Friday, January 14, 2005
Evolution stickers removed
A federal judge today ordered the removal of stickers that call evolution "a theory, not a fact" from high school biology textbooks in a Georgia school district. The judge said the stickers were an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
The disclaimers were put in the books by school officials in suburban Cobb County in 2002.
"Adopted by the school board, funded by the money of taxpayers, and inserted by school personnel, the sticker conveys an impermissible message of endorsement and tells some citizens that they are political outsiders while telling others they are political insiders," U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said in his 44-page ruling in Selman v. Cobb County School Dist.
More.
UPDATE: Go sticker CRAZY!
posted by chris at 5:01 PM
Consider yourself warned
President Bush plans to reactivate his reelection campaign's network of donors and activists to build pressure on lawmakers to allow workers to invest part of their Social Security taxes in the stock market, according to Republican strategists.
White House allies are launching a market-research project to figure out how to sell the plan in the most comprehensible and appealing way, and Republican marketing and public-relations gurus are building teams of consultants to promote it, the strategists said.
The campaign will use Bush's campaign-honed techniques of mass repetition, never deviating from the script and using the politics of fear to build support -- contending that a Social Security financial crisis is imminent when even Republican figures show it is decades away.
The underlying message beneath all this talk about "selling Social Security" is that they actually have to sell it. If it was a great idea, they wouldn't need so much market research and expensive PR campaigns. But it's not. It's a terrible idea and the Bushies need to manipulate the public any which way they can in order to fool the people into allowing them to dismantle the program.
posted by chris at 4:55 PM
Protect Social Security
Tell Congress to protect Social Security and not let Bush destroy it with his sketchy privitization plans. Sign the petition here.
posted by chris at 2:58 PM
They weren't there before, but they're there now
Before the U.S. invasion, the CIA said Saddam Hussein had only circumstantial ties with several al Qaeda members. Osama bin Laden rejected the idea of forming an alliance with Hussein and viewed him as an enemy of the jihadist movement because the Iraqi leader rejected radical Islamic ideals and ran a secular government.
Bush described the war in Iraq as a means to promote democracy in the Middle East. "A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East," he said one month before the invasion. "Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both."
But as instability in Iraq grew after the toppling of Hussein, and resentment toward the United States intensified in the Muslim world, hundreds of foreign terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders. They found tons of unprotected weapons caches that, military officials say, they are now using against U.S. troops. Foreign terrorists are believed to make up a large portion of today's suicide bombers, and U.S. intelligence officials say these foreigners are forming tactical, ever-changing alliances with former Baathist fighters and other insurgents
It's like the US had a copy of the How to Create a Perfect Situation for Breeding Terrorism playbook and they followed it step by step.
posted by chris at 1:07 PM
Inauguration Day
Some Inauguration Day protests for you to enjoy:
International A.N.S.W.E.R., who just got prime space along the Inauguration route, is heading up the major protest events.
Turn Your Back on Bush, a sort of covert protest that wants people to simply turn around when Bush's motorcade passes by.
Not One Damn Dime Day, which urges people not to spend money on the day of the inauguration.
Code Pink has some events planned as well.
And the Counter Inaugural Convergence Center is available.
More information here.
posted by chris at 1:01 PM
Poor, little Wal-Mart
The world's biggest retailer says it's fed up with attacks on its labor practices and its effect on competitors. So, it's placing ads in major newspapers to respond to the critics.
Wal-Mart chief executive Lee Scott told USA Today that it's time to draw a line in the sand.
The company kicks off the national campaign today with ads in more than 100 papers. USA Today reports that Scott will also spread his message on TV and radio talk shows.
A four-color, full-page ad appeared on A25 in The New York Times, noting that Wal-Mart "is working for everyone" while some of its critics "are working only for themselves."
Wal-Mart's working for everyone. Riiiight. The Center for American Progress disagrees.
DENYING HEALTH CARE BENEFITS
LEECHING OFF GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE
ABUSING HOURLY EMPLOYEES
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN
DENYING WORKERS THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY
posted by chris at 1:01 PM
What they said
We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud
Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor
CNN Late Edition
9/8/2002
But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.
George W. Bush, President
Interview with TVP Poland
5/30/2003
We are greatly concerned about any possible linkup between terrorists and regimes that have or seek weapons of mass destruction...In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons.. A regime that hates America and everything we stand for must never be permitted to threaten America with weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney, Vice President
Detroit, Fund-Raiser
6/20/2002
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney, Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002
There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest.
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
9/6/2002
Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have
George W. Bush, President
Radio Address
10/5/2002
The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.
George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002
The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
12/4/2002
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
1/9/2003
They'll call it "poor intelligence." I call it LIES.
There's much, much more. (via Maccabee at Dailykos.)
posted by chris at 10:48 AM
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Thursday, January 13, 2005
White House loves torture
At the urging of the White House, Congressional leaders scrapped a legislative measure last month that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures by American intelligence officers, Congressional officials say.
The defeat of the proposal affects one of the most obscure arenas of the war on terrorism, involving the Central Intelligence Agency's secret detention and interrogation of top terror leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and about three dozen other senior members of Al Qaeda and its offshoots.
The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-to-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation. They would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment, and would have required the C.I.A. as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using.
But in intense closed-door negotiations, Congressional officials said, four senior members from the House and Senate deleted the restrictions from the final bill after the White House expressed opposition
Story.
posted by chris at 1:02 PM
Lowering the bar
With just over two weeks until the Iraq election, the United States is lowering its expectations for both the turnout and the results of the vote, increasingly emphasizing other steps over the next year as more important to Iraq's political transformation, according to U.S. officials.
The Bush administration played down voter turnout yesterday in determining the election's legitimacy and urged Americans not to get bogged in a numbers game in judging the balloting, a reflection of the growing concern over how much the escalating insurgency and the problem of Sunni participation may affect the vote.
Whoa! That doesn't sound like the Mr. Confidence I know... Now that things aren't quite going the way President Don't Worry Be Happy wants them to, all of a sudden the expectations are changing. I seem to remember another situation where that happened as well...
And anyway, we don't want to get bogged down in a numbers game.
(via Tbogg.)
posted by chris at 11:19 AM
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Wednesday, January 12, 2005
I hate to say "I told you so"
The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley.
And what did they find? Nothing.
In interviews, officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas.
Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring. (Emphasis added).
"Contradicted every prewar assertion..." They were wrong. Their reasons for attacking Iraq were bullshit. Over a thousand US soliders have died and 15,000 wounded, tens of thousands of Iraqis have died - all for Bush's lies. And now he's using the exact same tactics - lies, disinformation, and crisis scares - to destroy social security. These people cannot be trusted.
posted by chris at 1:02 PM
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Drug plan + tax cuts = social security $$
John Marshall does the math:
Here is one of many comparisons and observations we'll be making to provide some counterweight to the White House's efforts to deceive the American people about Social Security.
The Social Security Trustees estimate that over the next 75 years the program faces a budget shortfall of $3.7 trillion.
As we've noted previously and will again, the Trustees use a very pessimistic estimate of future economic growth to arrive at that figure. But, for the moment, let's stipulate to that amount.
$3.7 trillion is a lot of money.
But how much will the president's Medicare drug benefit plan cost over the next 75 years?
$8.1 trillion, say the Trustees of that program.
And over the next 75 years how much will the president's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts cost if made permanent, as the president wants?
$11.6 trillion.
So you add that up and you get $3.7 trillion we need to cover Social Security's shortfall and $19.7 trillion we need just to cover the costs of the two major domestic policy initiatives of the president's first term.
And yet Social Security, says the president, is in crisis and destined to chew through the rest of the federal budget.
posted by chris at 4:53 PM
A good party trumps homeland security any day
D.C. officials said yesterday that the Bush administration is refusing to reimburse the District for most of the costs associated with next week's inauguration, breaking with precedent and forcing the city to divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects.
Federal officials have told the District that it should cover the expenses by using some of the $240 million in federal homeland security grants it has received in the past three years -- money awarded to the city because it is among the places at highest risk of a terrorist attack.
So is the Bush administration being cheap in the face of a towering deficit or is this just another example of how their rhetoric on homeland security doesn't match their actions?
posted by chris at 9:42 AM
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Monday, January 10, 2005
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
President Bush had great success in his first term by defining crises that demanded decisive responses. Now, as he begins a second term, Bush is returning to the same tactic to accomplish three longtime conservative goals.
Warning of the need for urgent action on his Social Security plan, Bush says the "crisis is now" for a system even the most pessimistic observers say will take in more in taxes than it pays out in benefits well into the next decade.
He calls the proliferation of medical liability lawsuits a "crisis in America" that can be fixed only by limiting a patient's right to sue for large damages. And Bush has repeatedly accused Senate Democrats of creating a "vacancy crisis" on the federal bench by refusing to confirm a small percentage of his judicial nominees.
This strategy helped Bush win support for the war in Iraq, tax cuts and education policies, as well as reclaim the White House. What is unclear is whether the same approach will work, given the battering to the administration's credibility over its Iraq claims and a new Democratic campaign accusing Bush of crying wolf.
"This White House had made an art of creating crisis where a crisis does not exist," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).
Be prepared.
posted by chris at 4:57 PM
The Salvador option
What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.
Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal.
An idea like this just makes it more obvious that the real objective of the Iraqi "project" isn't freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people, but satisfying the US' political objectives.
posted by chris at 2:03 PM
Countdown to the Iraqi elections
Things aren't looking pretty . . .
Nine U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq Thursday, the highest single-day death toll for the military since the December suicide bombing at a Mosul mess tent.
In another significant blow to Iraq's upcoming elections, the entire 13-member electoral commission in the volatile province of Anbar, west of the capital, resigned after being threatened by insurgents, a regional newspaper reported Sunday.
Gunmen killed Baghdad's deputy police chief in the middle of rush hour Monday morning, the latest in a spate of high-profile assassinations in advance of Iraq's scheduled Jan. 30 election.
But President "Everything's Coming Up Roses" Bush is looking on the bright side:
President Bush expressed optimism Friday about Iraq's upcoming elections, saying they will be "an incredibly hopeful experience," despite rising violence.
Yeah, like they hope they don't die on the way to the voting booth. And they hope the country doesn't self-destruct before then. And they hope the Bush administration would just go away and stop making things worse.
posted by chris at 1:37 PM
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Sunday, January 09, 2005
Hotel Rwanda
Go see it. It's an incredible story in the midst of a unbelievably devastating situation. It shows you what humans are capable of, both good and evil. Here's the trailer. Here's a review.
Then, you should read this.
posted by chris at 11:00 PM
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