel no longer have the public support of their GOP colleagues, making it easier for the CIA and the Justice Department to paint the probe as a partisan witch hunt.

[Thanks, Politico]

From Boston.com, more reasons to dislike the current administration and call for impeachment.

Bush won’t yield on Justice choice

January 24, 2008

President Bush renominated Steven G. Bradbury as assistant attorney general yesterday, refusing to yield to Democrats who oppose a permanent job for the official who signed legal memos authorizing harsh interrogations for suspected terrorists. Bradbury has been the acting chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Counsel. Bush wants the Senate to confirm Bradbury as permanent head of the office. Senate Democrats complain that two secret memos from Bradbury in 2005 authorized the CIA to use head slaps, freezing temperatures, and waterboarding – a practice that invokes drowning fears – when questioning terrorism detainees. (AP)

[Thanks, Boston.com]

Attempting to block the adoption of the new FISA wiretap bill which would grant immunity to the telephone companies that illegally tapped American citizens phones, Senator Chris Dodd needs your help.

It’s important that your lawmakers know how you feel about the the president, the vice president and the NSA casually defecating on your rights and the Constitution.

They will only know if you stand up and be counted.  The way to do that is to call your elected officials and ask that they pledge their support to Senator Dodd in this important fight for democracy.

Fred Benenson has setup a list on CommitteeCaller.com to help you call those Senators supporting Dodd’s FISA filibuster. Go to CommiteeCaller.com and click ‘Senators for Senator Dodd’s FISA Filibuster’ under ‘Special Lists’ to be automatically connected to every senator, for free, who is supporting Dodd’s important strategy to prevent the telecoms from getting retroactive immunity."

From BoingBoing:

Call your Senator NOW and support Sen Dodd’s fight to save the Constitution

Posted by Cory Doctorow, January 24, 2008 5:11 AM | permalink

Congress is poised to pass the new FISA wiretapping bill, granting immunity to the companies that helped the President and the NSA shred the Constitution while illegally, warrantlessly wiretapping the nation’s phones and Internet traffic. You can stop it.

Rich sez, "Senator Dodd is waging a magnificent fight against the destruction of the Constitution; but he could use support. The link gives the names and phone numbers of senators who have either (a) stood with him previously (b) expressed support for him or (c) opposed telco amnesty. It includes two candidates for president. We need to make it clear to all of them that this is their chance to ‘uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ Right here, right now."

* Barbara Boxer: (202) 224-3553
* Sherrod Brown: (202) 224-2315
* Russ Feingold: (202) 224-5323
* Ted Kennedy: (202) 224-4543
* Bill Nelson: (202) 224-5274
* Ron Wyden: (202) 224-5244
* Joe Biden: (202) 224-5042
* Hillary Clinton: (202) 224-4451
* John Kerry: (202) 224-2742
* Bob Menendez: (202) 224-2742
* Barack Obama: (202) 224-2854
* Ben Cardin: (202) 224-4524
* Norm Coleman: (202) 224-5641
* Dick Durbin: (202) 224-2152

[Thanks, BoingBoing]

  A brilliant Op/Ed piece from my local Seattle Times:

Democracies don’t torture

By Robert Crawford
Special to The Times

Torture has re-entered the public domain. From Attorney General Robert Mukasey’s equivocation about waterboarding at his confirmation hearings to the current controversy over the CIA’s destruction of interrogation videotapes, adverse publicity may finally force Americans to face the torture issue.

What has taken us so long? And what might still subvert the much-needed confrontation with this nation’s torture policies?

The administration has never admitted to a policy of torture, instead hiding behind secretly authorized "alternative" or "enhanced" interrogation practices. Thus, when Mukasey refused to call waterboarding torture, he was not only protecting his administration sponsors from future prosecution; he was also rejecting the legitimate right of Congress to know whether the administration will obey the law.

"What goes outside the statute," Mukasey asserted, "nonetheless lies within the president’s authority to defend the country."

For several days after 9/11, it was reasonable to suppose that a real "state of emergency" existed in the United States that may have given substance to Mukasey’s comment. Six years later, however, we have a government that, when denials of torture are no longer credible, claims a right to violate national and international laws in the name of the "war on terrorism."

Do we want to endorse the claim that this war, which may "last generations" and has "battlefields everywhere," authorizes the president to do whatever he likes in the name of national security, irrespective of law?

The excesses of a national-security state are not new. During the Cold War, civil-rights and Vietnam War eras, the principles that make for a republic were undermined. In each era, courageous people stood up against unlawful excesses.

What is new, however, is that the administration, seizing on radical arguments for the president’s wartime powers, has adopted what is in effect an ongoing state of emergency that claims a right to go outside the law.

Such an assertion is no small thing. The rule of law is the sine qua non of the revolutionary idea that ushered in the democratic era and has since become the ideal of a democratic republic: The state cannot rule arbitrarily. The people have rights that cannot be violated. A democratic government’s credibility rests upon the extent that it obeys its own laws. In a democracy, the rule of law both limits and legitimizes the government.

An emergency government, however, is not confined by the rule of law. Instead, it seeks a "whatever-it-takes" authorization to protect America from "imminent" terrorist attacks. This rhetorical move is a dangerous escalation toward an authoritarian politics that treats the law as a nuisance or, with the assistance of legal advisers, as a radically reinterpreted set of permissions.

The claim of emergency powers may not be apparent because the government has not suspended the Constitution; and on occasion the courts have ruled against it. Yet, the government has taken a number of steps, mostly in secret, to subvert national and international law concerning torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. It has done the same with detainee policy and warrantless surveillance. These policies and the claims made in their behalf leave most constitutional lawyers astounded.

The practice of torture by the U.S. government, resulting in numerous deaths and the anguish and suffering of many more, has been extensively documented. Several civic organizations, including the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, in which I participate, are crying out, "This is not America! Torture goes against our fundamental moral beliefs." There have been modest attempts in Congress and the courts to limit the practice of torture.

When it comes to the American public, however, the jury is still out. Are Americans so far down the road of mass-manipulated opinion formation that we are no longer able to see through the tricks of language employed by the administration and its lawyers? Will mere repetition of the mantra of necessity continue to seduce us into silence?

Or, will we the citizens finally bring together our American abhorrence of arbitrary and unlimited governmental power with our equally American abhorrence of the dehumanization of human beings that torture presupposes and then inflicts? In 2008, let us hope for a resounding "No" to torture, for democracy and torture cannot coexist.

Robert Crawford is a professor in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

[Thanks, Seattle Times]

I signed up for e-mail updates from Congressman Robert Wexler recently.  Today I received the following e-mail which discusses additional lies coming out of the White House and being force fed to our Congressmen and mass media.  I’ve posted it below.  It’s worth a read if you are one of the three Americans who still believe that Bush and his entire administration aren’t lying, war mongering thieves who are only interested in making a profit of of the lives lost in Iraq.

Dear Robert,

Many thousands of you have asked to learn more about my position on the Iraq war and related funding. As you may know, a few weeks ago I voted again to deny funding without a timetable.

I am bothered by the recent movement to repackage the Surge as a success. Today, I released an editorial (below and also published on the Daily Kos) regarding my view of the Surge’s so-called “success.” If you have a moment, please read it when you get a chance.

Thank you again for your support.

Congressman Robert Wexler

*************************

A Surge of More Lies
by Congressman Robert Wexler

A new troubling myth has taken hold in Washington and it is critical that the record is set straight. According to the mainstream media, Republicans, and unfortunately even some Democrats, the President’s surge in Iraq has been a resounding success. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

This assertion is disingenuous, factually incorrect, and negatively impacts America’s national security. The Surge had a clear and defined objective – to create stability and security – enabling the Iraqi government to enact lasting political solutions and foster genuine reconciliation and cooperation between Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds.

This has not happened.

There has been negligible political progress in Iraq, and we are no closer to solving the complex problems – including a power sharing government, oil revenue agreement and new constitution – than we were before the Administration upped the ante and sent 30,000 more troops to Iraq.

Too many Democrats in Congress are again surrendering to General Petraeus and have failed to challenge the Bush Administration’s claims that the surge has been successful. In fact — it is just the opposite.

The reduction in violence in Iraq has exposed the continuing failure of Iraqi officials to solve their substantial political rifts. By President Bush’s own stated goal of political progress, the Surge has failed.

Of course raising troop levels has increased security – a strategy the Bush administration ignored when presented by General Shinseki before the war in Iraq began – but the fundamental internal Iraqi problems remain and the factors that were accelerating the civil war in 2007 have simply been put on hold.

The military progress is a testament to the patience and dedication of our brave troops – even in the face of 15 month-long deployments followed by insufficient Veteran’s health services when they return home. They have performed brilliantly – despite the insult of having President Bush recently veto a military spending bill that enhanced funding and benefits, and increased care.

Despite the efforts of American soldiers, the surge alone cannot bring about the political solutions needed to end centuries of sectarian divide.

As it stands, little on the ground supports the assertion that Iraqis are ready to stand up and govern themselves. Too few Iraqi troops are trained, equipped and combat ready, and they cannot yet provide adequate security. Loyalty is also an issue in the Iraqi army as Al Queda and Sunni insurgents infliltrate their defense forces. The consequences turned deadly just recently when an Iraqi soldier purposely killed two U.S. troops.

On the streets of Baghdad and Mosul, the Sunni and Shia factions have paused their fighting, awaiting guarantees and protections that have not yet been delivered. As Iraqi refugees return, there is no mechanism to help them rebuild their lives, nor recover their now-occupied homes. Neighborhoods once mixed are now segregated.

In Northern Iraq, Kurdish terrorists conducting nefarious operations across the border into Turkey have compelled our NATO ally to strike at bases, inflaming tensions between Baghdad and Ankara.

The surge is working? We suffered more U.S. casualties in 2007 than in any other year of the war. We can’t afford any more of this type of success.

How can we create the situation that is most likely to deliver political progress in Iraq? Not by continuing the surge and occupation. Our best chance (there is no guarantee) is by putting real pressure on the Iraqi government to force action. Telling the national and local Iraqi leaders that we are withdrawing our troops can help accomplish this goal. Today, the majority Iraqi Shia government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has little incentive to act when American troops remain in the country to provide security and stability.

Based on the Administration’s plan, John McCain’s proposal of a 100-year US occupation could be a reality!

The Democratic Congress must act aggressively to first cut off funding for the surge and then the entire war. Many of my colleagues avoided a showdown with the administration because they mistakenly believed such a fight would endanger the safety of the troops.

In fact, we must accept that every soldier killed or injured in the coming months should have already been home. Every billion dollars of war-appropriations we spend from here on should have been spent on genuine priorities here at home such as children’s heath care.

Enough is enough: While the Administration over-commits American forces in Iraq, we see Al Qaeda-regrouping and Osama Bin Laden still at large. We remain seriously bogged down in Afghanistan, and are witnessing a crisis in Pakistan that has left a nuclear country on the brink of a meltdown. America’s resources and attention are desperately needed elsewhere and our soldiers must no longer be needlessly sacrificed as we wait for Iraqis to stand up.

The Surge has failed. If my colleagues gullibly accept the moving rationale for the Surge, just as so many have for the war itself, we will have failed as well.

***To contact me or for more information, go to www.wexlerforcongress.com .

Paid for by “Wexler for Congress”

PO Box 810669
Boca Raton, FL 33481

To unsubscribe from this mailing list, click here

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I was reminded of this 2000 election campaign promise in a very articulate article by Tom over at OpenEducation.Net.  This compelling piece explains how compounding of all of the lies and other unethical behavior on the part of not only our Commander-in-Chief but all of his political cronies and appointees, has put our teachers the poor position of having to try to justify this behavior while offering valid and timely political discussion.

Please take a few minutes to read Tom’s most excellent article and please, click through to his site and leave some feedback!

No Wonder Our Young People Don’t Vote

I wonder if anyone recalls the original campaign promises. Back when George Bush would raise his right hand as if taking a solemn vow and announce he would restore “honor and integrity” to the White House if elected. Sometimes he would alter the phrase ever so slightly, making it “dignity and honor” or other variations of the same three words.

With today’s Internet, we can easily check on some of the original statements. How about Vice President Dick Cheney, August 2, 2000, offering:

“On the first hour of the first day, he will restore decency and integrity to the Oval Office. They will offer more lectures and legalisms and carefully worded denials. We offer another way, a better way, and a stiff dose of truth.”

Those were followed by the words of President Bush himself dated September 23, 2000.

“Just because our White House has let us down in the past, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen in the future. In a campaign that’s going to restore honor and dignity to the White House……”.

Lack of Ethics 101
By the time 2005 rolled around, those words seemed a distant memory. At that time, the indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice charges had seriously tarnished the view point that Bush might bring a higher level of ethics to the Oval Office. One poll taken at that time indicated that by a 3 to 1 ratio, Americans felt that honesty and integrity had declined under the Bush administration and the president’s 34% rating for ensuring high ethics in government was actually lower than that of Bill Clinton when he left office.

Fast forward to the year 2007 and the vast array of ethical issues that have dominated the headlines. There was Bush nominee Paul Wolfowitz as World Bank President, resigning under the pressure for his ethical lapses including authorizing a $50,000 raise for his girlfriend. Then there was the high profile situation of another Bush appointee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Whether it be the justices relieved of their duties for supposed incompetence or the push at the hospital bed of former attorney general John Ashcroft to sign off on illegal wiretapping, Mr. Gonzales’ oversight of the Justice department was fraught with a frightening lack of integrity.

There was the pardon of Libby, the request for immunity for phone companies that may have broken the law at the bidding of the White House and the latest, the investigation underway into tapes destroyed by the CIA, tapes that apparently showed interrogation techniques that most of the civilized world would express disdain for.

In between there was Matteo Fontana who had to be placed on leave from the Department of Education as leader of the loan office. In that case, Fontana owned more than a $100,000 worth of stock in a student loan company that received financial benefits from federal loans. There were also the convictions of two Bush appointees tied to the behavior of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. J. Steven Griles, deputy interior secretary and former White House aide, David H. Safavian, were both convicted of white collar misconduct.

The Will of the People?
The theory behind our democratic form of government is to elect officials to office so that they will do the will of the American people. These politicians are supposed to put their personal and family interests aside, even their former business connections so as to act in the best interest of the collective whole. Unfortunately what we are witnessing today is a long way from that theory. Conflicts of interest are evident every where one looks and individuals are actually using their elected or appointed position to further their own financial gain. In addition, loyalty to those who stand fast in the face of the scrutiny regarding potential wrongdoing also appears to be rewarded within the current administration. How else could the White House stand behind either Alberto Gonzales or Paul Wolfowitz for as long as they did. And think where the justice department would be at this moment, dealing with the destruction of evidence by the CIA if the department were still somehow under the guidance of Gonzales.

There is of course another critical issue currently at play for the Bush administration. The discussion of competency is one that could perhaps even trump the lack of ethical behavior. Surprisingly, the president actually thinks his tenure in the White House will be judged more favorably by historians down the road.

Given the extreme ethical transgressions, it seems preposterous that there will ever be a time when this presidency will be seen in a favorable light. I am sure that the ethical transgressions that are so troubling to most Americans today will only get darker as the future rolls in.

For teachers, the behavior and decision-making within the current White House makes it very challenging to fairly discuss politics with the next generation of voters. Walking the political line of fairness in a high school social studies class has likely never been more difficult than it is today. That is because the close examination of these ethical transgressions would be seen as nothing more than bashing our president.

However, our democratic process is supposed to lead our great nation in a direction that puts the proper people in the position to further the very ideals our country was founded upon. If we adults are thoroughly confused and shaken by what we are witnessing, imagine how difficult it must be for our children.

[Thanks, OpenEducation.Net]

Let’s see, what kind of workload is Mickey carrying right now?

1. The construction and implementation of Torture-Gate, a cover-up at the highest level of our government of the CIA torture of suspected terrorists. Read about it Here & Here
2. The continued obfuscation of the person or persons who exposed Valerie Plame Wilson as an operative of the CIA. (I believe this is actually a treasonable offense and as such sufferable by death). Read Here.
3. Continue to support the illegal wiretapping program and the proposed amnesty conducted jointly by the NSA and the major telcos. Read Here.

Yep, pretty busy guy.  No wonder he’s looking a little pasty.  Maybe he’s really not up for the kind of physical and mental abuse the much younger Alberto Gonzales was able to thrive on.

Well Mickey, there’s only 398 days left, then you can take a long rest.

During the first two weeks in October out nations lawmakers tried to slip a bill through that would grant immunity from prosecution to the phone companies that collaborated with the NSA in the recent domestic spying.  I posted on it HERE and HERE.

The response from the ordinary citizen was so strong that the bill was not put to a vote at that time.  After substantial re-work, the bill is bound for the Senate floor this Monday.  On Monday, there will be critical, make-or-break votes in the Senate.  But you can help to stop it!

You all need to click on the graphic below and add your voice to the growing number that doesn’t want to let this become a dangerous precedent of acceptable behavior by big business.  They must be held responsible for spying on YOU!

In direct violation of the Presidential Records Act, our President and his staff seem to have misplaced ten million e-mails. The Presidential Records Act is a post-Watergate law which requires the preservation of all presidential documents for the public record.

But apparently Bush and his posse have decided that their words and actions during the time between March 2003 and October 2005 are not suited for the public record. Maybe they think it’s all to boring for us, the common man, or maybe they are trying to hide complicity in felonious actions that they either did, were a party to, or had knowledge of.

Either way, they’ve broken some laws here and it’s time to see exactly what our 81st Attorney General is made of. Mickey, the ball is in your court.

Waxman, Mukasey and Ten Million Missing Emails

Thursday, 6 December 2007, 9:45 am
Column: Matt Renner

A government watchdog group now says at least ten million White House emails, which may contain information about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA status, have been destroyed by the Bush administration.

In a report from April, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) detailed a massive hole in the White House email records. The report, titled “Without a Trace: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act,” accused the Bush administration of destroying “more than 5 million” emails and failing to attempt to recover them.

More after the jump.

[Thanks, Truthout]

Our 81st Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, will likely go down in history as the man who couldn’t recognize that waterboarding is torture. Mukasey is in Saint Louis today expecting to speak at the 2007 Project Safe Childhood National Conference, but what will he bring to the table?

If the man can’t recognize that waterboarding is torture, how can we expect him to be able to recognize various threats to our children? What good is having a man who is a moral and ethical black hole speak at a conference this important?

Mr. Mukasey, you have 411 days left, please try to leave our nation better than you found it, and in this case, just go home and leave the experts to do their job.

AG Mukasey speaking in StL today

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
12/05/2007

U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey comes to St. Louis today for a national conference on sex offenders and child exploitation.

Mukasey’s keynote address for the 2007 Project Safe Childhood National Conference got underway at 8:30 a.m. at the St. Louis Renaissance Grand and Suites Hotel, 800 Washington Avenue.

The conference features experts on the behavior of sex offenders and their victims. Federal and state prosecutors, police and community leaders will attend. Acting Deputy Attorney General Craig Morford is also in town.

Mukasey, a former federal judge in New York, has been on the job as attorney general since Nov. 9.

[Thanks, STLtoday.com]