Saturday, November 15, 2003
And if there's money left over, the needy kids can have some of it
House Majority leader Tom DeLay has set up a children's charity, but the money's not just for the kids:
But aides to Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader from Texas, acknowledged that part of the money would go to pay for late-night convention parties, a luxury suite during President Bush's speech at Madison Square Garden and yacht cruises.
And so campaign finance watchdogs say Mr. DeLay's effort can be seen as, above all, a creative maneuver around the recently enacted law meant to limit the ability of federal officials to raise large donations known as soft money.
Mr. DeLay's charity, Celebrations for Children Inc., was set up in September and has no track record of work. Mr. DeLay is not a formal official of the charity, but its managers are Mr. DeLay's daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro; Craig Richardson, a longtime adviser; and Rob Jennings, a Republican fund-raiser. Mr. Richardson said the managers would be paid by the new charity.
Mr. Richardson said the goal was to give 75 percent of the money it raised to children's charities, including some in the New York area. He said the charity also planned to hold other events at the Super Bowl.
But because the money collected will go into a nonprofit organization, donors get a tax break. And Mr. DeLay will never have to account publicly for who contributed, which campaign finance experts say shields those who may be trying to win favor with one of the most powerful lawmakers in Washington.
Here's a nickel, go buy yerself something nice. Noted by Bob Harris.
posted by chris at 4:23 PM
------------------
Friday, November 14, 2003
Talkie, talkie, talkie . . .
The White House said Friday that U.S. troops would remain in Iraq until Saddam Hussein is killed or captured.
But the administration would not publicly discuss any legal or political arrangements that might be necessary if the former Iraqi president is still at large when the U.S.-led coalition turns over power to a new Iraqi government.
-clip-
In an interview with London's Financial Times, President Bush said the United States would maintain a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan "until the job is done," and he answered yes when asked if that definition included accounting for Osama bin Laden and Saddam.
All of a sudden, he remembers their names.
posted by chris at 11:46 PM
History Lessons from Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal has a new book out called Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson. The LA Weekly interviewed him recently and he made some interesting correlations between our past and our present.
Franklin understood the American people better than the other three. Washington and Jefferson were nobles — slaveholders and plantation owners. Alexander Hamilton married into a rich and powerful family and joined the upper classes. Benjamin Franklin was pure middle class. In fact, he may have invented it for Americans. Franklin saw danger everywhere. They all did. Not one of them liked the Constitution. James Madison, known as the father of it, was full of complaints about the power of the presidency. But they were in a hurry to get the country going. Hence the great speech, which I quote at length in the book, that Franklin, old and dying, had someone read for him. He said, I am in favor of this Constitution, as flawed as it is, because we need good government and we need it fast. And this, properly enacted, will give us, for a space of years, such government.
But then, Franklin said, it will fail, as all such constitutions have in the past, because of the essential corruption of the people. He pointed his finger at all the American people. And when the people become so corrupt, he said, we will find it is not a republic that they want but rather despotism — the only form of government suitable for such a people.
-clip-
Jefferson said that once a generation we must have another Constitutional Convention and revise all that isn’t working. Like taking a car in to get the carburetor checked. He said you cannot expect a man to wear a boy’s jacket. It must be revised, because the Earth belongs to the living. He was the first that I know who ever said that. And to each generation is the right to change every law they wish. Or even the form of government. You know, bring in the Dalai Lama if you want! Jefferson didn’t care.
Jefferson was the only pure democrat among the founders, and he thought the only way his idea of democracy could be achieved would be to give the people a chance to change the laws. Madison was very eloquent in his answer to Jefferson. He said you cannot [have] any government of any weight if you think it is only going to last a year.
This was the quarrel between Madison and Jefferson. And it would probably still be going on if there were at least one statesman around who said we have to start changing this damn thing.
There's muchmore.
posted by chris at 5:23 PM
------------------
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Limited access
The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks reached an agreement with the White House yesterday to gain restricted access to years of classified presidential briefings, which had been the focus of subpoena threats from the panel's chairman.
The compromise will allow the 10-member commission to create a four-person subcommittee that will have varying degrees of access to the documents known as Presidential Daily Briefs from the Bush and Clinton administrations, according to a commission statement and sources familiar with the agreement.
But the accord also includes restrictions limiting what parts of the briefings can be seen and what parts can later be shared with the rest of the bipartisan panel, and it includes White House review of much of that information, sources familiar with the agreement said. Those with direct access will take notes, and those notes are subject to review by the White House before being shared with others, sources said.
What's the friggin' point?
posted by chris at 9:20 PM
What to watch for
Faced with growing public uneasiness over Iraq, Republican Party officials intend to change the terms of the political debate heading into next year's election by focusing on the "doctrine of preemption," portraying President Bush as a visionary acting to prevent future terrorist attacks on US soil despite the costs and casualties involved overseas.
The strategy will involve the dismissal of Democrats as the party of "protests, pessimism and political hate speech," Ed Gillespie, Republican National Committee chairman, wrote in a recent memo to party officials -- a move designed to shift attention toward Bush's broader foreign policy objectives rather than the accounts of bloodshed. Republicans hope to convince voters that Democrats are too indecisive and faint-hearted -- and perhaps unpatriotic -- to protect US interests, arguing that inaction during the Clinton years led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Truth is different than strategy.
posted by chris at 7:55 PM
------------------
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Corporations are watching
US multinational companies are "acutely worried" about the business consequences of Bush administration foreign policy, according to a new report from Control Risks, a UK-based international security consultancy.
"The consequences of Bush's foreign policy have created new risks - and exacerbated existing risks - for US companies around the world," the report says. The company's RiskMap 2004 report describes US foreign policy as "the most important single factor driving the development of global risk".
It says many in the private sector "believe that US unilateralism is creating a security paradox: by using US power unilaterally and aggressively in pursuit of global stability, the Bush administration is in fact creating precisely the opposite effect."
While many liberals have been talking about the dangers of the Bush's foreign policy for months, the most telling thing about this article is that it was featured in the Financial Times. This is the paper that is read by people who are serious about where they invest their money. While they may defend Bush on many accounts, if he starts making it difficult for them to make safe investments, it's time for him to go. Money trumps politics any day of the week.
posted by chris at 8:53 PM
Look! He does support veterans!
This was how President Bush celebrated Veterans Day, according to the official White House website:
Today, President Bush commemorated Veterans Day with a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the veterans of our Nation’s Armed Forces. . . .
Today, the President also signed into law two bills to support our veterans and their families. . .
. . . H.R. 1516, the National Cemetery Expansion Act of 2003 establishes, within four years, six new national cemeteries in southeastern Pennsylvania; Birmingham, Alabama; Jacksonville, Florida; Bakersfield, California; Greenville/Columbia, South Carolina; and, Sarasota, Florida.
New cemeteries! Just for you!
Thanks Jon, for pointing that out.
posted by chris at 8:42 PM
------------------
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Draft notice deleted
I highlighted a story last week about the administration quietly making moves to possibly reinstate the draft. This story was picked up by enough media outlets and web folk that it seems to have ruffled a few feathers. Now, it looks like the Dept. of Defense has taken down their notice for people to join local draft boards. Interesting.
posted by chris at 4:58 PM
Supporting the veterans
The Bush administration has blocked compensation for US soldiers captured and tortured during the first Gulf war, arguing that the money was now needed for Iraq's reconstruction, veterans' lawyers said yesterday.
Seventeen former prisoners of war were awarded nearly $1bn (£600m) in compensatory and punitive damages by a US federal court in July.
The awards were supposed to have been paid out of $1.7bn in seized Iraqi assets, but the administration stepped in to prevent them receiving the money on the grounds that it had been confiscated from the Iraqi government in March and was therefore the property of the US government.
Story. And White House spokesman Scott McClellan clears up any misunderstandings.
posted by chris at 4:45 PM
------------------
Monday, November 10, 2003
The Meatrix
Just in time for Thanksgiving, The Eat Well Guide has arrived at a computer near you. It allows you to search for restaurants, grocery stores, and producers which sell turkeys that are hormone-free, organic, free-range, or antibiotic-free. (Eventually, they'll also cover meat, eggs, and dairy.) Just type in your zip code and click on the appropriate production method and the Eat Well Guide does the rest! Well, you still have to go buy the bird and cook it and eat it and all that, but it does tell you where you can find it.
For those who prefer a meat-free Thanksgiving (and don't get me started on why you should), there's the delicious and nutritious Tofurky. Mmmmm . . . tofurky . . . And some fantastic vegetarian recipies to go with it.
But before all that, ask yourself: just what is The Meatrix?
posted by chris at 9:18 PM
Cleaning up this place
The links section has finally been organized into a slightly more coherent format. I still haven't filled up that big empty blue section on the right, but I did organize many of the links under subject headings to make them easier to explore. Now, go forth and explore.
posted by chris at 9:00 PM
I never said it. It never happened.
In the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. forces would be welcomed by the Iraqi citizenry and that Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
Now, after both statements have been shown to be either incorrect or vastly exaggerated, Rumsfeld - with the same trademark confidence that he exuded before the war - is denying that he ever made such assertions.
In recent testy exchanges with reporters, Rumsfeld interrupted the questioners and attacked the premise of the questions if they dealt with his pre-war comments about weapons of mass destruction and Americans-as-liberators.
For example, on Feb. 20, a month before the invasion, Rumsfeld fielded a question about whether Americans would be greeted as liberators if they invaded Iraq.
"Do you expect the invasion, if it comes, to be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?" Jim Lehrer asked the defense secretary on PBS' "The News Hour."
"There is no question but that they would be welcomed," Rumsfeld replied, referring to American forces. "Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and the al-Qaeda would not let them do."
The Americans-as-liberators theme was repeated by other senior administration officials in the weeks preceding the war, including Rumsfeld's No. 2 - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - and Vice President Cheney.
But on Sept. 25, - a particularly bloody day in which one U.S. soldier was killed in an ambush, eight Iraqi civilians died in a mortar strike and a member of the U.S-appointed governing council died after an assassination attempt five days earlier - Rumsfeld was asked about the surging resistance.
"Before the war in Iraq, you stated the case very eloquently and you said . . . they would welcome us with open arms," Sinclair Broadcasting anchor Morris Jones said to Rumsfeld as the prelude to a question.
The defense chief quickly cut him off. "Never said that," he said. "Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said."
Up means down. See also this exchange between a reporter and spin-meister Scott McClellan, where Scott does his impression of a broken record.
posted by chris at 4:36 PM
Newspeak
But today's military doesn't even use the words "body bags" — a term in common usage during the Vietnam War, when 58,000 Americans died.
During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon began calling them "human remains pouches" and it now refers to them as "transfer tubes."
Transfer tubes? Sheesh. Thanks to Atrios.
posted by chris at 4:32 PM
------------------
|
