Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 08:19:52 -0800From: "Ben Brandzel, MoveOn.org Political Action"
You're needed again
The Democratic leadership is starting off with a plan for strong first-step reforms during the first 100 hours. Corporate lobbyists are already working hard to defeat it, and we need to show where the people stand. Can you add your name to our petition calling on Congress to pass the 100 Hours Agenda?
Add your name today!
The Next Step
The 100 Hours Agenda is just the first crucial step towards the larger changes we believe in. Later this month, we'll organize local meetings with our representatives, urging them to take on the really big issues that Americans care most about, like health care for all, clean energy and Iraq. Stay tuned for more details.
Dear Ed. Move On member,
In a few hours, Nancy Pelosi will pick up the gavel as the first female Speaker in history and bring to order the first Democratic Congress of the 21st Century. You helped make this moment possible—well done.
And now, you're needed again Ed.
The new Democratic leadership is starting off with an ambitious reform agenda for the first 100 business hours (see below for details). It takes on some very powerful interests—so the big oil companies, drug companies, and other right wing lobbyists are already swarming Capital Hill to "prepare for battle."1
To balance the special interests Democrats and Republicans alike need to hear from us right away. So we're launching a petition calling on Congress to swiftly pass the 100 Hours Agenda.
The total number of signatures, and Ed., some of your comments will be read aloud by our allies in Congress during debate on the House floor— the more signatures we get, the bigger the impact. Please pass this down your chain Ed.:
http://pol.moveon.org/100hours?id=9655-5694953-ekkirRfAdKJ.EKvFZj6kTQ&t=2
We're aiming to gather at least 100,000 signatures by the time the number is read in Congress next week. Please ask your friends and family to sign as well.
To combat the new Democratic leadership, big oil is launching a $100 million dollar PR campaign—as one of their lobbyists recently put it, "People are very concerned, and concerned on a lot of levels."2
The drug companies are gearing up their $100 million dollar a year lobbying operation.3 And top congressional Republicans are vowing to dig in their heels.4
Why are they so nervous? Here's a brief summary of the 100 Hour Agenda package:
Good Government: Cutting off lobbyist gifts and restoring fairness and transparency in the way laws are passed
Fiscal Responsibility: Stop recklessly driving up the national debt
National Security: Implement all of the 9/11 Commission security recommendations
Fighting Poverty: Increase minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, helping 15 million working families
Health Research: Increased funding and availability for stem cell research
Affordable Health Care: Negotiate for lower prices on prescription drugs, passing savings on to seniors
Education Access: Cut interest on federal student loans in half
Clean Energy: Cut oil company subsidies and invest in safe alternatives
While it's not everything we want from this Congress—and we plan to push for much more—for just the first 100 business hours it's a powerful start.
With this much special interest money pouring in, we can't take any vote for granted.
Every member of Congress—Democrat and Republican—needs to hear from their constituents on this.
And to get this ambitious agenda passed into law, we don't only need it to pass the House, we need it to pass soon and with enough support to generate real momentum as it heads to the Senate. But with the drug, oil, banking, and other industry lobbyists pulling out all the stops, that's only going to happen if we raise our voice, right now.
To call on your representative to pass the 100 Hour Agenda, just click below to add your name to the petitition. We'll pass on your signatures and comments on to your representative, combined with others from your district, and some of your comments along with the total signature count will be read aloud during the Congressional debate.
http://pol.moveon.org/100hours?id=9655-5694953-ekkirRfAdKJ.EKvFZj6kTQ&t=3
Thanks for all that you do,
–Ben, Eli, Matt, Natalie and the MoveOn.org Political Action
Team Thursday January 4th, 2004
P.S. To read a more detailed summary of the 100 Hours Agenda legislation, click here: http://pol.moveon.org/100hoursdetails/index.html?id=9655-5694953-ekkirRfAdKJ.EKvFZj6kTQ&t=4
1. "Sides prepare for battle over minimum wage," St. Paul Pioneer Press, January 1, 2007http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/16348588.htm
2. "Democrats to target oil and gas industry in early hours," The Hill, January 3, 2007 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2284&id=9655-5694953-ekkirRfAdKJ.EKvFZj6kTQ&t=5
3. "Drug makers brace for fight with Democrats over prices," Newark Star-Ledger, December 17, 2006http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2285&id=9655-5694953-ekkirRfAdKJ.EKvFZj6kTQ&t=6
4. "McConnell says Republicans may fight over Medicare drug prices," Bloomberg, December 12, 2006http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2287&id=9655-5694953-ekkirRfAdKJ.EKvFZj6kTQ&t=7
Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.2 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support our work, you can give now at:
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THE YEAR OF THE WOMAN ISSUE:
History will be made today with the US Capitol serving as a backdrop as Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as the first woman Speaker of the House. Pelosi was unanimously elected Speaker last November to serve in this position that is third-in-line to the Presidency.
It is the hope of The Precinct Master that she be effective in that role, that history will judge her kindly and that she will have the courage to allow events unfold without a continued temptation to be politically correct, or timid, in the presence of the word “Impeachment”.
But what is being touted as "The Year of the Democratic Woman" extends far beyond Nancy’s personal triumphant achievement.
Minnesota elected Amy Klobuchar as its first-ever female Senator. Klobuchar ran as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate, and joins newly elected Senate colleagues Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown, Jim Webb and Bernie Sanders in winning on an economic populist platform.
Anti-war candidate Carol Shea-Porter is the first woman ever elected by New Hampshire to represent the state in Congress. She too ran on a populist message in a solidly Republican district, and spoke out strongly against the war and for accountability and oversight, particularly with regard to war profiteering.
In all, eleven Democratic women will serve in the Senate and fifty in the House.
In the Senate, Barbara Boxer is the new Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman. As I noted in a previous post, Sen. Boxer is a welcome change from global warming denier James Inhofe – a breath of fresh air, one might say (bad pun, but true nonetheless). Only four women have previously served as chairs of Senate committees prior to Boxer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (who will now chair the Rules and Administration Committee). And Sen. Patty Murray (WA) will become the fourth-ranking Democrat in the Senate as the newly elected conference secretary.
In the House, no woman has chaired a committee since 1997 and, thankfully, that pitiful streak now comes to an end. Representatives Louise Slaughter, Nydia Velazquez and Stephanie Tubbs Jones – all members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) – will respectively chair the Rules Committee, Small Business Committee, and Ethics Committee. Other leadership positions are still being determined.
It should be noted too that the CPC – the largest caucus in Congress – is chaired by Representatives Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee (who have been at the forefront of opposition to the war and leaders in finding a more just path to security), and it includes other strong and tested progressives like Jan Schakowsky, Sheila Jackson-Lee, and Maxine Waters. In fact, 22 of the 64 CPC members in the last Congress were women and that number is expected to rise in the new Congress.
If the 110th Congress is to fulfill its mandate for change it will do so in no small measure through the new and much overdue leadership of Democratic Women. Now let's just hope that the history-making Speaker reflects the Nancy Pelosi who often scored 100 on progressive scorecards, not the equivocating Nancy Pelosi who failed to gain the endorsement of her hometown newspaper.
FROM THE NATION ONLINE…IT IS TOO GOOD NOT TO INCLUDE IN ITS ENTIRETY. Kristol Clear at Time – Dave Corn
THE MARKET DOESN'T WORK -- NOT WHEN IT COMES TO CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATORS.
Before the Iraq war, rightwing (and middle-of-the-road) pundits claimed Saddam Hussein was a dire WMD threat, that he was in cahoots with al Qaeda, that the war was necessary.
The neoconservative cheerleaders for war also argued that an invasion of Iraq would bring democracy to that nation and throughout the region. They were wrong. But they have paid no price for their errors. They did not have to serve in Iraq. None, as far as I can tell, have had sons or daughters harmed or killed in the fighting there.
They did not have to bear higher taxes, because George W. Bush has charged the costs of this military enterprise to the national credit card.
Though they miscalled the number-one issue of the post-9/11 period, they did not lose their influential perches in the commentariat.
Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan, Gary Schmitt, Danielle Pletka and others (including non-neocon Thomas Friedman) who blew it on Iraq still regularly appear on op-ed pages and television news shows, pitching their latest notions about Iraq, Iran or other matters.
Foremost among this band is William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard and former chief of staff for Vice President Dan Quayle. Kristol, a Fox News regular, has not seen his standing as a go-to conservative pundit suffered. Moreover, he has been rewarded with a plum posting. Time magazine's new managing editor, Richard Stengel, has invited Kristol to become what Stengel calls a "star" columnist for the magazine.
Both Kristol and Stengel are likable fellows. I usually enjoy debating Kristol on television or radio. He's no hater, and he's no autopilot partisan. Stengel is a thoughtful and cerebral person who once was a senior adviser to cerebral Senator Bill Bradley, a Democrat.
So there's nothing personal when I ask, why in the hell does Stengel believe that what America needs now is more Bill Kristol? (Slate media cop Jack Shafer criticized Stengel's pick of Kristol by noting that "Kristol isn't much of a deviation from Charles Krauthammer, an occasional Time 'Essay' writer." Friendship declared: Shafer is a pal of mine.)
It's too late to affect Stengel's decision, but let's take this occasion to review Kristol's record on Iraq, courtesy of a rather cursory Nexis search. It holds no surprises.
On September 11, 2002, as the Bush administration began its sales campaign for the coming war, Kristol suggested that Saddam Hussein could do more harm to the United States than al Qaeda had: "we cannot afford to let Saddam Hussein inflict a worse 9/11 on us in the future."
On September 15, 2002, he claimed that inspection and containment could not work with Saddam: "No one believes the inspections can work." Actually, UN inspectors believed they could work. So, too, did about half of congressional Democrats. They were right.
On September 18, 2002, Kristol opined that a war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East."
On September 19, 2002, he once again pooh-poohed inspections: "We should not fool ourselves by believing that inspections could make any difference at all." During a debate with me on Fox News Channel, after I noted that the goal of inspections was to prevent Saddam from reaching "the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons, Kristol exclaimed, "He's past that finish line. He's past the finish line."
On November 21, 2002, he maintained, "we can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy."
On February 2, 2003, he claimed that Secretary of State Colin Powell at an upcoming UN speech would "show that there are loaded guns throughout Iraq" regarding weapons of mass destruction. As it turned out, everything in Powell's speech was wrong. Kristol was uncritically echoing misleading information handed him by friends and allies within the Bush administration.
On February 20, 2003, he summed up the argument for war against Saddam: "He's got weapons of mass destruction. At some point he will use them or give them to a terrorist group to use...Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world....France and Germany don't have the courage to face up to the situation.
That's too bad. Most of Europe is with us. And I think we will be respected around the world for helping the people of Iraq to be liberated."
On March 1, 2003, Kristol dismissed concerns that sectarian conflict might arise following a US invasion of Iraq: "We talk here about Shiites and Sunnis as if they've never lived together. Most Arab countries have Shiites and Sunnis, and a lot of them live perfectly well together."
He also said, "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." And he maintained that the war would be a bargain at $100 to $200 billion. The running tab is now nearing half a trillion dollars.
On March 5, 2003, Kristol said, "I think we'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction and when we liberate the people of Iraq."
Such vindication never came. Kristol was mistaken about the justification for the war, the costs of the war, the planning for the war, and the consequences of the war. That's a lot for a pundit to miss.
In his columns and statements about Iraq, Kristol displayed little judgment or expertise. He was not informing the public; he was whipping it. He turned his wishes into pronouncements and helped move the country to a mismanaged and misguided war that has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. That's not journalism.
In an effectively functioning market of opinion-trading, Kristol's views would be relegated to the bargain basement. And he ought to be doing penance, not penning columns for Time. But -- fortunate for him -- the world of punditry is a rather imperfect marketplace.
*****
DON"T FORGET ABOUT HUBRIS: THE INSIDE STORY OF SPIN, SCANDAL, AND THE SELLING OF THE IRAQ WAR, the best-selling book by David Corn and Michael Isikoff. Click here for information on the book. The New York Times calls Hubris "the most comprehensive account of the White House's political machinations" and "fascinating reading."
The Washington Post says, "There have been many books about the Iraq war....This one, however, pulls together with unusually shocking clarity the multiple failures of process and statecraft." Tom Brokaw notes Hubris "is a bold and provocative book that will quickly become an explosive part of the national debate on how we got involved in Iraq.
" Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor of The New Yorker notes, "The selling of Bush's Iraq debacle is one of the most important--and appalling--stories of the last half-century, and Michael Isikoff and David Corn have reported the hell out of it." For highlights from Hubris, click here.
GOV. TO SEEK INSURANCE FOR ALL CHILDREN
Illegal immigrants would be covered in his plan to overhaul the state healthcare system.
By Jordan Rau, Times Staff Writer9:35 AM PST, January 4, 2007
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose that all Californian children, including those in the state illegally, be guaranteed medical insurance as part of the healthcare overhaul he intends to unveil next week, according to officials familiar with the plan.If enacted by the Legislature, his proposal would affect about 763,000 children who now lack insurance.
Although the administration has not revealed details of how it would pay for such a program, officials estimate that extending insurance to all children could cost the state as much as $400 million a year.
That would be a small piece of Schwarzenegger's stated goal: to ensure medical coverage for all of the 6.5 million Californians who now have none. Experts say that could cost upward of $10 billion a year. LA TIMES full report:
PELOSI SHOWS SHE'S THE HEAD OF HER PARTY
The incoming House speaker oversees all the details of a celebration designed to introduce herself to the nation.
By Faye Fiore and Tina Daunt, Times Staff WritersJanuary 4, 2007
WASHINGTON — Most Americans still don't know who Nancy Pelosi is, and this was her last chance to script an introduction before Congress convenes today and she becomes the first female speaker of the House.So on Wednesday, Pelosi kicked off a three-day celebration of her ascension packed with more product placement than an infomercial.
The cannoli at the reception after the morning Mass were from the bakery on the street in Baltimore's Little Italy where she grew up. The white lilies on the altar were her favorite flower. The chapel belonged to Trinity University, the Roman Catholic women's college she graduated from in 1962.
Pelosi sat in the front row surrounded by five of her grandchildren. The sixth sounded off midservice and had to be walked around by his mother, reminding everyone that his grandmother ditched Washington seven weeks ago to sit at his crib side."We've waited over 200 years for this time,"
Pelosi said at an afternoon tea turned power rally. "America's working women, women working at home, whatever they choose to do, they have a friend in the Capitol of the United States."Five hundred women wore Rosie the Riveter buttons with Pelosi's face superimposed, with pearl earrings, above the slogan: "A woman's place is in the House ... as Speaker." LA TIMES: FULL ACCOUNT
BIG TROUBLE IN POTOMAC CITY…WATCH FOR THE MEDIA TO CATCH THIS, BUT YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!
Ever since Iraq began spiraling toward chaos, the war's intellectual architects — the so-called NEOCONSERVATIVES (The Empire Builders; The Top 12 Neocons) — have found themselves under attack in Washington policy salons and, more important, within the Bush administration.
Eventually, Paul D. Wolfowitz , the Defense department's most senior neocon, went to the World Bank. His Pentagon colleague Douglas J. Feith departed for academia. John R. Bolton left the State Department for a stint at the United Nations.
But now, a small but increasingly influential group of neocons are again helping steer Iraq policy. A key part of the new Iraq plan that President Bush is expected to announce next week — a surge in U.S. troops coupled with a more focused counterinsurgency effort — has been one of the chief recommendations of these neocons since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
THIS GROUP — WHICH INCLUDES WILLIAM KRISTOL, EDITOR OF THE WEEKLY STANDARD MAGAZINE, AND FREDERICK W. KAGAN , A MILITARY ANALYST AT A PROMINENT THINK TANK, THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE — WAS EXPRESSING CONCERNS ABOUT THE ADMINISTRATION'S BLUEPRINT FOR IRAQ EVEN BEFORE THE INVASION ALMOST FOUR YEARS AGO.
In their view, not enough troops were being set aside to stabilize the country. They also worried that the Pentagon had formulated a plan that concentrated too heavily on killing insurgents rather than securing law and order for Iraqi citizens. These neoconservative thinkers have long advocated for a more classic counterinsurgency campaign: a manpower-heavy operation that would take U.S. soldiers out of their large bases dotted across the country and push them into small outposts in troubled towns and neighborhoods to interact with ordinary Iraqis and earn their trust.
But until now, it was an argument that fell on deaf ears. "We have been pretty consistently in this direction from the outset," said Kagan, whose December study detailing his strategy is influencing the administration's current thinking. "I started making this argument even before the war began, because I watched in dismay as we messed up Afghanistan and then heard with dismay the rumors that we would apply some sort of Afghan model to Iraq.
"If Bush goes ahead with the surge idea, along with a shift to a more aggressive counterinsurgency, it would in many ways represent a wholesale repudiation of the outgoing Pentagon leadership.These leaders — particularly former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the departing Middle East commander — strongly resisted more U.S. troops and a larger push into troubled neighborhoods out of fear it would prevent Iraqis from taking over the job themselves and exacerbate the image of America as an occupying power.
(CENTRAL COMMAND LINK CURRENT CENTCOM HOME )
The plan the administration appears moving toward envisions an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 troops, the majority of whom would be sent to Baghdad. The increase would be achieved by delaying the departure of Marine units already in Iraq and speeding the departure of Army brigades due to deploy this spring.
The neoconservative group had been the driving force in Washington behind a move against Iraq, even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They saw Hussein as a lingering threat to world security — a view bolstered within the administration following 9/11. And they argued that transforming Iraq into a democracy could serve as a model to remake the Middle East's political dynamics.
The problems with the war gradually undermined the clout they had wielded. But perhaps the more important hurdle to their views being heeded — especially on military matters — was the White House's refusal to see its Iraq policy as a failure.That changed this summer, when the spike in sectarian violence and the failure of an offensive to secure Baghdad created what one Pentagon advisor called a "psychological break" within the administration.
Until then, neoconservatives argued, the administration saw little proof that Abizaid's plan, which was backed by Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the military commander in Iraq, was failing.The main reason for the new ascendancy of the neocon recommendations, said Kristol, is that "the Rumsfeld-Abizaid-Casey theory was tried and was found wanting…. Some of us challenged it very early on, but, of course, then we were just challenging it as a competing theory."
Although Kristol, Kagan and their intellectual allies have pushed hard for their policy change for more than three years, they bristle at the notion that the idea of a larger troop presence in Iraq and a different approach to securing the country is wholly a neoconservative idea.
Sen. John McCain (& Joe Lieberman, CT) of Arizona, a leading Republican presidential contender, has been pushing for more troops and a different security strategy for nearly as long as Kristol and Kagan. Recently, support for a revised counterinsurgency plan also has gained support among military officers, active and retired. Perhaps most notable among this group is retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, a former Army chief of staff who signed on to Kagan's plan last month.
The case for change has been bolstered by actions the military has taken, including a successful 2005 Army offensive in the northern Iraqi city of Tall Afar, where midlevel officers used counterinsurgency tactics to suppress sectarian violence. In addition, the Pentagon released a new counterinsurgency field manual last month that largely echoed Kagan's thinking.
Some leading neoconservatives do not embrace the troop surge proposal.Wolfowitz, for instance, ridiculed the notion that more troops would be needed to secure Iraq than were used in the invasion.
And Richard N. Perle, a former top advisor to the Pentagon who also advocated for smaller troop numbers at the time of the invasion, is known to be skeptical of the idea of a surge.The plan's advocates acknowledge the split."Before the war, I was arguing for a quarter of a million troops in expectations we'd be there five or 10 years," said Gary J. Schmitt, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute who has worked closely with Kristol and Kagan. "
Richard Perle, obviously somebody else who's thought of as a neocon, thought we should go in" with far fewer U.S. forces.The neocons calling for more troops in Iraq and different tactics have pressed their proposals in public writings and speeches and in more private conversations within the administration. Kenneth L. Adelman, another leading neoconservative thinker, recalled a meeting a year ago of the Defense Policy Board, a group of outside advisors to the Pentagon, where he pressed Rumsfeld — a longtime friend — to implement more traditional counterinsurgency ideas, such as keeping soldiers longer in their deployed areas so they could get to know the local population.
"What you need for counterinsurgency has been pretty clear for some time: You need to protect the population and get the population to fight the insurgents with you, or at least inform on them," Adelman said.
"The fight is over the population, it's not over getting the nemy."And much like they did when advocating for the invasion, these neocons have promoted their military strategy even at times when it was seen as politically unpalatable."What you can say about Fred Kagan and Bill Kristol, whatever else you want to say, is they've been constant in sounding this theme," said Eliot A. Cohen, a military analyst at Johns Hopkins University's international studies school in Washington who has advised the administration on Iraq policy. "You've had other people who have dropped in and out of this."
Neocon philosophy
Neoconservatives are best known for advocating aggressive foreign and military policies to implant democracy and American values abroad.
It is a school of thought that attained prominence in the foreign policy of the Reagan administration and, more recently, in that of George W. Bush.
Neoconservatives have been especially focused on the Middle East. They have argued that building democracy in the Arab world could foster reform throughout the region.
1 ) The Few Must Rule The Many
2 ) Virtue Is Defined By The Elite
3 ) The Strong Must Rule The Weak
4 ) Only One Natural Right: The Right To Rule Over The Vulgar Many
5 ) Justice Is Merely The Interest Of The Stronger
6 ) ?The Rule Of The Wise?
7 ) The Three Classes: The Wise-Few, The Vulgar-Many And The Gentlemen
8 ) The State Is Omnipotent: It Manifests Militaristic Nationalism
9 ) Perpetual War Is Necessary
10 ) Patriotic Fervor Is To Be Rallied
11 ) Political Expediency And Murder Become Virtue
12 ) Possess And As Necessary Present The ?Hidden Meaning?
13 ) Maintain A Culture Of Lying And Carry On A Perpetual Confusion Campaign
14 ) The Many Are Told What They Need To Know And No More
15 ) Lies Are Held To Be Nobel: Develop, Maintain And Present Noble Lies
16 ) Dissemble Democracy
17 ) Religion Is For The Many
18 ) Secrecy Is Essential
19 ) Nature Abhors A Contract
20 ) Intimidate All Opponents
21) Fear Is The Tool Of The Strong
NEOCON PHILOSOPHY OF INTELLIGENCE
FOUNDER OF NEOCON PHILOSOPHY
LEO STRAUSS NEOCON GURU
Leo Strauss, the neocons' "Philosopher," taught that deception is a virtue.The neocons' "godfather," Irving Kristol, reports that Strauss had the "greatest impact" on his conservative thinking. Strauss believed there was "inherent conflict between philosophic truth and the political order." Consequently the "great philosphers prior to the Age of Reason ... took the greatest care in their writing so as not, as the British would say, to 'frighten the horses.'"
(Neoconservatism, p. 8) And so, neocons hide the truth from "the horses" and feel entirely justified in their deceptions. The WMD deception is a case in point.
Stephen Bryen—Espionage: (synopsis of full story ) In 1979, apparently showed secret documents to Rafiah, of Mossad (Israeli CIA). He denied having accessed the documents but refused to be polygraphed, and his finger prints were found on them.
Appointed in 1981 to DOD by Richard Perle , he received Top Secret ("NATO/COSMIC”) clearance. In 1988, Bryen arranged for state-of-the-art klystrons to be released for export to Israel against the wishes of DOD. In 2001, with the support of Paul Wolfowitz , Bryen was appointed a member of the China Commission (in part concerned with Israel's transfer of advanced technology to China).
BUSH, DEMOCRATS JOUST OVER EARMARKS
WASHINGTON — Eager to set themselves apart from a Republican-led Congress tarnished by scandal, Democrats outlined a plan Wednesday to end the secrecy around earmarks inserted in legislation to funnel public money to favored interests.
"We're going to stamp out corruption, and the proof is in the package," Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said as she outlined reform measures that Democrats would put to a vote today and Friday. But in a sign of how much the election has pushed reform to the top of the agenda.
President Bush strode before cameras Wednesday to highlight his overhaul ideas even before the Democrats unveiled theirs."We need to do more," said the president, who read a brief statement in the Rose Garden that called on the new Democratic Congress to halve the number and cost of earmarks.
The jousting between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue raised the prospect of a tussle over who could claim the mantle of reform, and bolstered reformers' hopes that calls for change to the secretive earmarking process might no longer by ignored on Capitol Hill.
Under Republican congressional leadership, the amount of federal funds earmarked has nearly tripled since 1994, reaching $67.1 billion in fiscal 2006, according to the Congressional Research Service. The new rules House Democrats plan to adopt would mandate disclosure of the authors of earmarks and more complete explanations of what the earmarks will fund — measures reformers have demanded for years.
House Democrats also plan to pass new bans on gifts and meals from lobbyists, and a prohibition on the use of corporate jets by House members.Senate Democrats will soon draw up their own rules, but a spokesman for incoming Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would not discuss them.
The House reform package — which is among a list of initiatives Democrats promised to enact in their first days in power — comes after Republicans lost control of Congress amid ethics scandals that led to the resignations of four GOP House members since September 2005.It drew praise from a number of reform advocates, including Fred Wertheimer, president of the watchdog group Democracy 21.
Wertheimer called the ethics package "important progress in changing the way business is done in Congress."But the plan neither settled the debate over earmarking nor allowed Democrats to claim control of the reform agenda without a challenge.Though House Democratic leaders are seeking to dramatically increase transparency in the earmarking process, they would not mandate that information about who inserts an earmark be posted in a place the public can easily access it, such as the Internet.
"I want more," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog that tracks congressional spending. Democrats also do not plan to make it easier to remove earmarks when legislation comes to the full House for a vote.
Earmarks are often included in the conference reports that are drawn up by senior lawmakers from the House and Senate to settle differences between versions of legislation passed by the two chambers. These reports cannot be amended on the floor.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has been complaining about earmarking for years, said he was particularly disappointed that lawmakers like him would often be unable to offer amendments that would strip out objectionable earmarks."I would have liked to see a requirement that earmarks be in the legislative text rather than in a conference committee report," Flake said. "When they are in a conference committee report, it's far more likely that they will end up in the middle in the night.
"Democrats nonetheless were quick to label the expected adoption as historic. "This is the most significant package that has ever passed the Congress," noted Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), a longtime reform advocate.
But if Democrats were able to outmaneuver Republicans on ethics in the fall congressional campaign, they now could face a second showdown with the White House.
Bush has only occasionally criticized the proliferation of armarking. And since taking office, he has never vetoed an appropriations bill, even as the number of earmarks in the spending measures more than doubled to about 13,000. On Wednesday morning, however, the president made earmarks the focus of his public remarks as he outlined areas where he said he could work with the new Congress.
"People want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to get billions of dollars directed to projects, many of them pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by the Congress," Bush said just a few hours before Democrats announced their plans.Casting himself as the reformer, Bush called on Congress to stop putting earmarks in conference reports and to disclose even more information about why earmarks are being sought.And he reiterated calls he has made in the past for a version of the line-item veto, which Bush has said would help restrain spending by allowing him to strip out wasteful earmarks.
That suggestion was immediately rejected by incoming House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who gave a hint of how the battle over reform may turn into a showdown over congressional authority.
"The president would like to say to the United States: Only the president can add investments in communities, so Congress has to come hat in hand to the president," Hoyer said. "That would substantially skew the relationship and undermine the independence of the Congress of the United States."
Federal funds for pet projects House Democrats said they would require greater disclosure of the earmarking of federal funds for special projects. President Bush also called for limits on earmarking funds, which are often buried in appropriations bills.
The growth of earmarks, for fiscal years:
Value of earmarks (billions) Number of earmarks
2006 $67,061 13,012
2005 $48,149 15,899
2004 $46,289 14,052
2002 $42,848 10,601
2000 $32,959 6,085
Sources: Congressional Research Service, Taxpayers for Common Sense,Associated Press
Prosecutors demand files of 3 House panels_AND WE’RE OFF AND RUNNING!
THE SUBPOENAS STEP UP A U.S. PROBE OF EARMARKS IN SPENDING MEASURES.
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff WriterJanuary 4, 2007
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors in San Diego have subpoenaed documents from three House committees as part of an investigation into special-interest earmarks in spending bills.
The demand ratchets up an investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego into contracts awarded by the Defense Department and other agencies. The probe stems from the bribery case against Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe), who pleaded guilty and resigned in 2005.The scope of the investigation is unclear, although the request for documents is considered unusually broad.
The subpoenas, which follow a failed attempt by the Justice Department to persuade the Republican Congress to voluntarily turn over thousands of documents, could test Democrats' pledge to reform ethics in the new Congress.
Last year, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — who today becomes House speaker — opposed a broad-based Justice Department search warrant targeting Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.). The subpoenas went to the armed services, appropriations and intelligence committees, whose Republican chairmen reported the subpoenas to outgoing House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) in letters dated two weeks ago.
The subpoenas were made public Wednesday by the Congressional Record online.
The House is supposed to turn over the requested records by Jan. 11 or else file an objection with the U.S. District Court in San Diego. Typically, such deadlines are extended. Prosecutors in San Diego and a spokesman for the general counsel of the House declined to comment, and a Pelosi spokeswoman had no immediate comment.
The subpoenas are an escalation of a nine-month tug-of-war between the Justice Department and House Republicans. Prosecutors had asked the committees to turn over the information voluntarily. House leaders and their lawyers consider the request constitutionally suspect, saying it runs afoul of the "speech or debate" clause, which protects members of Congress from prosecution for their legislative acts, including earmarks.
Some have also complained that the committees would need months to compile such data. None of the requested documents had been turned over as of Wednesday. Pelosi campaigned in the fall on a platform of open and honest government, and has made one of her first orders of business an ethics package that would identify members of Congress who inserted earmarks for pet projects into bills.
The use of earmarks has tripled over the last decade, the Congressional Research Service estimates, with 13,000 earmarks in the last fiscal year adding more than $67 billion to spending bills.
The "speech or debate" privilege is at the core of a legal fight over an FBI search of Jefferson's congressional office in May. The search and seizure of documents followed an FBI sting in which about $90,000 in foil-wrapped $100 bills was found in the freezer of Jefferson's Washington home.
Pelosi and Hastert criticized the office raid and urged the government to return the seized documents. Pelosi later led a successful effort to strip Jefferson of an influential committee assignment until the federal corruption investigation was completed. (Jefferson has not been charged.)Former Rep. Cunningham is serving an eight-year prison term after pleading guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and evading more than $1 million in taxes.
A House Intelligence Committee report issued in October concluded that Cunningham had used his position on that panel to steer more than $70 million to companies run by cronies, with much of the money going to businessman Brent R. Wilkes of Poway, Calif. Wilkes remains under investigation. The San Diego federal prosecutors have also been examining the relationship between Wilkes and Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, who resigned as CIA executive director in the spring after federal agents searched his office and home.
Investigators have examined at least one contract that was awarded to Wilkes while Foggo was a senior CIA procurement officer in Germany.
2007 - YEAR OF MADNESS IN THE MAKING
PART ONE: THE GREAT AWAKENING
The vote in 2006 made it clear that people's eyes are actually open.
Since the Busheviks began to run with the hysteria of 9/11, clear vision and voices of reasons were sent to wander in the wilderness, mocked like bearded hermits riding asses.
But suddenly, "War on Terror" didn't make people jump up and burn their constitutions.
CNN ran a series on what was broken in America -- including the media. Even though the government, the Wall Street analysts, and, astonishingly, most professional economists said the economy was terrific, ordinary people were able to tell that something was wrong.
Books attacking the idiocies and excesses of religion flowered on the best seller lists like crocuses in the spring.
Then we voted.
The rubber stamp, neo-con, neo-Christ, corporate owned congress and senate, lost their Republican majorities.
We felt incredible relief. As if the black cloud of Mordor was suddenly blown away and the sun was shining again.
All that is true.
But my guess is that 2007 will not be a time of renewal and restoration. It will be a time of conflict, in-fighting and meanness. Of madness.
PART TWO: IRAQ
George Bush can't leave Iraq.
Look at it from where he sits.
Getting Saddam was going to be Bush's jackpot.
He was going to go in, win it, bring democracy to the Middle East, make it clear that no should ever dare challenge America, and establish America's vision as the world's vision.
If Bush had won that hand he would have been declared one of history's great men.
He went all in.
He used all the political capital he'd acquired from 9/11. Plus he gave up on Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and Afghanistan.
He told lies about why we went to war.
He violated the basics of international law.
He alienated our allies.
If he won, all that would be forgotten and forgiven. Worth the price.
Proof of his daring manliness. Success erases more sins than being born again ever will.
Just ask Jimmy Carter.
But he lost.
Can he get up and walk away from the table?
No.
The moment he folds his Iraq hand, all that's left is to ride out of history on a Greyhound bus.
There he goes, President Loser, bet his poke on the wrong war.
Played the hand all wrong.
Was he the worst president ever, or just second or third worst?
His only choice is to stubbornly stay at the table, ignore the voices telling him that he's broke, and chase his losses.
Maybe a miracle will happen.
People do win the lottery. But you do have to be in it to win it.
Maybe he won't hit the jackpot, but he has to hope he can at least break even.
Cut his loses. Something. At this point, he, personally, has nothing more to lose.
He's playing with other people's lives and money.
Even if the war remains a quagmire, death and destruction with no end in sight, Bush -- personally -- is better off.
American service men and women, Americans who are paying the bills, Iraqis, and the rest of the world, may not be. But he's better off. Because that will force someone else to pull the plug.
Bush will then maintain that had we just stuck to it, it would have succeeded eventually.
He will then hire an army of payable pundits and whorish historians to churn out books and papers to say so.
That's what the half billion dollar presidential library is for.
Bush is "commander-in-chief." Congress can't undeclare the war they so foolishly gave him permission for. The generals won't mutiny or organize a coup (and we should be very thankful for that).
The war will continue.
The opposition to the war will grow.
The more it grows, the more Bush will hunker down and the more he will insist that it continue.
Either as a small force, to be whittled away, death by death, cripple after cripple, or, as much as he can, he will escalate.
Doubling down. There is no formula for getting out of the war that eliminates the moment of recognition that he is a failure, an abject and utter failure.
PART THREE: WHY WE'RE IN IRAQ - THE THEOLOGY OF IT
Right wing Republicans and right wing religionists have been offering a peculiar faith of Might demonstrates Right. Victory is proof of virtue.
Their mythology, and there's a lot of truth in it, is this. America won World War I, World War II and the Cold War. That is a lot of proof -- if any more were needed -- that America is the most virtuous thing on the planet.
What is America? We define ourselves -- as everyone does -- against our enemies.
In modern times, that was Fascism and then atheistic Communism, that makes us a trinity of democracy, free market capitalism and the Christian religion (usually called the Judeo-Christian religion to prove that we are not anti-Semites like our Nazi enemies were).
If America is the most virtuous thing on the planet, that trinity is both the most righteous and the mightiest way to go.
Therefore, all its manifestations of power -- military, corporate, religious -- should be released to do what they do.
Good must, of necessity, flow from that.
The more freely and powerfully they flow, the more good will be produced
Therefore, anything that stands in their way, should be removed.
When it was the Soviet Union and Red China that stood in our way, and their competing philosophy -- which made many idealistic sounds, even if their actions were oppressive -- we had to move with care and restraint in international affairs and we had to compete, domestically, with their social welfare ideals.
But once the Soviet Union fell and China became a sort of totalitarian capitalist factory land, it seemed as if there was nothing left to hold us back.
Now we could kick over all sort of irritating impediments: treaties, constitutional protections, war crimes laws, regulations, national boundaries, the uniform code of military justice, taxes, environmental regulations, and unions.
Make no mistake, this is based on true belief.
Of course, it's self-serving. Of course, there are huge elements of greed and ego involved. Of course, it is extremely profitable, most especially for the already rich and powerful.
But it is also, without doubt, a matter of real belief that American world dominance, our style of democracy, free market economics and Christianity will make the world a better place, every time and inevitably.
That's the underlying impulse, the theology, that led us to war in Iraq.
Saddam was a symbol of the frustration of restraint.
The most revealing story in Hubris, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn is this: "'Do you want to know what the foreign policy of Iraq is to the United States?' Bush asked angrily.
The president then answered his own question by raising his middle finger and thrusting it inches in front of Sen. Daschle's face, according to a witness, ‘Fuck the United States!'
Bush continued. ‘That's what it is -- and that's why we're going to get him!'"
Saddam was protected by the most sacred tenet of international law: the sanctity of the sovereign state and its national boundaries.
Bluntly stated -- except in self-defense or with a Security Council resolution -- the invasion of foreign country is a war of aggression. A war of aggression is a war crime.
After World War II, we hung Germans and Japanese for doing that.
The principle was additionally codified in the UN Charter. The UN Charter has the status of a treaty.
According to the Constitution "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
The reason that starting a war -- a war of aggression -- is a war crime is that it contains within it all the other crimes of war.
If there was any doubt of the horrors released by war, or if we have somehow forgotten them, this war in Iraq is a clear reminder.
There have been somewhere between 70,000 and 600,000 more Iraqi deaths than there would have been if the regime of Saddam Hussein had continued.
Murder, dismemberment, rape, torture, bombings, disease and chaos are common fare.
There have been additional deaths from the lack of medical services and medical supplies, of electricity, clean water, transportation and emergency services. All of this clearly unleashed by the American invasion.
Nonetheless, this administration wanted a war.
So they invented a new theory of preventive war. If a country was run by someone who someday might have the weapons and the will to attack the United States, we could invade them now.
This is the equivalent of changing our criminal statutes to permit police to shoot someone down on the street because they feel they have reason to believe that if he could get a gun, he might likely decide to use it.
The actual facts of this case are even more extreme.
It was the equivalent of shooting someone who had just been searched and had policemen on either side of him who had been assigned to watch him to make sure he didn't get a gun.
It is true that the United States has gone to war on thin grounds before. But, with the exception of Grenada, rarely with so little excuse, and certainly not establishing far reaching new principles that tear down fundamentals of world order.
The intent was to remove all restraints against the use of military power. The administration wanted the world to know America was free to go to war anytime it wanted.
In the words of Richard Perle, "We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: 'You're next.'"
PART FOUR: THE IMPULSE REMAINS.
The War in Iraq is clearly a failure.
Instead of demonstrating American omnipotence -- as the world's sole remaining super power -- it sent the opposite message. Even a small, weak country, even in a nation in chaos, can fight the United States to a standstill.
Meanwhile, other states can freely pursue their ambitions, including nuclear ones, while Americans keep themselves busy trying to clear the highway to the airport of improvised explosive devices.
The right wing business mentality sees the world as a thing to be strip-mined to achieve the greatest profits, in the quickest way, for whoever can get their hands on them.
When they see something like the vast sums that pass through the social security system or imagine the oil wealth beneath the Alaskan wilderness they react like Ebenezer Scrooge looking at a pile of gold -- a big, big pile -- and they lunge forward, only to discover that there are chains on them, that keep all those riches just out of reach.
They don't stop and reflect that those chains are there for good reasons. If someone tells them the reasons, they don't believe them and make up other ones that involve extremists plotting to destroy the American way of life and our moral fiber.
The Bush Administration's great innovation was to stop seeing government as the enemy of wealth, but to see it as a tool to transfer wealth from normal people to the very rich.
They did this through tax policy, by running up debts, privatizing as many government functions as they could (the reconstruction of Iraq is the poster child for their successes), and by increasing the size of government so that there was more money to be handed out.
They were willing to throw away the chains that Republican believed in -- fiscal restraint, balanced budgets, smaller government -- to get at the gold piles.
The Republican congress enthusiastically went along with those programs and that transfer of wealth and with it, they hoped, a permanent transfer in power.
Presumably, the new majority doesn't see government that way.
They will put forth their own initiatives and resist the administration's plans.
However, the administration won't go away. The Republican minority won't roll over and die. The right-wing propaganda and spin industry won't pack it in.
The rich people, corporations and institutions who benefit from such policies aren't going to stop.
We are currently having something of a boom, at least in the financial markets.
Obviously, it has not been created by new industries, investment in infrastructure, or a widening of the middle class.
Where, then, is the money coming from? It seems obvious to me that it has been created primarily by hollowing out our assets. Both public and private.
Where is the mainstream school of economists who should be explaining that? Warning of its dangers? Offering alternatives?
Where are the academic departments and think tanks to house them and to publicize their views? Where are the formulas, slogans, catch-phrases and sound bites to make them easily understood and memorable?
In 2006, we had the vote in which the realists defeated the true believers.
True believers don't lose their beliefs.
Corporations don't lose the machinery by which they reach for power and influence.
The greedy don't lose their greed.
The corrupt don't attain purity.
2007 will be the year in which they fight back.
2007 will be a helluva fight; real madness
Bush was/is a debauched drop-down drunk and coke-head. He was the head cheerleader in prep school because he wasn't good enough to be a player. He was a failure in business and had to be bailed-out by his father or the Saudis.
In one of his companies he used the same tricks Ken Lay used at Enron. He was guilty of insider trading at one of his companies when he dumped his shares ahead of reporting a massive loss. He was never prosecuted because his father was Prez or Veep and the man who was head of the SEC investigation was Bush's personal lawyer. Bush is shameless and turned everything he's touched into a catastrophe.
But Bush is a greedy sadistic psychopath. He's used war to blunder the Treasury for himself, his family and the very rich and the filthy rich that he has proclaimed as his base.
Some say that the civil rights movement was only allowed to go as far as it did for PR for all the former colonies of non-whites who were gaining independence after WWII.
Besides capitalism was responsible for the Great Depression which only WWII brought the US out of and many of the ruling US elite expected an economic collapse without the stimulus of war. Besides most of the rest of the world was communist or socialist or wanted to be.
But the foundation of US capitalism was unmitigated greed so the ruling elite soon forgot about moderation and launched their all-out class war with Raygun.
"WHEN FASCISM COMES TO AMERICA, IT WILL BE WRAPPED IN THE FLAG, CARRYING A CROSS." ~ SINCLAIR LEWIS
I THINK I’LL STOP HERE! PM_ED.
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