In the wake of the disaster known as Brownie, Raw Story reports on a Time exposé of the other incompetent boobs Bush has appointed (or nominated) to head up various departments. Of the three mentioned at Raw Story, one thing I noticed is that all of them are in their 30s. Not to sound like some old granny (because they’re all older than me), but doesn’t that seem a little young to have garnered enough relevant experience to be head of, say, the FDA? These positions are usually filled with someone who has what would be considered closer to a lifetime of experience; something tells me the Bushies are starting to have trouble finding hacks with gravitas and at least some vaguely relevant experience who are willing to associate themselves with a flailing administration. Glug glug glug.
I’d throw you a life jacket, Mr. President, but due to budget cuts, my lifeboat doesn’t have them anymore.
Hacktastic
Bring the Troops Home Now
Apropos of Billmon’s post to which I linked earlier today, I understand the struggle to decide whether it’s both wiser and more ethical to stay in Iraq and finish what we started no matter what, or bring the troops home and put an end to our role in this disaster. Really, the only way I’ve found to help me sort it out for myself is answering the question: Are we making things better, or making things worse? Not being an expert on these matters, I have to rely on the assessments of those who are, and so I direct you to Juan Cole, who argues that yes, indeed, “the presence of the US ground troops is making things worse, not better.”
The Heretik notes, “WE DROWN IN MORAL QUICKSAND, our leaders convinced we can still build democratic sandcastles in the raging surf,” and offers an excellent round-up of others writing on the same topic.
I did not support the war, but once we were there, I hoped the Bush administration could make a success of it, and I held out hope that perhaps out of madness could come peace. Now I am resigned to the notion that no good can come of our staying in Iraq. I feel no joy in taking this position; I feel sad and defeated and so, so sorry for the mess we have made and the lives that have been lost. I know more will be lost if we leave, but staying will not prevent it either, and that is the great tragedy of this endeavor. We simply cannot win.
Scary
For a moment, I thought CNN had actually captured the Grim Reaper on film for the first time, hovering behind the president.
But then I realized it was just Chertoff.
Man Without a Home
If you’re a regular watcher of The Daily Show or Real Time with Bill Maher, you’ve had the fortune of seeing my fellow Hoosier Kurt Vonnegut talking about the current state of the country. He’s been on a book tour, promoting his newest, A Man Without a Country.
The title probably resonates with lots of disenfranchised liberals at the moment, as we all feel the America we want (and believe in) slipping away from us. At home, we don’t recognize our country anymore, this warring beast where contempt for justice and reason slithers through the populace like a virus; abroad, we watch as the separation between the American government and the American people which has always been graciously granted us slowly erodes, and our friends outside our borders wonder how far into the darkness of imperialism, anti-science and fundamental religiosity, and xenophobia we will sink, and whether we can ever recover. We turn our eyes to foreign shores, and see gay marriage and adoptions legalized in many European countries, universal healthcare for every citizen of every other industrialized country, cutting edge stem cell research being done in developing nations, and we feel our country being lost somewhere behind.
This notion of feeling as though perhaps I’d fit in better somewhere else, perhaps I’m not an American anymore because America doesn’t want someone like me, is perhaps my greatest grudge against our current president. It’s shameful that good and patriotic Americans are maligned, branded with treason, simply for having a different view of what America’s future could be. And so I reject the attempts to make me feel unwelcome in my own country, where the rich tradition of liberalism has seen us through our darkest days of slavery, restricting the right to vote to certain people, the Gilded Age of the robber barons, separate but equal, back alley abortions, and other various mistreatments of Americans who were made to feel this wasn’t their country, either.
Yesterday, I saw the following from Kevin Drum:
SKIN NOT FITTING SO WELL THESE DAYS?....George Bush demonstrates his keen sense of leadership:And you know what I thought? Good.
Bush was all set to fly to the storm area in Texas, where he planned to observe emergency personnel in action at a San Antonio supply depot. But that plan was scrubbed when the emergency operations group was moved closer to the coast.
Instead, Bush wound up going directly to Colorado, where the Defense Department's Northern Command — responsible for domestic troop deployments — is monitoring storm developments.
....Some obvious options for Bush were ruled out. He wouldn't stay in Washington, where demonstrators were massing for a huge protest against the Iraq war. He probably would avoid his ranch near Crawford, Texas, where he was criticized for spending the first few days of Katrina instead of visiting the disaster scene. He would want to show attention to the storm, but not get so close that he could become a distraction to rescue officials.Poor guy. He's got no place to call home.....
After five years of making those who disagree with him feel as though they aren’t welcome in their own country, after five years of letting his hacks and media operatives denounce his dissenters as traitors, after five years of screaming into the dark about issues that half the country cares about but he feels he does not have to represent or address, good that he has nowhere to go. Perhaps he’ll experience for an awkward day or two what it feels like to be a man who doesn’t feel secure in his surroundings anymore, a man who wonders what happened to the life he used to enjoy. And let us keep up the pressure, camping outside his ranch and the White House, reminding him that we are Americans and we have a voice that matters, too, for the rest of his administration. Let this man who endeavored to turn the opposition in men and women without a country be a man without a home for the remainder of his days as our dubious leader.
Get Your Peace On
More on the bit of commotion in DC this weekend, as 500,000 (C-SPAN estimate, via Truthout) pro-peace and/or anti-war protestors (or, approximately 37 nutzoid radicals, if you read most mainstream media coverage) converged to send a message to the Photo Op in Chief.
There’s plenty of coverage around the blogosphere. A couple of recommendations: BradBlog has some more great video and pictures (the above is one of his), Neddie Jingo recounts his experience, and AfterDowningStreet and Progressive Democrats of America have comprehensive coverage.
(Crossposted at Ezra's place.)
The Good Old Days Meme, or 23:5
Via Robert at Lawyers, Guns and Money:
Title of the 23rd post at Shakespeare’s Sister was Wanna Buy Some Wood? and it was authored by Mr. Furious. Fifth sentence was: It is the recognition of “Ah, you’re one of us, you’re a member of the club.”
Mr. F was speaking of watching the second presidential debate with a group of local strangers he met via johnkerry.com. Sigh.
Here’s the deal:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
Passed on to whomever wants to do it.
Curse the Sun
Definitive proof (as if we needed any) that the Bush administration cares hell and gone more about photo ops than about actually doing anything:
SAN ANTONIO, Sept. 23 - President Bush was supposed to land here on Friday afternoon on the first stop of a tour intended to make clear that he was personally overseeing the federal government's preparations for Hurricane Rita's landfall. But the weather did not cooperate.Yeesh. (Hat tip AMERICAblog.)
It was too sunny.
[…]
Another White House official involved in preparing Mr. Bush's way noted that with the sun shining so brightly in San Antonio, the images of Mr. Bush from here might not have made it clear to viewers that he was dealing with an approaching storm.
OMG—Can This Be True?!
The Observer (once again, we’ve got to get our news from Britain) reports that Bush’s charity fundraising effort to solicit donations from war supporters isn’t going so well.
An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337), The Observer has learnt…Ouch! Cernig at Newshog notes:
The public's reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration's attempt to offer citizens 'a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq' has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.
Insta-skinflint, Powerlame, Little Green Mothballs, Captains Sixteenths, QandBigO, Charging RI-NoMoney, My Vast Right Wing Bankruptcy....No shit. This is the first time our government has ever made an appeal to taxpayers to privately contribute foreign aid money, and it looks like quite the stinky flop. I guess all those war supporters aren’t too keen to pony up, evidently having used up their tax breaks to slather Support the Troops magnets on their bumpers. I mean, those are each a couple of bucks.
I could go on but I'm laughing too hard.
The chickenhawks are as unwilling to put their money where their mouths are as they are to put their necks on the line. Figures.
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Extraordinary Pro Peace Rally in DC
Today’s Pro Peace Rally in DC looks like it was amazing (particularly as compared to the administration’s limp wargasm recently).
More photos are here, and if you’d like to see video of some of the speakers, including Cindy Sheehan, head on over to BradBlog. For more great blogging of the event, also check out Truthout and Democracy Cell Project.
More photos at BradBlog here.
Head of FDA Resigns
Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye.
(Don't know if he's being forced out, or if the rats are starting to jump ship.)
Dem with a Dream
It might be a dream that will die a quick death, but behind it is exactly the kind of vision I’m talking about when I say the Dems need to stake out their own territory.
In what peace activists call a milestone, Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., introduced legislation Thursday supporting a long-shot citizen lobbying effort to create a U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence.The project has a proposed budget of $8 billion annually, which is two percent of the Pentagon’s defense budget. The GOP is of course dismissing it as “a naïve and unreasonable approach to dealing with the problems of the 21st century, including international terrorism” and an idea spawned of “liberal extremists.” The first charge requires a bit of nuance, explaining how diplomacy indeed does have a role in combating terrorism, especially with the leadership of countries in which terrorism has fertile soil, but the second one is easily countered: Since when are the ideas of peace, human rights, and justice extreme?
He is the first and, so far, only member of the U.S. Senate to publicly endorse the plan.
A remnant of the quixotic 2004 presidential candidacy of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the idea of a "Peace Department" has been derided by critics as utopian and naïve, while supporters say it is an idea whose time has come.
Almost half of Minnesota's congressional delegation -- all the Democrats but one -- have lined up in support of the campaign, which calls for a cabinet-level secretary to develop an array of policies from international conflict-resolution to reducing domestic abuse and violence against animals.
Nobody gives the plan much of a chance in a Republican Congress. But backers in Minnesota -- where Kucinich turned in one of his best electoral performances -- say their support is intended as a political statement.
"It sends the right message," said Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn. "It's about promoting justice, expanding human rights and preventing conflict."
[…]
Minnesota is one of 12 states whose Democratic Party has endorsed the plan.
The idea of peace is only extreme to warmongers.
Galloway
Tonight, George Galloway is scheduled to be one of the guests on Bill Maher's show. In anticipation of that appearance, I want to share an article forwarded to me by Shaker Deborah, written by Greg Palast. It's a different perspective on Galloway, who has told the Independent newspaper, "I'm not as Left-wing as you think." It seems he isn't, and perhaps ought well be taken with a grain of salt. Make of it what you will.
"Religious Right" Now Wrong?
This is one of the most idiotic articles I’ve read in awhile. I was going to write a post about how thoroughly stupid it is, except I see that Pam already has, so go read her spot-on analysis.
Something else besides the general faulty reasoning and disingenuous bullshit throughout that struck me, though, was this line (emphasis mine):
The growing polarization of American politics has taken root within gay America as well. The explosion of liberal gay bloggers, many of whom spend about as much time on the “gray” of most issues as Rush Limbaugh and his “dittoheads,” has only exacerbated the proud queer tradition of disdain for gay Republicans (“Nazi Jews”) and the caricature of conservative Christians (“religious right,” “religious political extremists”).This isn’t the first time lately I’ve heard someone suggest that the term “religious right” is somehow a pejorative or mocking term for conservative Christians. In fact, I think very recently one of Bill Maher’s guests—can’t recall who—accused Maher of being condescending when he referred to conservative Christians as the “religious right" (he seemed as surprised at the accusation as I was watching it). Now perhaps I’m being thick-skulled (it certainly wouldn’t be the first time), but I honestly can’t understand how that term can be construed as insulting. (To be honest, I’m having a hard time comprehending how “religious political extremists” is insulting, either. I’ve been called a “secular political extremist,” which I find less an offensive characterization than an inaccurate one, but in the end, I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.) Anyway, I was also under the impression that conservative Christians often (and perhaps first) referred to themselves as the religious right, so how it has suddenly become a caricature is beyond me. I’ve also never felt as if I were using a derogatory term when I used the “religious right” to reference conservative Christians, and, in fact, favored it, because there are indeed some conservative Jews and Muslims who vote on “values” in alignment with conservative Christians.
Has anyone else noticed this anywhere? Any thoughts? Am I just missing something? Is this some new talking point addressing a poll that showed “conservative Christian” seems less like the kind of person who wants to infuse religion into science classes than “religious right” does? What’s up?
Pay for Pray
Yeesh. (And here, too.)
Can I talk anyone into opening up the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Daycare for Little Pastafarians with me and see how far we get when we request federal funding?
So What Are the Dems Up To?
In follow-up to the hot discussion going on over Bye, Blue?, here’s what the Dems are working on for the 2006 mid-terms, for your consideration:
Senate Democrats have come up with five issue areas that candidates will focus on in the 2006 races, “but are still sorting out who will spearhead each issue and what the overarching message theme will be,” according to Roll Call.I like health care as an issue. The reason I like it is because it’s firmly a progressive issue. Even though Bush passed his idiotic, corporate-welfare Medicaid reform bill, I sincerely doubt there’s anyone with two brain cells still knocking around between their ears who believes it was illustrative of a GOP determination to solve the health care crisis in America.
The issues: National security, energy independence, economic strength, retirement security and health care.
“Five different Senators and their chiefs of staff will be designated to lead each effort in what Democratic leaders hope will be a successful repeat of the campaign against President Bush’s plans to overhaul Social Security, an effort led by” Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and his chief of staff.
The other four are issues for which it’s necessary that the Democrats have a solid plan and a cohesive, easily-communicated message. But they’re not inspiring, are they? And that’s because they’re Republican issues. The Dems need to provide an alternative agenda on national security, energy independence, economic strength, and retirement security, but when the nebulous terms are reduced into what they really mean—the Iraq War, oil prices, taxes, and social security—it’s readily apparent that this is a reactionary platform. They’re still letting the GOP control the discussion.
Instead of making those the focus, their positions on those issues should be woven into a comprehensive platform, the centerpiece of which is instead five plainly stated progressive issues: nationalized health care, aggressively addressing endemic poverty, engaging global environmental alliances, voting reform, and reforming school funding (as in, schools no longer primarily funded by property taxes, which creates the disparities we see between rich and poor communities).
Or whatever. Those were just the first five off the top of my head. You could substitute broadening workers’ rights and/or family leave, a 21st century civil rights act, securing a Constitutionally protected right to choice, a compulsory national service plan (in which kids out of high school serve for 2 years in the military, the Peace Corps, a domestic emergency response core, whatever)…I mean, it could be anything. Just something new and exciting—something that will make people pay attention and change the discussion. Something that forces the Republicans to come up with an alternative plan for a bloody change. The Left needs to be vital, and there is vitality in new ideas.
Come on, Dems. Give us something about which to be enthusiastic. Finally coming up with your own message on the GOP’s issues ain’t gonna do it.
Filled With Christ’s Love
Shameless bigots, all in the name of the Lord:
A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter.Yeah, the parents sound like real freaks:
Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday.
"Your family does not meet the policies of admission," Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother.
Stob wrote that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship," The Los Angeles Times reported in Friday's edition.
Clark and her partner have been together 22 years and have two other daughters, ages 9 and 19.I wonder what their policy would be for a kid conceived out of wedlock to a teenage mother who claimed God was the father.
The Amazing Fristini, Part 2
I think the Amazing Fristini might need to do the old disappearing act pretty soon, if he doesn’t want to end up doing the old be-your-cellmate’s-bitch act. Ol Cranky reports: “Wow, the feds actually issued a subpoena to HCA related to an investigation of Bill Frist's order to unload HCA stock holdings.” We shan’t hold our collective breath that Frist will get the Big Boot of Justice firmly implanted upon his skinny behind, of course, because he’s a GOP tool (in addition to being just generally a tool), and because of the convoluted relationship between Frist and HCA, as the Dark Wraith explains. Nonetheless, I’ll give the Wraith the last word on this one, as his sentiment has the appropriate tone for the circumstance: “Whether or not Mr. Frist was privy to and used insider information prior to its public promulgation is unknown; but it is clear that those who remained shareholders of the corporation subsequent to the disposition of HCA stock by the WH Frist 2000 Qualified Blind Trust suffered losses that Mr. Frist, his wife, and his children did not.” You be da judge.
Friday Blogrollin'
This is another week of long overdue additions. Take a moment and check out these great bloggers:
And, as always, recommend your own blog in comments. (I do pay attention, and I do add people to my neverending list of blogs that will end up on the blogroll, slowly but surely...)
Katrina Conference Calls
This is pretty amazing. Leading up to Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast, local, state, and federal officials held a series of conference calls to discuss emergency plans, evacuations, supplies, coordination, etc. The emergency manager for Jefferson Parish, Walter Maestri, recorded the calls and has given them to NPR.
On the way into work, I heard excerpts from some of the calls, which confirm that the problems were on every level of government. Perhaps the most amazing thing, however, was listening to what I think was the last call before the storm hit, during which Jeff Smith, the deputy director of Louisiana's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (whose role is to coordinate between the Military Department in New Orleans, the Governor's Office, the Legislature, our Congressional staff, State officials, Parish and City officials, Parish Emergency Directors, individual citizens and FEMA), tells them to request everything they need on some computer program designed for that purpose, and they’ll get it. The next call doesn’t happen until Sept. 9, and when Maestri asks where the FEMA generator packs they were promised are, Smith tells him “that’s a good question,” and when Maestri then angrily complains about how FEMA ballyhooed during planning exercises that they would be ready in a moment’s notice but “now that we’re on our knees” they’re nowhere to be found, Smith assures him “there will be time for that kind of rhetoric later.” It’s really unbelievable. NPR’s got all the calls available (or will have soon).
