The Wiretappers That Couldn't Shoot Straight
by Frank Rich
Almost two weeks before The New York Times published its scoop about our government's extralegal wiretapping, the cable network Showtime blew the whole top-secret shebang. In its mini-series "Sleeper Cell," about Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in Los Angeles, the cell's ringleader berates an underling for chatting about an impending operation during a phone conversation with an uncle in Egypt. "We can only pray that the N.S.A. is not listening," the leader yells at the miscreant, who is then stoned for his blabbing.
If fictional terrorists concocted by Hollywood can figure out that the National Security Agency is listening to their every call, guess what? Real-life terrorists know this, too. So when a hyperventilating President Bush rants that the exposure of his warrant-free wiretapping in a newspaper is shameful and puts "our citizens at risk" by revealing our espionage playbook, you have to wonder what he is really trying to hide. Our enemies, as America has learned the hard way, are not morons. Even if Al Qaeda hasn't seen "Sleeper Cell" because it refuses to spring for pay cable, it has surely assumed from the get-go that the White House would ignore legal restraints on eavesdropping, just as it has on detainee jurisprudence and torture.
That the White House's over-the-top outrage about the Times scoop is a smokescreen contrived to cover up something else is only confirmed by Dick Cheney's disingenuousness. In last week's oration at a right-wing think tank, he defended warrant-free wiretapping by saying it could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Really? Not with this administration in charge. On 9/10 the N.S.A. (lawfully) intercepted messages in Arabic saying, "The match is about to begin," and, "Tomorrow is zero hour." You know the rest. Like all the chatter our government picked up during the president's excellent brush-clearing Crawford vacation of 2001, it was relegated to mañana; the N.S.A. didn't rouse itself to translate those warnings until 9/12.
Given that the reporters on the Times story, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, wrote that nearly a dozen current and former officials had served as their sources, there may be more leaks to come, and not just to The Times. Sooner or later we'll find out what the White House is really so defensive about.
[...]
The warrantless eavesdropping is more of the same incompetence. Like our physical abuse of detainees and our denial of their access to due process, this flouting of the law may yet do as much damage to fighting the war on terrorism as it does to civil liberties. As the First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus wrote in The Huffington Post, every defense lawyer representing a terrorism suspect charged in the four years since Mr. Bush's N.S.A. decree can challenge the legality of the prosecution's evidence. "The entire criminal process will be brought to a standstill," Mr. Garbus explains, as the government refuses to give the courts information on national security grounds, inviting the dismissal of entire cases, and judges "up and down the appellate ladder" issue conflicting rulings.
Far from "bringing justice to our enemies," as Mr. Bush is fond of saying, he may once again be helping them escape the way he did at Tora Bora. The president who once promised to bring a "culture of responsibility" to Washington can and will blame The Times and the rest of the press for his failures. But maybe, if only for variety's sake, the moment has come to find a new scapegoat. I nominate Showtime.
Read the whole thing. .
Frank Rich Bush Wiretapping Eavesdropping Rich
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Author of Bush's Brain on No Fly List
You can't make this stuff up.
James Moore (note the scary anglo name), co-author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential
is on the No Fly List.What's even scarier is - Moore is working on a new book, all about the misery that King George and Turdblossom have wrought.
Once again, we are left with that weighty question: Is our government run by vengeful and incompetent men?
Duh.
Kevin at Leanleft has some thoughts on the subject.
Hat tip to Bring It On
Bush Turdblossom Rove Bush's Brain
Bad News for Republicans Weekend Round-up
Americans Died for Lack of Body Armor
The New York Times reports that a Pentagon study confirms what most of us already knew -- when it comes to safeguarding the health and lives of its people, the U.S. Government is doin' a heckuva job. "A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor." (via Talkleft)
Republicans Ditch Delay
Republicans are so freaked by the Abramoff scandal that they have begun to band together to drive Delay out. As they wait for heads to roll, perhaps they might consider passing legislation mandating Delay's early retirement to a nice leper colony. The word is as many as three of DeLay's "former senior staff members have admitted or have been implicated in corrupt and illegal activities to get money for themselves by influencing legislation." And Abramoff still has some talking to do.
Republican Loses Votes of Cold Beer Drinkers
Republican State Sen. Bill Alter is trying to make it illegal for stores in Missouri to sell cold beer. This must be a new vote getting strategy. What? Did somebody do a study finding that only Dems drink cold beer? I don't think so. The Republican lawmaker said he got the idea from a fifth-grade student, but we think he is the fifth-grade student.
Warrantless Spying Conflicts with Existing Law
A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concludes that Bushie's justification for his warrantless spy policy "conflicts with existing laws and hinges on weak legal arguments. . . . The report includes 1970s-era quotations from congressional committees that were then uncovering years of domestic spying abuses by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI against those suspected of communist sympathies, American Indians, Black Panthers and other activists. Lawmakers were very disturbed at how routinely FBI agents had listened in on U.S. citizens' phone calls without following any formal procedures. As they drafted FISA and created its court, the lawmakers warned then that only strong legislation, debated in public, could stop future administrations from eavesdropping." Yep, this was the thinking in the pre Bush days.
Poll Finds Most Americans Prefer Dems
An AP-Ipsos poll finds that the majority of Americans are ready for a new majority party in Congress. Democrats are favored over Republicans 49 percent to 36 percent. Bushie's job approval is stuck in the low 40s in the AP-Ipsos poll. Republican scandals are still developing, and erupting, so things can always get worse yet for the Dark Side.
Bush Delay Body Armor Abramoff Bill Alter Scandal Spying Republican Corruption
Impeach is the Word - Jan. 8th & 9th
Freeway Blogger wants you to put up a sign somewhere, anywhere, and tell the world that we are serious about this impeachment thing.
Just do it. If you can't get out to the highways, put it on a bulletin board.
Does Walmart have a bulletin board?
Hat tip to The Era
Bush Impeach Bush King George Freeway Blogger Republican Corruption
When You Can't Reach Your Pepper Spray
Pricey, but very cool.
Ring-size brass knuckles, or Subtle Safety.
Hat tip to Jessica at Feministing
Patriarchy Sexual assault Self Defense Ring Violence Against Women
Dowd: Reach Out and Touch No One
In today's column (pasted below), Dowd addresses Bushie's amazing photo-op with 13 present and former secretaries of state and defense. The Bushies spun the gathering as King George's magnanimous bipartisan effort to reach out and prove that the Bushie does not really reside inside a bubble. It was said that Bushie was genuinely seeking advice from experts outside the borders of the Dark Side.
Bubble Boy permitted the entire prestigous group to commune with him for a full 5 to 10 minutes. Whereupon the Boy King put them where he wanted them, inside the photo-op.
Before you read Dowd's column, you might want to check out the news story about the photo-op. It begins: "Colin L. Powell said nothing - a silence that spoke volumes to many in the White House on Thursday morning."
Reach Out and Touch No One
By Maureen Dowd
Doing the math, you've got to figure that the 12 wise men and one wise woman had about 30 seconds apiece to say their piece to the president about Iraq, where vicious assaults this week have killed almost 200 and raised U.S. troop fatalities to at least 2,189.
It must have been like a performance by the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which boils down the great plays and books to their essence. Proust is "I like cookies." Othello raps that he left Desdemona "all alona, didn't telephona." "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" condense into "The Idiodity." "Henry V" is "A king's gotta do what a king's gotta do," and "Antony and Cleopatra" is "Never get involved in Middle Eastern affairs."
Beyond taking a class picture ringed around Mr. Bush's bizarrely empty desk - a mesmerizing blend of "Sunset Boulevard," "The Last Supper" and a "Sopranos" ad - the former secretaries of state and defense had to make the most of their brief colloquy with W.
The spectral Robert McNamara might have enlightened on Vietnam: "Didn't understand the culture. Misjudged the opposition. Didn't know when to get out." If he was a fast talker, he could have added: "It's the dominoes. If Iraq falls, then Syria falls, then Lebanon falls, and before you know it, all of Southeast Asia - I mean, the Middle East - will fall."
Melvin Laird only needed to add: "Ditto."
Al Haig's summation would have been a cinch: "I resign. I'm in charge here. I resign - again."
Instead of his good-soldier silence, Colin Powell could have redeemed himself with four words: "I should have resigned."
Madeleine Albright might have succinctly imparted some wisdom from Somalia and Rwanda: "Didn't understand the culture. Misjudged the threat. Didn't know when to get in."
James Baker, Svengali and Sphinx, must have been thinking: "I told your dad not to let you in here. I could tell you how to get of Iraq in 10 minutes, but you're too under the sway of that nutball Cheney to listen."
George Shultz only needed to say: "I have a tiger tattooed on my fanny," and Lawrence Eagleburger could have abridged his thoughts to "I need a smoke. Bad."
It may seem disturbing at first, that with several hundreds of years' worth of foreign policy at his elbows, and a bloody, thorny mess in Iraq, Mr. Bush would devote mere moments to letting some fresh air into his House of Pain.
Sure, he has A.D.D. But he just spent six straight days mountain-biking and brush clearing in Crawford. He couldn't devote 60 minutes to getting our kids home rather than just a few for a "Message: I Care" photo-op faking sincerity?
"We all went into the bubble and came out," one of the wise men noted.
Mr. Eagleburger explained their role as props, saying it was hard to volubly express yourself with a president. "There was some criticism, but it was basically 'You haven't talked to the American people enough.' " Lighting a cigarette on the way out - he'd thrown one in the bushes on the way in - he added the world-weary coda: "We're all has-beens anyway."
Mr. Eagleburger knows the truth. If W. had wanted to really reach out, rather than just pretend to reach out so that his poll numbers would go up, he would have sought advice outside his warped inner circle long ago - including from his own father.
Because W.'s mind is so closed to anybody except yes-men who tell him his policies and wars are slam-dunks, uneasy seasoned mandarins are forced to make a noisy stink. Brent Scowcroft, one of Bush Senior's closest friends, had to resort to the pages of The New Yorker to voice his objections. He ominously said Dick Cheney, his old colleague, was someone he no longer recognized.
You wonder whether the other contemporaries of Cheney and Rummy from Ford, Reagan and Bush I days were thinking the same thing at Thursday's meeting: Why have these guys gone so kooky?
W. is drunk on Cheney Kool-Aid. So he got testy when Ms. Albright pointed out that North Korea and Iran were going nuclear while the U.S. was bogged down in Baghdad. Then, after a quick photo in the Oval, he shooed the old-timers out, letting anyone who wanted to stay talk to the security factotum Stephen Hadley.
Still busy spreading fog over the war, W., Cheney, Rummy and Condi had no time to hear McNamara expound on the fog of war. In the picture, as Ms. Albright cringes, Mr. McNamara looks haunted, unable to escape second-guessing over Vietnam.
The only thing that would have made the photo even more utterly phony was the presence of that vintage warmonger, Henry the K.
Maureen Dowd Bush Dowd Bush Photo-Op King George
Bubble Boy permitted the entire prestigous group to commune with him for a full 5 to 10 minutes. Whereupon the Boy King put them where he wanted them, inside the photo-op.
Before you read Dowd's column, you might want to check out the news story about the photo-op. It begins: "Colin L. Powell said nothing - a silence that spoke volumes to many in the White House on Thursday morning."
Reach Out and Touch No One
By Maureen Dowd
Doing the math, you've got to figure that the 12 wise men and one wise woman had about 30 seconds apiece to say their piece to the president about Iraq, where vicious assaults this week have killed almost 200 and raised U.S. troop fatalities to at least 2,189.
It must have been like a performance by the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which boils down the great plays and books to their essence. Proust is "I like cookies." Othello raps that he left Desdemona "all alona, didn't telephona." "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" condense into "The Idiodity." "Henry V" is "A king's gotta do what a king's gotta do," and "Antony and Cleopatra" is "Never get involved in Middle Eastern affairs."
Beyond taking a class picture ringed around Mr. Bush's bizarrely empty desk - a mesmerizing blend of "Sunset Boulevard," "The Last Supper" and a "Sopranos" ad - the former secretaries of state and defense had to make the most of their brief colloquy with W.
The spectral Robert McNamara might have enlightened on Vietnam: "Didn't understand the culture. Misjudged the opposition. Didn't know when to get out." If he was a fast talker, he could have added: "It's the dominoes. If Iraq falls, then Syria falls, then Lebanon falls, and before you know it, all of Southeast Asia - I mean, the Middle East - will fall."
Melvin Laird only needed to add: "Ditto."
Al Haig's summation would have been a cinch: "I resign. I'm in charge here. I resign - again."
Instead of his good-soldier silence, Colin Powell could have redeemed himself with four words: "I should have resigned."
Madeleine Albright might have succinctly imparted some wisdom from Somalia and Rwanda: "Didn't understand the culture. Misjudged the threat. Didn't know when to get in."
James Baker, Svengali and Sphinx, must have been thinking: "I told your dad not to let you in here. I could tell you how to get of Iraq in 10 minutes, but you're too under the sway of that nutball Cheney to listen."
George Shultz only needed to say: "I have a tiger tattooed on my fanny," and Lawrence Eagleburger could have abridged his thoughts to "I need a smoke. Bad."
It may seem disturbing at first, that with several hundreds of years' worth of foreign policy at his elbows, and a bloody, thorny mess in Iraq, Mr. Bush would devote mere moments to letting some fresh air into his House of Pain.
Sure, he has A.D.D. But he just spent six straight days mountain-biking and brush clearing in Crawford. He couldn't devote 60 minutes to getting our kids home rather than just a few for a "Message: I Care" photo-op faking sincerity?
"We all went into the bubble and came out," one of the wise men noted.
Mr. Eagleburger explained their role as props, saying it was hard to volubly express yourself with a president. "There was some criticism, but it was basically 'You haven't talked to the American people enough.' " Lighting a cigarette on the way out - he'd thrown one in the bushes on the way in - he added the world-weary coda: "We're all has-beens anyway."
Mr. Eagleburger knows the truth. If W. had wanted to really reach out, rather than just pretend to reach out so that his poll numbers would go up, he would have sought advice outside his warped inner circle long ago - including from his own father.
Because W.'s mind is so closed to anybody except yes-men who tell him his policies and wars are slam-dunks, uneasy seasoned mandarins are forced to make a noisy stink. Brent Scowcroft, one of Bush Senior's closest friends, had to resort to the pages of The New Yorker to voice his objections. He ominously said Dick Cheney, his old colleague, was someone he no longer recognized.
You wonder whether the other contemporaries of Cheney and Rummy from Ford, Reagan and Bush I days were thinking the same thing at Thursday's meeting: Why have these guys gone so kooky?
W. is drunk on Cheney Kool-Aid. So he got testy when Ms. Albright pointed out that North Korea and Iran were going nuclear while the U.S. was bogged down in Baghdad. Then, after a quick photo in the Oval, he shooed the old-timers out, letting anyone who wanted to stay talk to the security factotum Stephen Hadley.
Still busy spreading fog over the war, W., Cheney, Rummy and Condi had no time to hear McNamara expound on the fog of war. In the picture, as Ms. Albright cringes, Mr. McNamara looks haunted, unable to escape second-guessing over Vietnam.
The only thing that would have made the photo even more utterly phony was the presence of that vintage warmonger, Henry the K.
Maureen Dowd Bush Dowd Bush Photo-Op King George
Friday, January 06, 2006
Your Phone Records Are for Sale
This is scary, and it doesn't make me feel any better to discover that Locatecell.com is operating out of the red state of Tennessee.
Does this mean I can find out if my Congressmen have been talking to Jack Abramoff?
Tennessee Phone Records Privacy Rights
Does this mean I can find out if my Congressmen have been talking to Jack Abramoff?
The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone -- for a price. . . To test the service, the FBI paid Locatecell.com $160 to buy the records for an agent's cell phone and received the list within three hours, the police bulletin said. Representatives of Data Find Solutions Inc., the Tennessee-based operator of Locatecell.com, could not be reached for comment. . .
How well do the services work? The Chicago Sun-Times paid $110 to Locatecell.com to purchase a one-month record of calls for this reporter's company cell phone. It was as simple as e-mailing the telephone number to the service along with a credit card number. The request was made Friday after the service was closed for the New Year's holiday.
On Tuesday, when it reopened, Locatecell.com e-mailed a list of 78 telephone numbers this reporter called on his cell phone between Nov. 19 and Dec. 17. The list included calls to law enforcement sources, story subjects and other Sun-Times reporters and editors.
Tennessee Phone Records Privacy Rights
Thoughts on Alito
by Guest Blogger, MzNicky
Confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito, Bush’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court, will begin next Monday, when our elected representatives are scheduled to straggle back into their DC offices and once again set about the People's Business.
To the Judiciary Committee’s already-full plate of questions for the would-be Supreme has been added Alito’s attitude toward the suddenly-relevant issue of unapproved wiretapping, a case for which he wrote a sympathetic memo in 1984 that favored John Mitchell, Nixon’s disgraced former Attorney General.
Look for Bushies and their media apologists to split hairs and throw red herrings, dismissing Alito’s bolstering of overweening executive privilege as issuing from a civil monetary suit and thus worthy of dismissal.
If Alito’s known determination to, among other things, infantilize and marginalize women isn’t bad enough, consider this: It’s not without the realm of possibility that, should he be confirmed, he’ll be on the Supreme Court when some very similar cases rebounding from the illegal activities of the current Justice Department wend their way up the judicial food chain and land on his plate.
Supreme Court Alito Scalito Bush Eavesdropping
Posted by egalia for MzNicky
Confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito, Bush’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court, will begin next Monday, when our elected representatives are scheduled to straggle back into their DC offices and once again set about the People's Business.
To the Judiciary Committee’s already-full plate of questions for the would-be Supreme has been added Alito’s attitude toward the suddenly-relevant issue of unapproved wiretapping, a case for which he wrote a sympathetic memo in 1984 that favored John Mitchell, Nixon’s disgraced former Attorney General.
Look for Bushies and their media apologists to split hairs and throw red herrings, dismissing Alito’s bolstering of overweening executive privilege as issuing from a civil monetary suit and thus worthy of dismissal.
If Alito’s known determination to, among other things, infantilize and marginalize women isn’t bad enough, consider this: It’s not without the realm of possibility that, should he be confirmed, he’ll be on the Supreme Court when some very similar cases rebounding from the illegal activities of the current Justice Department wend their way up the judicial food chain and land on his plate.
Supreme Court Alito Scalito Bush Eavesdropping
Posted by egalia for MzNicky
Quote of the Day: Mommy Wars
"Have you ever wondered why there are no Father Wars? Because they don't need each other as much as mothers do. They have wives to back them up. We have each other."
From an essay arguing that the Mommy Wars are a media concoction that harms all mothers, Jen Singer is a stay-at-home mom from New Jersey and the author of 14 Hours 'Til Bedtime, a humorous book about the life of a stay-at-home mom.
Hat tip to Imponderabilia
Mommy Wars Feminism Gender
--Jen Singer
From an essay arguing that the Mommy Wars are a media concoction that harms all mothers, Jen Singer is a stay-at-home mom from New Jersey and the author of 14 Hours 'Til Bedtime,
a humorous book about the life of a stay-at-home mom. Hat tip to Imponderabilia
Mommy Wars Feminism Gender
A Heckuva Job Hastert & Other Bush Jokes
The Spy In Chief is speaking again, if you want to call it that. He's on CNN. Apparently, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is about to resign, or something like that, cuz Bushie just said .... "He's doin' a heckuva job as speaker of the House of Representatives."
Hastert, your days are numbered.
You can't make this stuff up.
In all honesty, Bushie did appear to have a deer in the headlights moment once it dawned on him what it was he said.
On a related note, Jay Leno knows why Bushie is doing better in the polls:
"Well, actually, according to a new poll, President Bush's approval rating is on the rise. A lot of those polls are phone polls. People are worried Bush is listening.”
And, from David Letterman:
"Donald Trump running for president. I blame George Bush. He lowered the standard."
Bush Bush speech Bush joke Hastert Letterman Leno
Hastert, your days are numbered.
You can't make this stuff up.
In all honesty, Bushie did appear to have a deer in the headlights moment once it dawned on him what it was he said.
On a related note, Jay Leno knows why Bushie is doing better in the polls:
"Well, actually, according to a new poll, President Bush's approval rating is on the rise. A lot of those polls are phone polls. People are worried Bush is listening.”
And, from David Letterman:
"Donald Trump running for president. I blame George Bush. He lowered the standard."
Bush Bush speech Bush joke Hastert Letterman Leno
How Many Brownies Can We Afford?
While Congress was in recess, Bushie made the point that in his regime there is no recess for cronyism. The Philadelphia Daily News has some strong words for King George. The editorial points out that it is not just Dems who have qualms about Bushie's sneaky recess appointments. There are even Republicans who fear and dread the consequences of having too many Brownie's at the helm.
BUSH STIFFS CONGRESS WITH RECESS APPOINTMENTS
ADMIRE, if you will, the chutzpah of President Bush.
While Congress is in recess, Bush Wednesday appointed a breaktaking 17 people to government positions that normally require Senate confirmation. Many of these appointments have been controversial for liberals and conservatives alike, and some were already in trouble with senators dubious about the qualifications of the candidates. After the debacle of Michael Brown and FEMA in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, there was no desire for a repeat.
But with these recess appointments, Bush has sidestepped congressional oversight, much the same way he sidestepped judicial oversight with his secret domestic wire-tapping scheme. Sense a pattern?
And just like the secret wire-tapping of U.S. citizens, this latest move doesn't stand up under scrutiny.
Take for instance the appointment of Julie Myers to head Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Conservatives who have been arguing that the borders need to be better policed to prevent illegal aliens and terrorists from slipping into the country are aghast that Myers, a political hack, has been appointed. . . .
Given our standing in the world, can we afford a clone of Michael Brown on a global scale?
Bush Recess appointments Brownie Republican Corruption
New Bush/Nixon Snoopgate Ad
You can see the new DNC Bush/Nixon ad over at Crooks & Liars - in which Bushie sounds a whole lot like Tricky Dick.
Bush Video Snoopgate
Abramoff & Delay Skin Trade Adventures
I'm happy to say that MzNicky will be doing some guest blogging at TGW, starting today! Following is one of her first posts (which I mistakenly attributed to Al Franken earlier this am, sorry about that MzNicky.)
The following post draws from Al Franken's book, The Truth (With Jokes)
Tom and Jack’s Excellent Adventure in the Skin Trade
by MzNicky
The South Pacific island of Saipan, along with its neighbors, has been known since 1986 as the American Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Its inhabitants boast US citizenship, as like much of the rest of the US, its population includes immigrants from other lands, such as China, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
Unlike for other US citizens, however, the minimum wage in this tropical paradise is $3.15 per hour. Also unlike for other US citizens, for the mostly-female laborers in what one might term the “sweatshops” of this American Commonwealth, the workday often lasts 14 hours, and the workers are housed in rat-infested barracks with contaminated water. (Their working status has been characterized by one government official as being, basically, “indentured servants.” As in, slaves.) But not only do these women—some as young as age 14— spend their days producing garments that will subsequently bear the “Made in the USA” label, they also function as “involuntary sex slaves, servicing government officials, sailors on shore leave, and Japanese businessmen.”
So why isn’t something being done about this? Well, something was being done about it, at one time, back in the 1990s. Reports of these abuses had received attention on Capitol Hill, but somehow, any proposed legislation to institute worker protections in Saipan got all tangled up in committee and just never saw the light of day.
That’s because, uncoincidentally, not long after the 1994 Congressional elections brought Tom DeLay into prominence, 80 or so “conservative junketeers” visited the American Commonwealth in the mid-90s, playing golf and otherwise enjoying themselves at the Hyatt Regency Saipan, courtesy of one Jack Abramoff’s arranging for the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association and the CNMI government to pick up the tab.
Also uncoincidentally, the Mariana Islands was the vacation destination of choice for Tom DeLay and his family, where they enjoyed an all-expenses-paid Christmas holiday in 1997. According to Brian Ross of ABC News’ 20/20, who originally reported on the story in 1998 and 1999, the head of the Saipan garment manufacturers, Willie Tan, bragged to an undercover reporter for the Global Survival Network that he was "close to Delay" and that his new pal had assured Tan that “the proposed laws on Saipan would be killed.”
In 1998, DeLay gave credit where credit’s due: “When one of my closest and dearest friends, Jack Abramoff, your most able representative in Washington, DC, invited me to the islands, I wanted to see firsthand the free market success and the progress and reform you have made.” DeLay’s close, dear friend, Jack Abramoff, received $7 million for services rendered in the Saipan adventures.
Delay Abramoff Culture of Corruption Al Franken
Posted by egalia for MzNicky
Heroines and Heroes of 2005
by MzNicky
So many foul deeds and episodes of mass destruction, both foreign and domestic, occurred during Year V of King George II’s reign of terror that 2005 was a long, long year, indeed. The MSM and the blogosphere have been clogged with lists of “Top Wankers of the Year” and “Most Memorable (i.e., horrifying) Event of 2005,” déja-vuing some of us into such retroactive repulsion that a New Year’s Eve hangover wasn’t the only reason we could scarcely lift our heads the next morning.
As an antidote, and as a reminder that not all hope is lost, here is a list of some of the heroines and heroes of the year just past. Let’s recognize and remember those who have managed to keep their wits about them, maintain their integrity, and retain truly patriotic backbone while all about them were losing theirs.
1) Cindy Sheehan
Aghast at the supercilious treatment the President afforded her as he went through the motions of expressing sympathy over the death of her son, Casey, in the war in Iraq; enraged when the President subsequently called the war a “noble cause”; and determined to publicly denounce the wholesale slaughter of American troops (now 2,000-plus and counting) for the fiasco that it is, Sheehan nearly single-handedly jump-started the antiwar movement in the US in August 2005. By camping out near the “Western White House” in Crawford, Texas, during the President’s five-week vacation and refusing to budge, even as the usual suspects set about their tasks of defaming and ridiculing her and (of course) calling her a “traitor,” Sheehan drew hundreds of like-minded protesters to Crawford, tapped into a wellspring of resentment and silenced criticism of the Iraq debacle, and forced the fact of antiwar dissent into the public dialog.
2) Patrick Fitzgerald
Special Counsel Fitzgerald spent two long years meticulously piecing together the origins of the Valerie Plame scandal, despite executive-branch stonewalling and media-whore obfuscating. In October Fitzgerald indicted Scooter Libby, VP Cheney’s chief of staff, for, among other things, lying under oath and obstructing justice; at year’s end, he was still doggedly pursuing others instrumental in the outing of a CIA agent.
3) James Comey
Being the No.-2 guy in the Bush administration’s Justice Department finally proved too much for James Comey, who resigned his position in March 2005. But not before he 1) went to John Ashcroft in December of 2003 and told him he had to recuse himself from the CIA leak investigation; 2) refused, as acting AG, to sign off on key parts of the administration’s now-notorious warrantless wiretapping program, and 3) not only appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the Plamegate leak scandal, but also thwarted the Bush administration’s efforts to install one of their own as Fitzgerald’s overseer, choosing instead the apparently non-ethically-challenged David Margolis. (Source)
4) John Conyers
Despite widespread MSM indifference, Rep. Conyers picked up the ball and ran with it on the Downing Street Memo revelations by holding hearings on the subject. Relegated to a makeshift hearing room in the Capitol Hill basement, Conyers, undaunted as always by the sneers and jeers of colleagues and journalists who couldn’t care less about evidence that our government had “fixed intelligence” prior to leading us into war in Iraq, showed the same fierce devotion to finding out the truth that he has so often in his career.
5) Molly Ivins
Take Maureen Dowd (PLEASE!); I'll take the unsinkable Molly Ivins. She's covered GWB since his days as governor of Texas (in fact, it was she who dubbed him "Dubya"), and it was Ivins's lone voice crying in the wilderness in 2000, trying to warn us of what lay ahead if the man were actually put in charge of the country. Ivins continues to be a thorn in the administration's side with her witty, thorough columns, deconstructing for us in knowledgable, plain-spoken terms the labyrinthine underground of arrogance and corruption from which Bu$hCo operates. Yes, it's a dirty job, and thank God we've got Molly Ivins to do it.
Sheehan Fitzgerald Comey Conyers Ivins 2005 Bush
Posted by egalia for MzNicky
Join ScAlito Protest Outside Frist's Office
If you're in the Nashville area, you'll want to join the local Pro Choice Community for a protest against Supreme wannabe, ScAlito. The action will occur on the same day the senate confirmation hearings begin, and it will be held outside the long distance diagnoser Bill Frist's office.
That's Monday, January 9, 3:30-5:30.
Frist's Nashville office is at 28 White Bridge Road, in the doctor's building on the left side of Target. If you want to stop by and pay your respects (heh), Billy Frist's office is in suite 211. But be careful, the public servant has an office in a private building, which means you can be arrested for trespassing if they get to you before you make it to his office on the second floor. It's happened.
Bring signs.
Members of Nashville NOW, Planned Parenthood, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Tennessee Guerilla Women will be there. If you know of more groups that will be represented, email me.
Organizations that have taken a stand against ScAlito include: NAACP, Sierra Club, People for the American Way, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Unitarian Universalist Association, Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood, National Council of Jewish Women, National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority Foundation, AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org.
For a list of statements from some of these groups, see Blue Notes from Soluna .
Read about the national feminist campaign to block Alito at NOW.
And for the latest on ScAlito be sure to check out Bush v. Choice.
Scalito Alito Supreme Court Feminism Pro Choice Roe Abortion Reproductive Rights Frist Nashville Tennessee Nashville NOW
Thursday, January 05, 2006
King George: I Don't Need No Stinkin' Senate
UPDATE: There are SEVENTEEN recess appointments. The list is posted at the White House site, if you really want to risk going there. (via Josh Marshall) Are the Dems going to raise hell about this?
The Boy King's latest appointees stink so bad that he just couldn't risk sending them over to his Republican controlled Senate for confirmation. He sure as hell couldn't wait a day or so for the senators to mosey on back from recess.
Yes, Virginia, there are even Republicans who think cronies should be somewhat qualified for high paying jobs.
Bushie couldn't take the chance, so he said screw you to the Senate, the rules, and the American people, cuz the Boy King can.
So the Boy King woke up from his latest vacation just in time to appoint a string of controversial cronies to important positions, and he did it quick, before the senators return from recess.
Julie L. Myers is one of Bushie's new recess appointees. She will head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau at the Department of Homeland Security. Qualifications? Myers is the niece of former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard B. Myers and wife of the chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Myers and the other loyal subjects will serve, without Senate confirmation, for one year.
No word yet on whether this Myers thinks Bushie is the most brilliant of men.
But here we are with a man who has proven beyond all doubt that he is unqualified to pet sit my dog, and still he acts like he's the totalitarian in charge.
Photo seen at Salon
Bush Crony Senate Recess Appointments Julie Myers King George Impeach Bush Dictator Bush
Why is my Gannett Newspaper, The Effin' Christian Times?
No, the kids pictured here have not overdosed on LSD.
They haven't been sucking on Heavenly Blue Morning Glory seeds.
They haven't been munching on brownies laced with Acapulco Gold, and they are not performing a scene for a Cheech & Chong movie.
You guessed it. The college students, featured on the front page of Nashville's major daily newspaper, are in the throes of a psychedelic Christian trance. And it looks dangerous. Some of these kids appear to be flapping their wings in preparation for a one way flight to Paradise.
Let's all pray they don't go into medicine or politics.
Thank you, Gannett, for a newspaper (sic) that reads like These Godly Times.
Thanks to all your front page news (sic) stories - like the one here, which takes up half the damn page - I can't ever forget that we are just counting the days, not to the next election, but to the Glorious Rapture.
From The Tennessean, page 1, aka The Christian Times:
Students Told About God's Design
By Jeannine F. Hunter
Staff Writer
God designed the universe and at the heart of that design is the suffering of Jesus, a Minneapolis minister told thousands of college students at Nashville's Gaylord Entertainment Center yesterday.
"I believe the entire universe exists to display the greatness of the glory of God's grace," the Rev. John Piper told more than 18,000 collegians attending Passion 06, a four-day Christian conference featuring musicians and speakers. "And that grace shines most brightly in the suffering of God's son."
I've been living in this red state for a long time, so will someone please tell me that it's not like this everywhere?
Red States Blue States Gannett Intelligent Design Media Religious Propaganda The Tennessean
Southern Baptist Preacher Busted for Sex (Gay)
Somebody add this guy to the 35 mile long list of Christian hypocrites. When he's on Church duty, preacher Lonnie Latham bashes gays and condemns the "sinful, destructive lifestyle" of "homosexuals."
When he's off duty, Lonnie Latham is looking for some.
Only this time, Lonnie Latham, senior pastor at South Tulsa Baptist Church and executive committee member of the Southern Baptist Convention, has been busted for asking a cop for a little oral sex.
The pious Man of Christ suffered bravely whilst his 2005 Mercedes was impounded.
Gay homophobia Oklahoma Southern Baptist Christian hypocrites
Bush Spying on Christiane Amanpour?
During Andrea Mitchell's interview with New York Times reporter James Risen, she asked:
Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?
Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that.
Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?
Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.
After the transcript was published, NBC deleted the portion referencing Christiane Amanpour.
WTF?
Josh Marshall:
Andrea Mitchell is pretty clearly telling us that she has at least some evidence that Christiane Amanpour got swept up in the warrantless NSA eavesdropping that's been in the news for the last two weeks. . .
But if this were to take a truly Nixonian turn and it turns out that this was being used against political enemies, anti-war groups or journalists then we're talking a whole 'nother ballgame.
Josh Marshall speculates some more and reports that when questioned, NBC indicated that the Amanpour question is under a continuing investigation.
Hat tip to Kevin Drum - where a reader points out that Christiane Amanpour is "married to James Rubin, who was an integral part of the Kerry campaign."
So many Republican scandals and so little time.
We're going to impeach that fool yet!
Bush Amanpour Andrea Mitchell Spying Eavesdropping NSA Snoopgate Impeach Bush Christiane Amanpour
Snoopgate Whistleblower Dying to Talk
More troubles for Bushie; this new year is off to a good start.
Washington Times:
A former National Security Agency official wants to tell Congress about electronic intelligence programs that he asserts were carried out illegally by the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Russ Tice, a whistleblower who was dismissed from the NSA last year, stated in letters to the House and Senate intelligence committees that he is prepared to testify about highly classified Special Access Programs, or SAPs, that were improperly carried out by both the NSA and the DIA.
"I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency and with the Defense Intelligence Agency," Mr. Tice stated in the Dec. 16 letters, copies of which were obtained by The Washington Times.
In his Dec. 16 letter, Mr. Tice wrote that his testimony would be given under the provisions of the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which makes it legal for intelligence officials to disclose wrongdoing without being punished.
Yeah, but does the Whistleblower Protection Act say anything about not being tortured? And would it matter if it did?
Hat tip to Bring It On
Bush Tice NSA Snoopgate Spying Eavesdropping
Herbert: Need Medicaid? Show Your Passport
By Bob Herbert
Read the whole thing
Bob Herbert Medicaid Poverty Herbert
Buried in the nearly 800-page federal budget bill is a nasty little provision, ostensibly aimed at immigrants, that will make it difficult for many poverty-stricken U.S. citizens to get the health care they are entitled to under Medicaid.
Advocates believe that the provision, which will require Medicaid applicants to document their U.S. citizenship (which means producing a passport or birth certificate), may be especially harmful to poor blacks, most of whom do not have passports and many of whom do not have birth certificates.
There are no exceptions to this onerous provision, not even for people with serious physical or mental impairments, including Alzheimer's disease.
[. . .]
Someday the pendulum will swing back, and the government of the United States will become more representative and more humane. Meanwhile, as Lily Tomlin said, "We're all in this alone."
Read the whole thing
Bob Herbert Medicaid Poverty Herbert
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
David Letterman: Bill O'Reilly Is Full of Crap
Damn. Move over Bill Maher. The Dark Side takes a blow from Late Show's David Letterman. Scroll down for a link to the video. You want to see this.
Huffington Post:
Displaying a hostility to President Bush and the Iraq war similar to that expressed by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, on Tuesday’s Late Show David Letterman went further than I’ve ever heard him in revealing his derision for President Bush’s decision to launch the Iraq war and contempt for anyone who dares to criticize Cindy Sheehan. [This node, first posted at 10:45pm EST Tuesday based on a limited video clip preview of the show, was updated and substantially revised at 2am EST Wednesday.]
Letterman normally tries to make the guest look as good and entertaining as possible. But he greeted FNC’s Bill O’Reilly with disdain. When O’Reilly urged an end to tagging Bush as a “liar,” scolded Cindy Sheehan for calling the insurgents “freedom fighters” and urged people to be “very careful with what we say" in disparaging others, Letterman took him to task: "Well, and you should be very careful with what you say also." Letterman demanded: "How can you possibly take exception with the motivation and the position of someone like Cindy Sheehan?" And he tried to discredit O’Reilly’s contention: “Have you lost family members in armed conflict?" When O'Reilly conceded that "no, I have not," Letterman castigated him: "Well, then you can hardly speak for her, can you?"
You've got to see the hilarious video - in which O'Reilly speaks for Cindy Sheehan and the baby Jesus, and Letterman knocks him senseless in the first round.
Letterman O'Reilly Bush Iraq War Bill O'Reilly Fox News David Letterman Video Sheehan
The Year of Republican Trials and Tribulations
"Most seats in Congress are relatively safe this year. But they are not safe from a tsunami."
-- Larry Sabato,
University of Virginia political scientist
University of Virginia political scientist
UPDATE: Peter Daou reports: "Estimates vary, but as many as 60 members of Congress may be implicated by the scandal." And while Republicans are shouting from the rooftops the claim that Abramoff gave to Dems too, Hotline on Call says they lie. "Abramoff has never personally given money to a single Dem. All his personal and family contributions went to Republicans. . ."
But check out dapper Jack Abramoff all decked out in full bad boy mafia-esque fashion. As one White House correspondent said on Tucker Carlson, What? Does he want to play himself in the movie?
The plea deal of conservative Republican Jack Abramoff is expected to implicate "up to 20 members of Congress and aides and possibly several administration officials."
Delay's good buddy, Jack Abramoff, will serve as the Justice Department's "potentially critical witness to alleged patterns of corruption or bribery within the Republican leadership ranks.."
"DeLay has taken three overseas trips with Abramoff since 1997 -- to the Mariana Islands, Moscow and the United Kingdom -- and received more than $70,000 from Abramoff, his associates and tribal clients for his campaign committees."
Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert scrambled to join with other vulnerable lawmakers by announcing that he too will hand over to charity all money received from Abramoff.
Meanwhile, Abramoff pledged to ask for God's forgiveness.
Rightwingers can always be counted on to do the right thing once they have been caught with their soft and callous-free hands in the till.
With Scooter Libby expected to stand trial this summer, Delay awaiting a trial date, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist under investigation, and Patrick Fitzgerald working on goddess knows how many more indictments, 2006 is beginning to look like the Year of Republican Trials and Tribulations.
And they thought 2005 was a very bad year for Republicans.
Bring it on.
Will Bushie stay the course and make campaign appearances for soon-to-be-indicted incumbents?
Since Delay has set the new standard for mug shots, look for the soon-to-be-released deck of playing cards featuring the Indicted Republicans, all beaming in full arrogant mug shot glory.
White House hired mouth, Scotty McClellan whines that Democrats are also involved.
Yeah, some Democrats may fall, but if a tsunami is coming, it is coming for the Republicans.
See Media Girl for the short list of the potentially implicated, a list which includes bad boys - Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist and Tommy Delay!
Think Progress (via Demagogue) has the long list, as well as a list of those who have already been "subponaed, indicted, or found guilty in the Abramoff investigation."
Abramoff Delay Hastert Bush 2006 Tom Delay Jack Abramoff Republican Corruption Indicted Republicans
Dowd: It's Not Personal, Jack
It's Not Personal, Jack, It's Strictly Business
by Maureen Dowd
The sight of Jack Abramoff striding out of federal court here yesterday, looking like a stocky gangster from a 40's movie in black fedora and trench coat, may seem like the strongest evidence so far of how graft and hubris have overwhelmed the capital.
It could have been a scene from "The Godfather," a favorite film of the felonious lobbyist. The Washington Post reported that he "did business with people linked to the underworld," bilked Indian tribes of tens of millions and then lavished a bundle in tribal gambling profits on greedy members of Congress.
The Post said Mr. Abramoff loved to amuse colleagues by imitating Michael Corleone as he rejected a corrupt politician's demand for a share of Mafia gambling money: "Senator, you can have my answer now if you like. My offer is this: nothing."
But just because this is a scale of amorality and blatant sale of government that astonishes even Washington cynics, why look on the dark side?
The Abramoff plea bargain may have left his former business partners and political pals panicking, wondering if the rat will rat them out. The Republican congressmen Tom DeLay and Bob Ney are among the sleazy solons caught up in the scandal, and the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, scrambled yesterday to launder $69,000 in dirty Abramoff contributions, donating the wad to charity. And then there's Ralph Reed, the choirboy Bible thumper who used his links to Christian groups to immorally play Indian tribes off against each other.
But looking at the big picture, in some ways the imperial presidency is working out quite well for everyone.
Think about it: all those congressmen don't really need to do their jobs anymore. With the president able to make war more or less as he chooses, treat the enemy as he sees fit and snoop on Americans at will, our representatives have more time for the duty many are clearly best suited to: playing golf gratis in Scotland. (Remember how the White House press used to give poor Bill Clinton such a hard time about mere mulligans?)
Now that Dick Cheney has freed Congress from the bother of advising and/or consenting, lawmakers can work on new ways to game the system and wallow in the G.O.P.'s culture of corruption - while tut-tutting about the decline in American moral values.
Since the Republican-run Capitol doesn't have to worry about holding the Bush White House accountable for excesses in torture and spying and the other myriad ways it has placed itself above the law, congressmen have more leisure hours for Abramoff successors to treat them to some Redskins games and steak dinners.
Checks and balances are now as quaint as the Geneva Conventions. Congress is complicit in putting its thumb on the scale for the executive branch.
The Post reported that W. had taken advantage of an innovation started years ago by Samuel Alito Jr. to shore up executive privilege. As a young Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, Mr. Alito created a strategy that has the president declare what laws mean when he signs them. Mr. Alito wanted the courts to focus as much on the president's interpretation of a law as on what he called "legislative intent."
W. has issued at least 108 such statements, The Post said, rejecting "provisions in bills that the White House regarded as interfering with its powers in national security, intelligence policy and law enforcement."
And since the imperial presidency is run by the vice president, W. has a lot of free time to do the things he likes to do. Confined with his wife and mother-in-law at the Crawford ranch, he spent his Christmas vacation mountain-biking and clearing brush.
He left the ranch for a brief visit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he kidded in a way that again showed his jarring lack of empathy with the amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan: "As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself - not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch. As a matter of fact, the colonel asked if I needed first aid when she first saw me. I was able to avoid any major surgical operations here, but thanks for your compassion, colonel."
W. also used the occasion to defend the Nixonian eavesdropping program that even made John Ashcroft and his deputy, James Comey, skittish. As The Times reported, Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales had to make an emergency trip to see the reluctant Mr. Ashcroft in the hospital in March 2004 to get the program recertified because Mr. Comey had balked.
You know you're in trouble when John Ashcroft is worried about overreaching.
Maureen Dowd Abramoff Bush Cheney Dowd Congress 2006 Republican Corruption
by Maureen Dowd
The sight of Jack Abramoff striding out of federal court here yesterday, looking like a stocky gangster from a 40's movie in black fedora and trench coat, may seem like the strongest evidence so far of how graft and hubris have overwhelmed the capital.
It could have been a scene from "The Godfather," a favorite film of the felonious lobbyist. The Washington Post reported that he "did business with people linked to the underworld," bilked Indian tribes of tens of millions and then lavished a bundle in tribal gambling profits on greedy members of Congress.
The Post said Mr. Abramoff loved to amuse colleagues by imitating Michael Corleone as he rejected a corrupt politician's demand for a share of Mafia gambling money: "Senator, you can have my answer now if you like. My offer is this: nothing."
But just because this is a scale of amorality and blatant sale of government that astonishes even Washington cynics, why look on the dark side?
The Abramoff plea bargain may have left his former business partners and political pals panicking, wondering if the rat will rat them out. The Republican congressmen Tom DeLay and Bob Ney are among the sleazy solons caught up in the scandal, and the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, scrambled yesterday to launder $69,000 in dirty Abramoff contributions, donating the wad to charity. And then there's Ralph Reed, the choirboy Bible thumper who used his links to Christian groups to immorally play Indian tribes off against each other.
But looking at the big picture, in some ways the imperial presidency is working out quite well for everyone.
Think about it: all those congressmen don't really need to do their jobs anymore. With the president able to make war more or less as he chooses, treat the enemy as he sees fit and snoop on Americans at will, our representatives have more time for the duty many are clearly best suited to: playing golf gratis in Scotland. (Remember how the White House press used to give poor Bill Clinton such a hard time about mere mulligans?)
Now that Dick Cheney has freed Congress from the bother of advising and/or consenting, lawmakers can work on new ways to game the system and wallow in the G.O.P.'s culture of corruption - while tut-tutting about the decline in American moral values.
Since the Republican-run Capitol doesn't have to worry about holding the Bush White House accountable for excesses in torture and spying and the other myriad ways it has placed itself above the law, congressmen have more leisure hours for Abramoff successors to treat them to some Redskins games and steak dinners.
Checks and balances are now as quaint as the Geneva Conventions. Congress is complicit in putting its thumb on the scale for the executive branch.
The Post reported that W. had taken advantage of an innovation started years ago by Samuel Alito Jr. to shore up executive privilege. As a young Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, Mr. Alito created a strategy that has the president declare what laws mean when he signs them. Mr. Alito wanted the courts to focus as much on the president's interpretation of a law as on what he called "legislative intent."
W. has issued at least 108 such statements, The Post said, rejecting "provisions in bills that the White House regarded as interfering with its powers in national security, intelligence policy and law enforcement."
And since the imperial presidency is run by the vice president, W. has a lot of free time to do the things he likes to do. Confined with his wife and mother-in-law at the Crawford ranch, he spent his Christmas vacation mountain-biking and clearing brush.
He left the ranch for a brief visit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he kidded in a way that again showed his jarring lack of empathy with the amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan: "As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself - not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch. As a matter of fact, the colonel asked if I needed first aid when she first saw me. I was able to avoid any major surgical operations here, but thanks for your compassion, colonel."
W. also used the occasion to defend the Nixonian eavesdropping program that even made John Ashcroft and his deputy, James Comey, skittish. As The Times reported, Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales had to make an emergency trip to see the reluctant Mr. Ashcroft in the hospital in March 2004 to get the program recertified because Mr. Comey had balked.
You know you're in trouble when John Ashcroft is worried about overreaching.
Maureen Dowd Abramoff Bush Cheney Dowd Congress 2006 Republican Corruption
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Tierney: Male Pride and Female Prejudice
Tierney gives us yet another misogynistic, stop the women before they take over the world rant.
Male Pride and Female Prejudice
By JOHN TIERNEY
When there are three women for every two men graduating from college, whom will the third woman marry?
This is not an academic question. Women, who were a minority on campuses a quarter-century ago, today make up 57 percent of undergraduates, and the gender gap is projected to reach a 60-40 ratio within a few years. So more women, especially black and Hispanic women, will be in a position to get better-paying, more prestigious jobs than their husbands, which makes for a tricky variation of "Pride and Prejudice."
It's still a universal truth, as Jane Austen wrote, that a man with a fortune has good marriage prospects. It's not so universal for a woman with a fortune, because pride makes some men determined to be the chief breadwinner. But these traditionalists seem to be a dwindling minority as men have come to appreciate the value of a wife's paycheck.
A woman's earning power, while hardly the first thing that men look for, has become a bigger draw, as shown in surveys of college students over the decades. In 1996, for the first time, college men rated a potential mate's financial prospects as more important than her skills as a cook or a housekeeper.
In the National Survey of Families and Households conducted during the early 1990's, the average single man under 35 said he was quite willing to marry someone earning much more than he did. He wasn't as interested in marrying someone making much less than he did, and he was especially reluctant to marry a woman who was unlikely to hold a steady job.
Those findings jibe with what I've seen. I can't think of any friend who refused to date a woman because she made more money than he did. When friends have married women with bigger paychecks, the only financial complaints I've heard from them have come when a wife later decided to pursue a more meaningful - i.e., less lucrative - career.
Nor can I recall hearing guys insult a man, to his face or behind his back, for making less than his wife. The only snide comments I've heard have come from women talking about their friends' husbands. I've heard just a couple of hardened Manhattanites do that, but I wouldn't dismiss them as isolated reactionaries because you can see this prejudice in that national survey of singles under 35.
The women surveyed were less willing to marry down - marry someone with much lower earnings or less education - than the men were to marry up. And, in line with Jane Austen, the women were also more determined to marry up than the men were.
You may think that women's attitudes are changing as they get more college degrees and financial independence. A women who's an executive can afford to marry a struggling musician. But that doesn't necessarily mean she wants to. Studies by David Buss of the University of Texas and others have shown that women with higher incomes, far from relaxing their standards, put more emphasis on a mate's financial resources.
And once they're married, women with higher incomes seem less tolerant of their husbands' shortcomings. Steven Nock of the University of Virginia has found that marriages in which the wife and husband earn roughly the same are more likely to fail than other marriages. That situation doesn't affect the husband's commitment to the marriage, Nock concludes, but it weakens the wife's and makes her more likely to initiate divorce.
It's understandable that women with good paychecks have higher standards for their partners, since their superior intelligence, education and income give them what Buss calls high "mate value." They know they're catches and want to find someone with equal mate value - someone like Mr. Darcy instead of a dullard like the cleric spurned by Elizabeth Bennet.
"Of course, some women marry for love and find a man's resources irrelevant," Buss says. "It's just that the men women tend to fall in love with, on average, happen to have more resources."
Which means that, on average, college-educated women and high-school-educated men will have a harder time finding partners as long as educators keep ignoring the gender gap that starts long before college. Advocates for women have been so effective politically that high schools and colleges are still focusing on supposed discrimination against women: the shortage of women in science classes and on sports teams rather than the shortage of men, period. You could think of this as a victory for women's rights, but many of the victors will end up celebrating alone.
John Tierney Gender Politics Feminism Tierney Misogyny Patriarchy
Male Pride and Female Prejudice
By JOHN TIERNEY
When there are three women for every two men graduating from college, whom will the third woman marry?
This is not an academic question. Women, who were a minority on campuses a quarter-century ago, today make up 57 percent of undergraduates, and the gender gap is projected to reach a 60-40 ratio within a few years. So more women, especially black and Hispanic women, will be in a position to get better-paying, more prestigious jobs than their husbands, which makes for a tricky variation of "Pride and Prejudice."
It's still a universal truth, as Jane Austen wrote, that a man with a fortune has good marriage prospects. It's not so universal for a woman with a fortune, because pride makes some men determined to be the chief breadwinner. But these traditionalists seem to be a dwindling minority as men have come to appreciate the value of a wife's paycheck.
A woman's earning power, while hardly the first thing that men look for, has become a bigger draw, as shown in surveys of college students over the decades. In 1996, for the first time, college men rated a potential mate's financial prospects as more important than her skills as a cook or a housekeeper.
In the National Survey of Families and Households conducted during the early 1990's, the average single man under 35 said he was quite willing to marry someone earning much more than he did. He wasn't as interested in marrying someone making much less than he did, and he was especially reluctant to marry a woman who was unlikely to hold a steady job.
Those findings jibe with what I've seen. I can't think of any friend who refused to date a woman because she made more money than he did. When friends have married women with bigger paychecks, the only financial complaints I've heard from them have come when a wife later decided to pursue a more meaningful - i.e., less lucrative - career.
Nor can I recall hearing guys insult a man, to his face or behind his back, for making less than his wife. The only snide comments I've heard have come from women talking about their friends' husbands. I've heard just a couple of hardened Manhattanites do that, but I wouldn't dismiss them as isolated reactionaries because you can see this prejudice in that national survey of singles under 35.
The women surveyed were less willing to marry down - marry someone with much lower earnings or less education - than the men were to marry up. And, in line with Jane Austen, the women were also more determined to marry up than the men were.
You may think that women's attitudes are changing as they get more college degrees and financial independence. A women who's an executive can afford to marry a struggling musician. But that doesn't necessarily mean she wants to. Studies by David Buss of the University of Texas and others have shown that women with higher incomes, far from relaxing their standards, put more emphasis on a mate's financial resources.
And once they're married, women with higher incomes seem less tolerant of their husbands' shortcomings. Steven Nock of the University of Virginia has found that marriages in which the wife and husband earn roughly the same are more likely to fail than other marriages. That situation doesn't affect the husband's commitment to the marriage, Nock concludes, but it weakens the wife's and makes her more likely to initiate divorce.
It's understandable that women with good paychecks have higher standards for their partners, since their superior intelligence, education and income give them what Buss calls high "mate value." They know they're catches and want to find someone with equal mate value - someone like Mr. Darcy instead of a dullard like the cleric spurned by Elizabeth Bennet.
"Of course, some women marry for love and find a man's resources irrelevant," Buss says. "It's just that the men women tend to fall in love with, on average, happen to have more resources."
Which means that, on average, college-educated women and high-school-educated men will have a harder time finding partners as long as educators keep ignoring the gender gap that starts long before college. Advocates for women have been so effective politically that high schools and colleges are still focusing on supposed discrimination against women: the shortage of women in science classes and on sports teams rather than the shortage of men, period. You could think of this as a victory for women's rights, but many of the victors will end up celebrating alone.
John Tierney Gender Politics Feminism Tierney Misogyny Patriarchy
Dems to Hit Republicans on Privacy Rights
The Washington Times reports that Democrats are about to mount a very aggressive campaign aimed at defending Americans from the Republican led assault on privacy rights.
From a woman's right to self-determination to your right to pick up the phone without Bushie monitoring your conversation, the Republicans have become big government at its most intrusive.
Lucky ScAlito will take the stage just in time to take the first blows.
"We will initiate at the beginning of this year one of the most serious debates and discussions on Capitol Hill in our history about individual rights and liberties," Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin said just before Christmas.
The topic will be a major focus of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of federal Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. as privacy rights -- the political code phrase for abortion rights -- already has become a major issue, Mr. Durbin said.
Democratic leaders then plan to keep the issue alive as they continue their opposition to key parts of the USA Patriot Act, which is set to expire in early February unless extended.
But the real payoff, Democrats say, will be the hearings into President Bush's authorization of warrantless spying on terror suspects. Already, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, said he wants to hold hearings on the matter.
"Senator Specter has promised a hearing on the questions that have been raised about eavesdropping and spying on Americans," Mr. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said. "At the same period of time, we will be debating those same issues in the context of the Patriot Act and the war on terrorism."
Alito ScAlito Spying Bush Eavesdropping Supreme Court Abortion Roe Privacy Democrats 2006 Feminism Reproductive Rights
The Tragedy of George Bush
In a piece entitled, Bush as Bad Theatre, acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Sherman Yellen does a superb job of pinning the tail on Bushie as the comedic fool in charge of our national tragedy.
Yellen finishes with some sober thoughts on our dreaded three more years with Bushie.
The full article is at Huffington Post.
I doubt that there will ever be a great play called "The Tragedy of George Bush." As a playwright, I find a problem with Bush as a dramatic character in a serious drama. Although he is perfectly suited for satire, he is now caught up in a tragic national drama, the Iraq war, and it is as if Shakespeare's Bottom had stumbled into Hamlet by mistake and taken over the stage.
Comedy is filled with amusing hypocrites, the snobs, fools, and pretenders who get their comeuppance before the curtain falls, men and women who cannot learn from experience, flat characters notable for their foolish single-minded response to all circumstances. Bush is our own Tartuffe, Molière's insufferable pseudo-religious comedic character who uses his so called piety to gain power over the lives of others. Although Tartuffe takes place in seventeenth-century France, it is Bush's voice we hear as Tartuffe pronounces, "How dare you even hinder or annoy when I've the means to ruin and destroy. You should have thought before my toes you trod. Attacking me, you set yourself 'gainst God." (Timothy Mooney adaptation.)
Bush, alas, is not a knowing hypocrite like Tartuffe. Hypocrites are easy to expose while true believers like Bush stand fast as reality implodes around them. He appears to believe what he says even as he plays the leading role in our national drama. He would serve nicely as a foolish father in a sit-com, or a ridiculous boss in an office comedy, but he is the Commander-in-Chief who can and does send young men and women to their deaths. Sadly, he does not even have the true villain's consciousness of when he has done wrong. This is why apology and admission of error is so difficult for him. He believes in his God-given rectitude in all situations.
. . . Nobody can accuse George Bush of eloquence or locate his courage and love of country as he labors to strip it of its natural wonders, and sell his power to its worst exploiters. What he shares with Henry V is a ruthless ambition wed to a sense of royal entitlement. As Henry exploited his soldier's patriotism, Bush exploits his nation's fears. Our unwatched borders, unguarded ports, and unarmed Humvees tell their own story about this President as our protector. . . .
We have three more years of Bush as the main player in our national drama, three more years of platitudes, certainties, grinning, winking, cajoling, but never owning the consequences of his own actions. Since he cannot change his act, we will continue to get what we see -- an empty man propped up with a foolish sense of his own worth, taking us from one new disaster to another -- that is, unless the other players in our national drama, the stumbling Democrats and few surviving decent Republicans effectively oppose a leader who cannot lead. We don't need a hero for our national play, just some strong supporting actors with enough courage and sense to stand up against this comedian in our tragedy. More important is an enlightened electorate who must ultimately take center stage and restore the values upon which this country was founded.
Read the whole thing..
Bush Iraq War Empire George W. Bush Sherman Yellen
Monday, January 02, 2006
David Brooks: The Year of Domesticity
The Year of Domesticity
by David Brooks
After a generation of feminist advance, women have more choices. They are freer to pursue a career, stay home or figure out some combination of both. And this is progress, right?
Wrong, says Linda Hirshman, a retired Brandeis professor, in the December
issue of The American Prospect. Women who choose to stay home, she writes, stifle themselves and harm society. As she puts it, ''The family -- with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks -- is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government.''
Hirshman quotes Mark Twain, ''A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read,'' and argues that a woman who chooses to stay home with her kids is just as weak as a woman who can't get out of the house.
Women need to be coached to make better choices, Hirshman advises. First, they need to aim for careers that pay well: ''The best way to treat work seriously is to find the money. Money is the marker of success in a market economy; it usually accompanies power, and it enables the bearer to wield power, including within the family.''
Second, women need to find husbands who will share domestic drudgery equally: ''You can either find a spouse with less social power than you or find one with an ideological commitment to gender equality.''
Finally, she writes, ''Have a baby. Just don't have two.'' Women with two kids find it harder to pursue a demanding career.
Women who stay home worrying about diapers have ''voluntarily become untouchables,'' Hirshman concludes. If these women continue to make bad choices, men will perpetually dominate the highest levels of society. It is time, she says, to re-radicalize feminism.
Hirshman's essay really clears the sinuses. It's a full-bore, unapologetic blast of 1975 time-warp feminism and it deserves one of the 2005 Sidney Awards, which I've created for the best magazine essays of the year, because it is impossible to read this manifesto without taking a few minutes to figure out why she is so wrong.
But of course, she is wrong.
First, she's wrong with her astonishing assertion that high-paying jobs lead to more human flourishing than parenthood. Look back over your life. Which memories do you cherish more, those with your family or those at the office? If Hirshman thinks high-paying careers lead to more human flourishing, I invite her to spend a day as an associate at a big law firm.
Second, she's wrong to assume that work is the realm of power and home is the realm of powerlessness. The domestic sphere may not offer the sort of brutalizing, dominating power Hirshman admires, but it is the realm of unmatched influence. If there is one thing we have learned over the past generation, it is that a child's I.Q., mental habits and destiny are largely shaped in the first few years of life, before school or the out-side world has much influence.
Children, at least, understand parental power. In ''Eminem Is Right,'' a Sidney Award-winning essay in Policy Review, Mary Eberstadt notes a striking change in pop music. ''If yesterday's rock was the music of abandon, today's is the music of abandonment.'' An astonishing number of hits, from artists ranging from Pearl Jam to Everclear to Snoop Dogg, are about kids who feel neglected by their parents. This is a need Hirshman passes over.
Her third mistake is to not even grapple with the fact that men and women are wired differently. The Larry Summers flap produced an outpouring of work on the neurological differences between men and women. I'd especially recommend ''The Inequality Taboo'' by Charles Murray in Commentary and a debate between Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke in the online magazine Edge.
One of the findings of this research is that men are more interested in things and abstract rules while women are more interested in people. (You can come up with your own Darwinian explanation as to why.)
When you look back over the essays of 2005, you find many that dealt with the big foreign policy issues of the year, but also an amazing number that dealt with domesticity. That's because the deeper you get into economic or social problems -- national competitiveness, poverty, school performance, incarceration -- the more you realize the answers lie with good parenting and good homes.
Hirshman has it exactly backward. Power is in the kitchen. The big problem is not the women who stay there but the men who leave.
New York Times, 1/01/06
David Brooks Feminism Linda Hirshman Mommy Wars Equality Work Family Conflict Brooks Stay at Home Moms
by David Brooks
After a generation of feminist advance, women have more choices. They are freer to pursue a career, stay home or figure out some combination of both. And this is progress, right?
Wrong, says Linda Hirshman, a retired Brandeis professor, in the December
issue of The American Prospect. Women who choose to stay home, she writes, stifle themselves and harm society. As she puts it, ''The family -- with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks -- is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government.''
Hirshman quotes Mark Twain, ''A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read,'' and argues that a woman who chooses to stay home with her kids is just as weak as a woman who can't get out of the house.
Women need to be coached to make better choices, Hirshman advises. First, they need to aim for careers that pay well: ''The best way to treat work seriously is to find the money. Money is the marker of success in a market economy; it usually accompanies power, and it enables the bearer to wield power, including within the family.''
Second, women need to find husbands who will share domestic drudgery equally: ''You can either find a spouse with less social power than you or find one with an ideological commitment to gender equality.''
Finally, she writes, ''Have a baby. Just don't have two.'' Women with two kids find it harder to pursue a demanding career.
Women who stay home worrying about diapers have ''voluntarily become untouchables,'' Hirshman concludes. If these women continue to make bad choices, men will perpetually dominate the highest levels of society. It is time, she says, to re-radicalize feminism.
Hirshman's essay really clears the sinuses. It's a full-bore, unapologetic blast of 1975 time-warp feminism and it deserves one of the 2005 Sidney Awards, which I've created for the best magazine essays of the year, because it is impossible to read this manifesto without taking a few minutes to figure out why she is so wrong.
But of course, she is wrong.
First, she's wrong with her astonishing assertion that high-paying jobs lead to more human flourishing than parenthood. Look back over your life. Which memories do you cherish more, those with your family or those at the office? If Hirshman thinks high-paying careers lead to more human flourishing, I invite her to spend a day as an associate at a big law firm.
Second, she's wrong to assume that work is the realm of power and home is the realm of powerlessness. The domestic sphere may not offer the sort of brutalizing, dominating power Hirshman admires, but it is the realm of unmatched influence. If there is one thing we have learned over the past generation, it is that a child's I.Q., mental habits and destiny are largely shaped in the first few years of life, before school or the out-side world has much influence.
Children, at least, understand parental power. In ''Eminem Is Right,'' a Sidney Award-winning essay in Policy Review, Mary Eberstadt notes a striking change in pop music. ''If yesterday's rock was the music of abandon, today's is the music of abandonment.'' An astonishing number of hits, from artists ranging from Pearl Jam to Everclear to Snoop Dogg, are about kids who feel neglected by their parents. This is a need Hirshman passes over.
Her third mistake is to not even grapple with the fact that men and women are wired differently. The Larry Summers flap produced an outpouring of work on the neurological differences between men and women. I'd especially recommend ''The Inequality Taboo'' by Charles Murray in Commentary and a debate between Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke in the online magazine Edge.
One of the findings of this research is that men are more interested in things and abstract rules while women are more interested in people. (You can come up with your own Darwinian explanation as to why.)
When you look back over the essays of 2005, you find many that dealt with the big foreign policy issues of the year, but also an amazing number that dealt with domesticity. That's because the deeper you get into economic or social problems -- national competitiveness, poverty, school performance, incarceration -- the more you realize the answers lie with good parenting and good homes.
Hirshman has it exactly backward. Power is in the kitchen. The big problem is not the women who stay there but the men who leave.
New York Times, 1/01/06
David Brooks Feminism Linda Hirshman Mommy Wars Equality Work Family Conflict Brooks Stay at Home Moms
Conspiring Against Voters Continues
The International Herald Tribune reminds us of the inherent danger of having crooks in charge of elections.
Bush 2006 Election Federal Election Commission
President George W. Bush has announced four nominees for the Federal Election Commission, choices that would keep the policing of campaign abuses firmly in the hands of party wheel horses. The timing of the announcement - the president waited until the Senate had gone home - is likely to allow the nominees to avoid the full hearing and confirmation process needed to evaluate them properly.
The need for a clean broom at the six-member election panel becomes clearer with each new round of decisions favoring big-money politics over the voters. But the newly nominated majority promises no improvement. In fact, the slate would mean an end to the service of Scott Thomas, the one incumbent praised for his independence by Senator John McCain, who has campaigned for a clean, hack-free Federal Election Commission.
Bush has finally shown his commitment to bipartisanship in the worst of ways: by installing another undistinguished group of factotums to referee the democratic process in America.
Bush 2006 Election Federal Election Commission
Herbert: The Machete Budget
The Machete Budget
By Bob Herbert
If Congress were merely useless, the country would be better off. But it's worse than useless. In the iron grip of a Republican Party that is almost slavishly devoted to the Bush administration, it's downright destructive, especially to the interests of poor and working people.
Consider the budget that will soon be sent to the president for his signature. Members of the House and Senate have agreed on legislation that achieves something approaching $40 billion in savings over five years primarily by hammering the sick, the poor, the elderly and college students and their families.
This is the same Congress that genuflects each time the president asks for yet another gift-wrapped tax cut for the wealthiest among us. The textbooks tell us that the U.S. is a representative democracy, but only the upper strata are truly represented.
The nearly 800-page budget bill would allow states to jack up the premiums and co-payments of millions of low-income Medicaid recipients. It would also allow some Medicaid benefits to be rolled back.
One of worst aspects of the Medicaid provisions is that large numbers of poor people, faced with the higher premiums and co-payments, will inevitably decide to take a pass on the health care they need. Some will die.
"The Congressional Budget Office," wrote Kevin Freking of The Associated Press, "has concluded that such increases would lead many poor people to forgo health care or not to enroll in Medicaid at all - contributing to some of the $4.8 billion in Medicaid savings envisioned over the next five years."
(I listened the other day to a story about a woman who had repeatedly postponed a visit to the doctor because she was broke and had no health insurance. It turned out she had breast cancer. By the time it was diagnosed, the cancer had already spread through much of her body. The prognosis for this woman is not good, and it should not be the policy of the United States government to encourage this kind of situation.)
You would think that a conservative, family-values, Republican-dominated Congress would, at the very least, go to the mat on behalf of child support payments. Think again.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which has closely studied the budget agreement, noted that "its reductions in child support enforcement funding would, according to the C.B.O., mean that $2.9 billion in child support that otherwise would be collected over the next five years - and $8.4 billion that otherwise would be collected over the next 10 years - would go uncollected instead."
As the center noted:
"The conference agreement also includes provisions that would delay certain [Supplemental Security Income] payments for up to a year for many poor individuals with disabilities who are found eligible for S.S.I. In addition, the bill cuts federal foster care aid in a way that will make it much more difficult for states to provide federally funded foster care benefits to certain relatives who are raising children because the children's parents are unable or unfit to do so."
This is ugly stuff: mean-spirited legislators hacking like wild men with machetes at the already ragged safety net. Poor children, the very sick and the disabled are among those most likely to tumble into the abyss.
The largest chunk of "savings" in the budget bill would come from student aid. With the special interests driving up in 18-wheelers to haul away our tax dollars, Congress and the administration apparently felt that mugging college students would be a good way to recoup a bit of those losses.
"This is the biggest cut in the history of the federal student loan program," said David Ward, who heads the American Council on Education, an umbrella group for public and private colleges.
Republican leaders in Congress, working in tandem with the Bush administration on this issue, tried to throw up the usual smoke screen. As The Times reported:
"Republican negotiators said virtually all the cuts in student aid would be borne by banks and other lenders, an assertion sharply disputed by Democrats and college administrators, who said that two-thirds of the savings would be at the expense of students and their families."
Because of some minor, last-minute changes that have to be dealt with, the House will have one more crack at this bill before it goes to the president. It would be an opportunity for some Republican "moderates," who should be appalled at what is happening, to step up and be heard.
Don't hold your breath.
Bob Herbert Bush Budget Cuts 2006 Medicaid Child Support Herbert Congress Republican Corruption
By Bob Herbert
If Congress were merely useless, the country would be better off. But it's worse than useless. In the iron grip of a Republican Party that is almost slavishly devoted to the Bush administration, it's downright destructive, especially to the interests of poor and working people.
Consider the budget that will soon be sent to the president for his signature. Members of the House and Senate have agreed on legislation that achieves something approaching $40 billion in savings over five years primarily by hammering the sick, the poor, the elderly and college students and their families.
This is the same Congress that genuflects each time the president asks for yet another gift-wrapped tax cut for the wealthiest among us. The textbooks tell us that the U.S. is a representative democracy, but only the upper strata are truly represented.
The nearly 800-page budget bill would allow states to jack up the premiums and co-payments of millions of low-income Medicaid recipients. It would also allow some Medicaid benefits to be rolled back.
One of worst aspects of the Medicaid provisions is that large numbers of poor people, faced with the higher premiums and co-payments, will inevitably decide to take a pass on the health care they need. Some will die.
"The Congressional Budget Office," wrote Kevin Freking of The Associated Press, "has concluded that such increases would lead many poor people to forgo health care or not to enroll in Medicaid at all - contributing to some of the $4.8 billion in Medicaid savings envisioned over the next five years."
(I listened the other day to a story about a woman who had repeatedly postponed a visit to the doctor because she was broke and had no health insurance. It turned out she had breast cancer. By the time it was diagnosed, the cancer had already spread through much of her body. The prognosis for this woman is not good, and it should not be the policy of the United States government to encourage this kind of situation.)
You would think that a conservative, family-values, Republican-dominated Congress would, at the very least, go to the mat on behalf of child support payments. Think again.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which has closely studied the budget agreement, noted that "its reductions in child support enforcement funding would, according to the C.B.O., mean that $2.9 billion in child support that otherwise would be collected over the next five years - and $8.4 billion that otherwise would be collected over the next 10 years - would go uncollected instead."
As the center noted:
"The conference agreement also includes provisions that would delay certain [Supplemental Security Income] payments for up to a year for many poor individuals with disabilities who are found eligible for S.S.I. In addition, the bill cuts federal foster care aid in a way that will make it much more difficult for states to provide federally funded foster care benefits to certain relatives who are raising children because the children's parents are unable or unfit to do so."
This is ugly stuff: mean-spirited legislators hacking like wild men with machetes at the already ragged safety net. Poor children, the very sick and the disabled are among those most likely to tumble into the abyss.
The largest chunk of "savings" in the budget bill would come from student aid. With the special interests driving up in 18-wheelers to haul away our tax dollars, Congress and the administration apparently felt that mugging college students would be a good way to recoup a bit of those losses.
"This is the biggest cut in the history of the federal student loan program," said David Ward, who heads the American Council on Education, an umbrella group for public and private colleges.
Republican leaders in Congress, working in tandem with the Bush administration on this issue, tried to throw up the usual smoke screen. As The Times reported:
"Republican negotiators said virtually all the cuts in student aid would be borne by banks and other lenders, an assertion sharply disputed by Democrats and college administrators, who said that two-thirds of the savings would be at the expense of students and their families."
Because of some minor, last-minute changes that have to be dealt with, the House will have one more crack at this bill before it goes to the president. It would be an opportunity for some Republican "moderates," who should be appalled at what is happening, to step up and be heard.
Don't hold your breath.
Bob Herbert Bush Budget Cuts 2006 Medicaid Child Support Herbert Congress Republican Corruption
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Quote of the Day: On Leaving the GOP
Cindy Neighbor,
2nd prominent Republican
from Johnson County, Kansas
to join the Democratic party
in order to run for office this year.
2nd prominent Republican
from Johnson County, Kansas
to join the Democratic party
in order to run for office this year.
Hat tip to RBH at dkos
Kansas Switching Parties 2006 Election Democrats Republican
Corruption
A Happy 2006 = Taking Congress Back
Here's hoping 2006 is the year we take Congress away from the Radical Republicans. It's bound to happen. Impeaching Bush and Cheney would also be nice.
Photo seen at Al Rodgers diary over at dkos
Happy New Year
DUI Shame Law Goes Into Effect Today
People are calling it the shame law.
Beginning today, DUI offenders in this state will be forced to wear an orange vest branded with 4 inch letters that spell out - I am a DRUNK DRIVER - while they pick up litter on the roadside. Of course, this law will not apply to Titans players, the sons of Police Chiefs, or legislators.
Given the extensive press coverage this story has received, I think it's safe to say that shame laws are normally found in countries like Iran and North Korea.
Tennessee has some lawmakers that the public would very much like to send to Iran and North Korea.
Democratic State Sen. Charlotte Burks sponsored the shameful law. Unfortunately, many Democrats in this state are so punitive and ill-informed that they could easily qualify to be Republicans. Yes, Governor Bredesen, you qualify.
If the law doesn't work, legislators can always try branding foreheads with the letters - DUI. This might give them a nice little break from kicking their dogs.
It looks like 2006 is going to be another fun year.
CNN International:
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- A new Tennessee law is enlisting the power of shame to discourage drunken driving -- even the governor, law enforcement officials and various experts are calling it an expensive and bad idea.
Starting Sunday, convicted drunken drivers are required to do 24 hours of roadside cleanup while wearing orange vests emblazoned with the phrase "I am a Drunk Driver."
The new law is aimed at first-time offenders, says one of its sponsors, state Rep. Charles Curtiss.
"You cause them to go out and pick up trash in front of their friends and neighbors, the embarrassment is going to be such that they're never going to want to go through that again," Curtiss said. "Hopefully you can turn them around to never become a second-time offender."
But shaming offenders without more meaningful treatment programs could have the opposite effect, said Jacqueline Helfgott, chairwoman of the criminal justice department at Seattle University.
"If I'm forced to wear a sign saying that I'm a drunk driver, then I'm going to feel worse and worse about myself and I may drink more and more because I feel shunned," she said.
Jeanne Mejeur, a research manager at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver, Colorado, said Tennessee's law "is pretty much a unique program nationally."
The bill becomes law without Gov. Phil Bredesen's signature.
The Tennessee Sheriffs' Association is concerned that the law will increase counties' costs and create record-keeping headaches.
... Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall, whose agency runs the 690-inmate Metro Jail in Nashville, said annual costs could reach $200,000 for his county and $2 million statewide under the new law. Hall also disagrees with the idea of trying to shame offenders into not driving drunk again, instead of treating them.
"At the end of the weekend we're going to have a person who has picked up a lot of litter, but is still addicted to alcohol," he said.
As you drive to out-of-state grocery stores in order to escape the highest food tax in the nation, do remember to wave to some of your publicly humiliated neighbors, friends and family members.
Hat tip to Talkleft
Shame Law Drunk Driving Tennessee Politics DUI Bredesen Charlotte Burks Tennessee Democrats Bad Laws
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