...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Friday, February 25, 2005
      ( 5:53 PM )
 
WalEvil-Mart

"This is a government of the people, by the people,
and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations,
by corporations, and for corporations."
--Rutherford B. Hayes, US President, 1877-1881.


An insidious pattern has begun to take shape around union efforts in WalMart. No, not the old "oh, Walmart busts unions" - worse. Today 17 workers at the tire and lube department of the Walmart in Loveland, Colorado voted down the formation of a union. Why is this significant? Several reasons.

1. UFCW union supporters had at least half or more committments to vote to form a union, but after the 17-1 vote was cast, workers told union reps that they were just to scared. Walmart had threatened them so badly with retribution that they were simply to afraid to vote to organize and have barganing power. Walmart is known to have one of the best union-busting programs known to man, but they've now gone to new lows.

2. This same vote took place a week ago in Pennsylvania. Walmart claimed that it was the workers who didn't want a "third party" invading their wonderful Walmart family.

3. In Texas, in 2000, the only successful union vote in the US in Walmart, the meat cutters chose to join together to gain collective bargaining power so they could get the pay they were worth, benefits and treatment like human beings. Walmart's response: get rid of the meat cutting position in all its stores across the country. "We weren't planning to keep cutting our own meat anyway!" the behemoth claimed.

4. Three weeks ago, the first successful full-store unionization of a Walmart in North America took place. In Canada. Walmart will now close that store, putting 190 workers out of a job.

On Feb. 9, just hours after the Ministry of Labor announced its approval for the arbitration request, Wal-Mart Canada declared the store was unprofitable and planned to close it this spring.

“This latest action by Wal-Mart demonstrates, once again, the company’s systematic abuse of working families,” said UFCW President Joseph Hansen. “This is a company that prefers to spend millions and millions to dress up its image on TV, rather than treat workers with respect.”


In fact, Walmart is costing us taxpayers even more that most realize. The current issue of Dollars and Sense has statistics recently collected that show that billions of public service money (health care, food stamps, housing subsidies, etc.) go to Walmart employees. Because of Walmart's horrible treatment of its workers, we taxpayers are picking up the bill. That is in addition to the tax breaks Walmart negotiates for the property it takes over, the loss of local jobs, and the increased burden on American suppliers to Walmart so they can compete with China and Taiwan to supply Walmart and its "low, low prices" - which in turn put their workers at jeopardy.

Basically, Walmart is a one-store wrecking ball of the American economy and worker welfare. Why is it so hard to organize workers? In the current climate, there is not the public support anymore for workers - most of the industry and service workers who need unions are now in a minority of the population compared to other professionals who do not unionize and cannot sympathize with their right to collectively bargain in order to make a living wage and have benefits - things most of those professionals have without having to beg for them.

It's not just Walmart. My own husband was fired for union organizing. Unions across the country are being decimated. Just recently the governors of Indiana and Missouri have rescinded measures that extended state employees collective bargaining power. Of course the Bush administration has no qualms discussing the evils of unions - even trying to prevent new Homeland Security Department employees from being able to join the federal workers union. Teachers' unions have long been villianized - even called "terrorists" by Bush's last Secretary of Education, Ron Paige. If the two teachers' unions could simply act like unions and take collective action on behalf of their members and non-member teachers against even one issue like high-stakes testing, the system that is beating down our children would crumble.

When will the country once again embrace the professional's right to organize? Well, considering what it took the last time unions were publicly supported and joined in massive numbers, we may not be far from total meltdown. Of course then organizers were Communists and the Palmer Raids represented the government's position on the whole issue. Now, I'm sure union organizers will be terrorists and it won't be long until the government uses that excuse to continue to hurt workers.

How interesting that other western, capitalist countries' governments actually support unions or bargain with unions as part of the normal dynamic of commerce. But of course, once again, we sing loudly of our progressive freedom and then turn back to engage in draconian oppression of our own citizens, the very people who keep this country going. This way of operating can't continue indefinitely without something happening. I hope that something is good - and means more dignity for workers. It's about time.

p.s. Oh, by the way. Walmart is actually allowing union organizing in some of its new stores. In China.

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      ( 4:49 PM )
 
WalEvil-Mart

"This is a government of the people, by the people,
and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations,
by corporations, and for corporations."
--Rutherford B. Hayes, US President, 1877-1881.


An insidious pattern has begun to take shape around union efforts in WalMart. No, not the old "oh, Walmart busts unions" - worse. Today 17 workers at the tire and lube department of the Walmart in Loveland, Colorado voted down the formation of a union. Why is this significant? Several reasons.

1. UFCW union supporters had at least half or more committments to vote to form a union, but after the 17-1 vote was cast, workers told union reps that they were just to scared. Walmart had threatened them so badly with retribution that they were simply to afraid to vote to organize and have barganing power. Walmart is known to have one of the best union-busting programs known to man, but they've now gone to new lows.

2. This same vote took place a week ago in Pennsylvania. Walmart claimed that it was the workers who didn't want a "third party" invading their wonderful Walmart family.

3. In Texas, in 2000, the only successful union vote in the US in Walmart, the meat cutters chose to join together to gain collective bargaining power so they could get the pay they were worth, benefits and treatment like human beings. Walmart's response: get rid of the meat cutting position in all its stores across the country. "We weren't planning to keep cutting our own meat anyway!" the behemoth claimed.

4. Three weeks ago, the first successful full-store unionization of a Walmart in North America took place. In Canada. Walmart will now close that store, putting 190 workers out of a job.

On Feb. 9, just hours after the Ministry of Labor announced its approval for the arbitration request, Wal-Mart Canada declared the store was unprofitable and planned to close it this spring.

“This latest action by Wal-Mart demonstrates, once again, the company’s systematic abuse of working families,” said UFCW President Joseph Hansen. “This is a company that prefers to spend millions and millions to dress up its image on TV, rather than treat workers with respect.”


In fact, Walmart is costing us taxpayers even more that most realize. The current issue of Dollars and Sense has statistics recently collected that show that billions of public service money (health care, food stamps, housing subsidies, etc.) go to Walmart employees. Because of Walmart's horrible treatment of its workers, we taxpayers are picking up the bill. That is in addition to the tax breaks Walmart negotiates for the property it takes over, the loss of local jobs, and the increased burden on American suppliers to Walmart so they can compete with China and Taiwan to supply Walmart and its "low, low prices" - which in turn put their workers at jeopardy.

Basically, Walmart is a one-store wrecking ball of the American economy and worker welfare. Why is it so hard to organize workers? In the current climate, there is not the public support anymore for workers - most of the industry and service workers who need unions are now in a minority of the population compared to other professionals who do not unionize and cannot sympathize with their right to collectively bargain in order to make a living wage and have benefits - things most of those professionals have without having to beg for them.

It's not just Walmart. My own husband was fired for union organizing. Unions across the country are being decimated. Just recently the governors of Indiana and Missouri have rescinded measures that extended state employees collective bargaining power. Of course the Bush administration has no qualms discussing the evils of unions - even trying to prevent new Homeland Security Department employees from being able to join the federal workers union. Teachers' unions have long been villianized - even called "terrorists" by Bush's last Secretary of Education, Ron Paige. If the two teachers' unions could simply act like unions and take collective action on behalf of their members and non-member teachers against even one issue like high-stakes testing, the system that is beating down our children would crumble.

When will the country once again embrace the professional's right to organize? Well, considering what it took the last time unions were publicly supported and joined in massive numbers, we may not be far from total meltdown. Of course then organizers were Communists and the Palmer Raids represented the government's position on the whole issue. Now, I'm sure union organizers will be terrorists and it won't be long until the government uses that excuse to continue to hurt workers.

How interesting that other western, capitalist countries' governments actually support unions or bargain with unions as part of the normal dynamic of commerce. But of course, once again, we sing loudly of our progressive freedom and then turn back to engage in draconian oppression of our own citizens, the very people who keep this country going. This way of operating can't continue indefinitely without something happening. I hope that something is good - and means more dignity for workers. It's about time.

p.s. Oh, by the way. Walmart is actually allowing union organizing in some of its new stores. In China.

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Monday, February 21, 2005
      ( 9:14 AM )
 
R.I.P.

The great, fearless, brilliant Hunter S. Thompson died by his own hand this weekend. His life was so...large. Talk about quality over quantity. I was a child when he was in his heyday, but reading Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail just last year, it was obvious he was way ahead of his time - or at least he was far more in touch with truth than the rest of the country. His keen ability to point out the absurd in our political system, I thought, was one of his greatest gifts: "In a country ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile."

Rest in Peace, HST. I close with his own words, though he is endlessly quotable, I like this one as eulogy:

"Call on God, but row away from the rocks. "


For more and better, check out Digby today.


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Saturday, February 19, 2005
      ( 7:49 AM )
 
Rumble in Little Beruit

Okay, first the viewing schedule. The airing of the debate between Howard Dean and Richard Perle is scheduled to air on CSPAN at 8:00pm EST tonight (SATURDAY, Feb 19, 2005). I recommend you view it - it is actually a relief to watch an actual political debate without stupid cable news pundits in the middle of it. The debate is part of an annual series that Pacific University puts on out here in Portland. The last one I went to was two years ago: Ralph Nader v. Newt Gingrich. The Dean/Perle debate was just a really enjoyable experience. I think part of the reason was that the questions were pretty well constructed. It was too short, I felt they didn't get into all they could have, but there was definitely the ability to hear both viewpoints (one, of course being grounded in reality, and one firmly floating in la-la-land). I'm hoping to find a transcript of it, but I'll definitely be taping it off CSPAN.

I don't think Portland suffered any worse a reputation than it already has with the establishment with the whole shoe-throwing thing. I'll get that out of the way before I get into the meat of the debate. Dean gave his opening remarks first and then Richard Perle got up to his podium. About 5 minutes into his talking, a guy in the audience ran down to the front by the stage and just started yelling "you F-ing liar! You liar!" and then threw his shoe at Perle. It glanced right past him. The kid got another shoe off before the ushers tackled him. For another couple of minutes you could hear him screaming "Liar! Liar!" Fortunately for Perle, most lefties don't grow up being very accomplished sportsmen, and so the kid had no aim. There were a few other disruptions from the crowd through the debate when Perle said something particularly kooky - someone would yell from the audience when their frustration could no longer contain itself. I don't know how much of the wacky bits will make it onto CSPAN. Of course, most of the audience were there for Howard Dean - you have to hand it to Perle, who basically had to come to a den of lions to do this debate. He (probably not surprisingly) reminded me of Kissinger - that sort of firm conviction in his bizarre view of the world, explaining it calmly as if we were kindergardners and attempting to appear okay with having to mingle amongst the lowly serfdom of humanity.

Perle started off by saying (shocker:) "Everything changed after 9/11". He went on to say that Bush's most significant foreign policy decision had been to say that we would equate states that harbored terrorists with the terrorists themselves and treat them the same. He likened the doctrine of pre-emption to having a health insurance policy - saying that just because you don't end up having a catastrophic sickness during the year doesn't mean you shouldn't have paid your insurance (translation: just because Iraq was no threat at all doesn't mean we shouldn't have invaded). His main accustion of Democrats, which he said over and over, was that they didn't spend enough on Defense. He repeated again and again that strong defense policy means spending money on the Pentagon. He said so many wacko things, like that we should not talk with North Korea and instead pressure China to do the work.

Dean started off by saying that Democrats have a much clearer foreign policy framework than the Bush administration because they are focused not only on the broader picture of diplomacy but also have a longer view of the future, thinking not just about today and tomorrow, but years ahead. He said that strong defense wasn't just pouring money into the Pentagon. He also said that while it was very important to defend ourselves and to strike hard against terrorists and those who would harm us, that this can't be our only foreign policy. He talked about how we must pay attention to the support base for terrorism that grows out of poverty and oppression and we must consider that there are reasons why the US's moral standing in the world has slipped the last few years. He also talked about the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush administration, spending billions on these stupid missle interceptor tests when veterans' benefits were being cut and our intelligence capability around the world was suffering. Not to mention our diplomatic standing everywhere.

Perle asked Dean about how discussion of foreign policy issues could be more bipartisan when it appeared things in this country had split into such opposing political camps. Dean replied that the Democrats in Congress WANTED to participate in foreign policy and that in fact there were a lot of people from whom the President could have sought advice on Iraq or other foreign issues, but he never did or does. It in fact is Bush and his administration that has so politically divided things by not allowing any other voices to participate in policy making. Perle's response to that was (get this): whatever Bush might have heard from Democrats he most likely heard from Colin Powell. Colin Powell. Perle was basically saying that the President didn't need to listen to democrats and that Colin Powell was close enough to an alternative viewpoint. It was crazy. Perle started off by accusing dems of being the ones who were politically divisive and ended up defending Bush's political divisiveness by basically shutting out Democratic voices and dissing Powell publicly as not being a Republican. You can imagine how the audience groaned at that one.

Perle focused mainly on Iraq and that using force and pre-emptive power was the only way to work foreign policy. He used the analogy of Israel bombing the nuclear plant in Iraq before the nuclear material was present so as to save as many lives as possible with attacking Iraq before it could use a weapon against its neighbors or us. He said, wouldn't we attack a country who was about to launch a missle at us? Well, imagine if that missle was still in the silo - it still presents a threat. Imagine that missle was still being built in the factory. Imagine that missle was on plans in the hands of a despotic ruler.

The whole time I'm thinking, imagine the missile is only in your imagination and we just bomb and attack Iraq killing hundreds of thousands of people because you have a vivid imagination? It was very frustrating to hear him speak and even lie about things, but it was also refreshing to hear a counter argument well spoken in response. Dean said that there were so many other foreign policy threats and issues we needed to deal with and that Iraq was the "low hanging fruit" that Bush grabbed at and led us into a situation now where we're completely overstretched and stuck now.

I really encourage you to try and catch the debate on CSPAN. I wish debates like this could take place all over the country. If people actually had the opportunity to witness arguments from each side like this without tv interfering, I think the level of informed voters and citizens would jump into the stratosphere. I'm really glad I got to go. Especially to see someone throw a shoe at Richard Perle, because that's how I feel often when I'm hearing that crap spew out of Bushies. I only hope some of what Dean said makes it into the mainstream, though I doubt it. It was a cogent analysis and great explanation of a complete foreign policy - tv pundits don't want to hear stuff like that, so they don't let anyone else hear it.

Real debate is healthy for democracy, we should have more of it.

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Friday, February 18, 2005
      ( 4:26 PM )
 
So Much to Say, So Little Time!!

So much to talk about - this week turned into one of those monsters. I definitely have a mouthful about Negroponte, and I got to see Howard Dean give the smack down to Richard Perle last night, so I'm anxious to report about that (and give my first-person play back of the shoe throwing incident). I'm trying to finish up some schoolwork, so I'll get to these posts as soon as I can, maybe as an early morning Saturday treat to myself (before the rest of my family gets up and before I start feeling guilty about not getting everything else done that I need to). Back to the Blog soon!!

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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
      ( 6:52 AM )
 
Stand Up; Insert Backbone.

There's a lot of hee-heeing and snickering going on in Republican ranks over the election of Howard Dean to be chair of the DNC. But that nervous laughter and mockery is the same behavior a bully uses when he's scared of something and doesn't want to admit it. They try to find ways to demean Himself and the party, while the whole time realizing that this could very well be the beginning of the end of the Rightwing juggernaut on government - local, state and national. Krugman says it perfectly and clearly: this isn't about the Democratic party moving left (or right, for that matter), it's about it becoming an actual and effective opposition party - the role it should have been playing for 5 years now.

"The Republicans know the America they want, and they are not afraid to use any means to get there," Howard Dean said in accepting the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. "But there is something that this administration and the Republican Party are very afraid of. It is that we may actually begin fighting for what we believe."

Those words tell us what the selection of Mr. Dean means. It doesn't represent a turn to the left: Mr. Dean is squarely in the center of his party on issues like health care and national defense. Instead, Mr. Dean's political rejuvenation reflects the new ascendancy within the party of fighting moderates, the Democrats who believe that they must defend their principles aggressively against the right-wing radicals who have taken over Congress and the White House.

It was always absurd to call Mr. Dean a left-winger. Just ask the real left-wingers. During his presidential campaign, an article in the muckraking newsletter CounterPunch denounced him as a "Clintonesque Republicrat," someone who, as governor, tried "to balance the budget, even though Vermont is a state in which a balanced budget is not required."

Even on Iraq, many moderates, including moderate Republicans, quietly shared Mr. Dean's misgivings - which have been fully vindicated - about the march to war.

But Mr. Dean, of course, wasn't quiet. He frankly questioned the Bush administration's motives and honesty at a time when most Democrats believed that the prudent thing was to play along with the war party.

[...]

For a while, Mr. Dean will be the public face of the Democrats, and the Republicans will try to portray him as the leftist he isn't. But Deanism isn't about turning to the left: it's about making a stand.

Some of my longtime readers will recall when I made the committment almost 2 years ago to support and work for the Dean candidacy - as a progressive, I was actually compromising on several things by supporting Dean because he wasn't as left as I would have liked. Most progressives came to his camp via this sort of compromise: we weren't sure we liked some of his more moderate stands (the whole trade thing being the biggest issue for me) and yet, he was the only one out there willing to take a stand on anything. I'm so proud about the time I put in to work for Dean's candidacy, that I got to meet him face to face and confirm my belief that he really is the real deal, and that he is about this country, not about himself. There is a reason why Dean became DNC chairman despite the protest of the big party leaders and powerbrokers: the people had a taste of popular power with Dean and they wanted that back in the Party of the People. It's the grassroots that made Dean chair, and that's the power that will make his leadership the most effective and transformative the party has seen in decades.

THIS is what the Democratic party needs - not a right/left shift, but a stand-up-tall shift. Already, the evidence is mounting that it's a winning strategy for Dems. Standing firm and standing together, Congressional Dems are discovering that even in the minority, they are finally weilding some power simply by standing firm together against the obvious thievery of the Bush Social Security "plan" and other Bush ideas that seek only to profit the rich of this country. The Democratic party DOES stand for something - many things, actually - and it's about time people started hearing what those things are, because at the bottom of it all, the Dems are the ones who stand for the citizens of this country.

And Dean, the great Himself, is the best vessel to pour out the Democratic truth to the country, dousing this nation in hope and realization that things can change for the better. The Rightwing is not laughing at Dean because they think he's a joke, they're laughing to cover their abject terror about what he really is: the frontal wave of a new opposition onslaught that won't rest until the country is taken back from the greedy grip of neocon irrationalism and corporate cronyism (something the power dems are also guilty of) and returned to the hands of the people.

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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
      ( 8:06 AM )
 
Shocker

Couldn't see this coming, could they? (Not that they ever see anything coming).

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      ( 7:37 AM )
 
Perspective

If you're interested in this whole JeffJim GannonGuckert unraveling story, Digby had some great perspective on it yesterday.

So many questions so few answers. Just why did JimJeff get such special treatment? It's not like they didn't already have a bunch of ready made shills to ask softball questions. Les Kinsolving's been throwing partisan bombs for years. They certainly didn't need JimJeff to transcribe RNC talking points when they have the Beltway Boys to do it on national television.

Scotty said that the president called on JimJeff of his own volition. A coincidence? Or did someone request that JimJeff get a special treat that day?

And has it ever been logical that this nobody from a vanity web site would get access to the Plame story? Why him? JimJeff claims that he never actually saw the Plame memo, yet he clearly knew of it. Could it have been pillow talk?

I don't have a clue. But, I do know that if this were 1998, we'd be knee deep in congressional investigations into the gay hooker ring in the White House. Every news crew in the DC area would be camped out on JimJeff's front lawn. A wild-eyed Victoria Toensing and panting Kelly Ann Fitzpatrick would be crawling up on the Hardball desk rending their silk teddies and speaking in tongues while Matthews'exploding head spun around on his shoulders.

But, it isn't 1998 and it will probably not even be mentioned. And I'm not a Republican so I don't think, as they would, that it's necessary to dig into every single White House staffer's sex life to find out who leaked a confidential memo to a gay hooker.

As a Democrat, however, if gay hookers are running around the White House I do find it somewhat frustrating that we have to put up with this shock and horror bullshit from the right wing about average Joe and Jane gay person wanting to get married and have a family. Please.

The hypocrisy of this administration has simply become criminal.

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      ( 7:25 AM )
 
Torture

If you don't regularly read Jeanne D'Arc over at Body and Soul, you're simply crazy. But yesterday she said a good amount of what I have been thinking lately, but wasn't able to put it into words as well. The fact is, our country's leaders are condoning the torture of human beings. Except for a small percentage of really twisted people, the general opinion is that torture is unacceptable form of "diplomatic relations" conducted by this country. There was some debate over Gonzales, sure. But he still got confirmed without a ripple. I agree with Jeanne - this has got to be a more serious issue for us. We can't just keep complaining, we've got to be much more on the offensive about it. We can't allow our country to continue to go down a path that will destroy it - are we really patriots if we don't stop things like this? One way to do that is to find ways to cross this political/ideological divide that has entrenched itself in our country since Bush has been president.

Second, we live in a partisan world, in which the majority of people are firmly committed to one team or the other, and simply won't hear what comes from the other team. I objected yesterday to Sullivan saying that both sides share equal blame for the ways partisanship has interfered with people's ability to comprehend this scandal. That's nonsense. But it is nonetheless true that Sullivan -- and other conservatives -- can communicate with people who will dismiss anything people like me say before we even say it. Can they convince a significant number of people? Color me doubtful. But I think they can change the nature of the debate, so that it's no longer so easy to throw out the myth of a few bad apples at one chaotic, female-run prison. And once you damage that myth, the torturers and their supporters are on the defensive. They have to justify the unjustifiable.

I want them on the defensive.

It's time that people see past the few sexual-innuendo photos from Abu Ghraib and move beyond the "few bad apples" excuse. If it takes one of theirs (Sullivan) to get the point across, then so much the better. It is unconscionable that the leadership of this country is not on the defensive about this horrific scandal, and that its talking heads and spokespeople are not on the run from every decent human being who is a citizen of this nation.

Torture, people. Have we really thought about what that means?

UPDATE: I'm bringing these links out of the comments in case some don't read them. There appears to be an ongoing complaint that there is no PROOF of the systemic torture and that we are just complaining and pointing fingers with no evidence. This is a ridiculous argument and merely hides the laziness and denial of those who do not wish to actually take part as citizens of this country in making this country stand for what it should (ie: not torture).

Andrew Sullivan (yes, the conservative) had an article in the Times a month ago pointing out that the photos released to the general public have been mere distractions from the true scandal of this horrific practice by our country's representatives. Of course the International Red Cross's investigation last year has been proven again and again to be correct, including by being backed up by official US documents. Already, we are seeing more investigations start into the wide practice of torture and mistreatment of prisoners, and new evidence is still emerging about the inhumane behavior of interrogators towards prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq. Whether you care about the world's opinion of us or not, your misled belief that America can remain a moral and forceful leader in this world with this kind of evidence mounting will find you putting your false faith in a national leadership that is NOT looking out for your good as a citizen and your putting your energy NOT into being a contributing citizen of this country. Your denial only speaks to your refusal to see truth that is plainly available and evident.

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      ( 7:11 AM )
 
The W Pill

It definitely would be a big seller. I was suspicious that someone who can continue to get such good sleep while seeming to believe during his waking hours that the robbing of old people and the killing of brown people is all about FREEDOM must be on some kind of really, really good drug.

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Friday, February 11, 2005
      ( 11:09 AM )
 
Friday Vocab Word

I decided to go with one of my favorite words today. Maybe it's the gorgeous, sunny day we're having here in lovely Portland, maybe it's that today is Friday, maybe it's that I've got my lessons planned out for next week already...whatever it may be, I'm feeling....


Effulgent


glowing, luminous, beaming, blazing, bright, brilliant, dazzling, incandescent, lustrous, radiant, resplendent, shining, splendid, vivid.


Now isn't that one of the best words you've ever heard? Use it in a sentence today! "I'm so incredibly effulgent, someone MUST want to give me a teaching job!"

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Thursday, February 10, 2005
      ( 3:07 PM )
 
The Harsh Truth

I wonder if there are any Bush voters out there who are finally starting to question the stuff they've been spoonfed the last four years. Are there any who are questioning anything? Now we have the 9/11 Report that WASN'T released before the election...why? Because it revealed, among other things, that the federal government received 52 warnings before the September 11 attacks.

The F.A.A. did not see a need to increase the air marshal ranks because hijackings were seen as an overseas threat, and one aviation official told the commission said that airlines did not want to give up revenues by providing free seats to marshals.

I'm just wondering why we so easily accepted the confirmation as Secretary of State a woman who obviously lied to Congress last year when she testified that the August PDB was a "historical document." She lied to Congress. Do you Bush voters even care? What is this country's limit for digesting so many lies? We obviously haven't reached it yet.

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      ( 2:59 PM )
 
Ha!

Atrios notes that the new Google Map search engine is cool... but eerily accurate...

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Wednesday, February 09, 2005
      ( 1:48 PM )
 
Above the Law

This administration will stop at no underhanded attempt to gain as much power as possible. Now we find out that the Bushies want their new Homeland Security Secretary and any contractors to be above all laws.

Among other provisions, the bill put forth by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner would give the Homeland Security Secretary “the authority to waive… all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary’s sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.”

The bill also seeks to strip courts from being able to challenge any of the Secretary’s decisions.

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law… no court shall have jurisdiction,” the Republican bill asserts.

The immigration bill would allow Homeland Security to construct barriers along American borders and inside the United States. It would also give the Secretary the authority to ignore labor and environmental laws, as well as refuse compensation for property seized in the construction of such barriers.

The bill also denies immigrants habeas corpus rights and makes it harder for immigrants to achieve asylum. Senior aides in the House expect the bill to pass without significant amendments Thursday.

Democrats find these provisions troubling.

Troubling? Troubling? If the Dems don't get out in front of proposals like this and make a big, stinking deal about it, then they're not doing their jobs. This is disgusting, and I have no doubts that there are many more Republican bills like it up for consideration. Will they stop at nothing? The oligarchy continues its coup. Troubling.

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Monday, February 07, 2005
      ( 8:30 AM )
 
Blog Reminder

Just a reminder that if you're looking for any info on education news, be sure to make regular checks on An Old Soul - she's got all the edu-scoops.

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      ( 8:17 AM )
 
What the Rest of the World Saw

...on Inauguration Day. Sister Joan is typically and always worth reading, but this article is stunning in its examination of the very issues we are constantly wrestling with.

Dublin, on U.S. Inauguration Day, didn't seem to notice. Oh, they played a few clips that night of the American president saying, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands."

But that was not their lead story.

The picture on the front page of The Irish Times was a large four-color picture of a small Iraqi girl. Her little body was a coil of steel. She sat knees up, cowering, screaming madly into the dark night. Her white clothes and spread hands and small tight face were blood-spattered. The blood was the blood of her father and mother, shot through the car window in Tal Afar by American soldiers while she sat beside her parents in the car, her four brothers and sisters in the back seat.

The pictures swept across Europe the morning that Bush was being sworn in a second time. But what Sister Joan asks is what we all need to really be asking ourselves:

In Iraq, for every dead U.S. soldier, there are 14 other deaths, 93 percent of them are civilian. But those things happen in war, the story says. It's all for a greater good, we have to remember. It's all to free them. It's all being done to spread "liberty."

From where I stand, the only question now is who or what will free us from the 21st century's new definition of bravery. Who will free us from the notion that killing children or their civilian parents takes courage?

If we're not wrestling still with what our leaders are doing in our name, then we have lost our sense of moral direction. We must continue to question and continue to challenge this slippage of a moral compass in our country.

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      ( 7:55 AM )
 
The Mattress Plan Looks Better and Better

If you're feeling lost about the whole Social Security issue, Atrios will keep you on track and informed about the real issues. Kos also notes that on Sunday, VP Cheney actually admitted that their whole claim about the "crisis" is a red herring:

"We're going to borrow $758 [b]illion over the next 10 years to set up the personal retirement accounts. We think that's a manageable amount ... Trillions more after that," Cheney said, acknowledging that the personal accounts will help younger workers but will not solve all the problems of solvency.

They've all but admitted they are just out to rob the country's coffers while they can. Is anybody listening?



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      ( 7:54 AM )
 
Whew

Now THAT was a bad flu. I think I'm back up in working order now...

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Tuesday, February 01, 2005
      ( 10:02 AM )
 
Ick

The flu has made a direct hit on my household. We're all huddling on the couch sniffling and aching. Hopefully it will pass quickly - and hopefully it's like chicken pox, once we've had it, we won't get it again. Here's to wishful thinking...

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