The Senate's drama queen

After failing once again to secure approval for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), crotchety old Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens threatened to go to the states of all the senators who opposed his drilling plan to tell their constituents "what you've done." I'm sure it was just more bluster from the self-described "mean, miserable SOB," but if it's not I imagine many senators would welcome such an opportunity to discuss federal spending priorities.

I'm sure the senators would love to point out to their constituents and Sen. Stevens how much of their tax dollars are redistributed to the state of Alaska. I'm sure they'd love to point out how Alaskans don't pay any state income taxes, but instead receive an annual payment from their state government. This year every man, woman and child in Alaska received $845.76 from the fund merely for breathing the air in the 49th state.

DC Clipmonkey has written before about how Alaska's welfare mentality contradicts the state's image as a land of rugged individuals. I guess it's just one more example of how we've entered an age of hypocrisy. Sen. Stevens embodies that hypocrisy like no one else- a "conservative" who binges at the government trough.

It's time for Congress to do its job

While many on the left are salivating over visions of impeachment hearings in response to the news of the president's domestic wiretapping program, it's important to acknowledge that the man's intentions, at least in this particular case, are not evil. Yes, he and Cheney do have some devilish designs on consolidating power within the executive branch. But if you had a friend who you knew was emailing Osama bin Laden, wouldn't you let the FBI know? I certainly would.

Clearly the administration overstepped its bounds. It should have at least sought the endorsement of those members of Congress serving on the intelligence committees before undertaking such a program. It should have even sought legislation that would have provided this authority. In fact, the refusal to seek congressional approval reveals a certain contempt or condescension toward the legislative branch and the American people.

As John Dean clearly laid out in his excellent book Worse Than Watergate, this administration has gone to incredible lengths to consolidate power in the executive. Maybe they felt they deserved such power or sincerely believed that it would not be granted by Congress. Considering that the administration has pretty much had its way with Congress for five years now, it would be surprising if such authority would not have been quickly provided, especially in the aftermath of 9/11.

Nearly half of Americans lack any trust in this administration. They are well-justified in this viewpoint. But there is no evidence that the administration has used this particular power to spy on Americans for political purposes. The administration certainly must be held accountable for spying on certain left-wing groups (including the Catholic Workers, a group this clipmonkey once considered joining) under other provisions within the law. That discovery warrants serious scrutiny. And we may find out about appalling excesses in the coming weeks, but until then this president deserves the benefit of the doubt. Many of his policies are loathsome, but he's no J. Edgar Hoover.

The real test now is what Congress will do next. Will it stage show hearings and express alarm while tacitly approving the surveillance program? Or will the Republicans in Congress finally fulfill their oversight role of the executive branch rather than continuing to serve as the pro-corporate, pro-Bush patsies they've been for the past five years?

The poor: Not a high priority for the religious right

This writer has repeatedly excoriated "Christians" who spend their time demonizing gay people while ignoring the concerns of poor Americans. It has always been a mystery to me how these folks on the religious right could be such activists around so many causes (evolution, gay rights, nominating judges, tax cuts) yet completely disregard Christ's teachings with regard to the poor. Well, in a Washington Post story this week, many of these fixtures of the religious right explained why they do virtually nothing about the issue of poverty in America- it's just not a high priority.

Money quote:

"It's not a question of the poor not being important or that meeting their needs is not important," said Paul Hetrick, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, Dobson's influential, Colorado-based Christian organization. "But whether or not a baby is killed in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, that is less important than help for the poor? We would respectfully disagree with that."

Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal Christian journal Sojourners and an organizer of today's protest, was not buying it. Such conservative religious leaders "have agreed to support cutting food stamps for poor people if Republicans support them on judicial nominees," he said. "They are trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They're being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical."

Thank you, Jim Wallis, for calling attention to this staggering hypocrisy.

(Some) candor from Bush

Dare I say it, but is President Bush starting to grow up? His childish refusal to admit mistakes during the first four years of his administration seems to have finally passed as this week he acknowledged that the prewar intelligence on Iraq was wrong and that the war itself has not been such great news for 30,000 dead Iraqis.

Of course, it was not a perfect week for Bush. He stated his belief that Tom DeLay was innocent on the charges currently pending against him, a comment that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid deemed a high-level act of jury tampering. News reports also revealed this week that the president has been trampling on the Constitution by authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals.

But these embarrassing instances aside, Bush did something else this week that has been extremely rare since he took office - compromise. On Thursday, he and torture enthusiast Dick Cheney gave up on their effort to retain the right of the CIA to torture detainees. Of course, loopholes abound in the president's compromise, but this is a step toward reestablishing our nation's traditional respect for human rights.

Are these signs that the administration is maturing? Compromising and speaking with candor are what adults do, but for the most part neither have been part of this administration's repertoire. With three painful years ahead under this regime, these actions offer a little hope.

Under the radar: Plumbing the leaks

Several weeks ago WashPo reporter Dana Priest uncovered the news that the U.S. government was detaining some Al Qaeda suspects in several Eastern European countries, away from the attention of the Red Cross and safely in that netherworld where torture and prisoner treatment standards are nebulous. This was alarming, but not surprising news as it's been well-documented that this administration supports the use of torture and has used a variety of means to enable other countries to practice torture on terrorism suspects.

The one surprising thing about this episode was not that it was occurring, but how Republicans reacted to it. Rather than condemning the use of secret prisons, Messieurs Frist and Hastert initiated an inquiry into how news of the detention facilities was leaked to the press. They expressed no outrage about the facilities themselves. Sadly, this is today's Republican Party- more concerned about protecting its leaders than doing what is right. Even the Wall Street Journal supports the Republicans' pro-torture agenda.

Howard Dean's at it again

Just when it seemed like the Democrats were on a roll that might carry them through November 2006, Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean recaptured the role of useful idiot for the Republicans. On a talk radio show early this week Dean commented, "The idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong."

As with most of Mr. Dean's ill-timed statements, there may be some truth to this one. However, it was not a helpful comment and it ultimately depends on how you define winning. In fact, the best way out of Iraq may well be to simply declare victory and get out soon. If this is the case, Democrats and progressives who want us out should be shouting what a success the war has been. Although the country is a total mess, one could argue that we've already won- we've deposed Saddam, we've enabled the country to hold elections, we've enabled the Iraqis to govern themselves at least partially.

The problem with this latest statement is that it changes the subject from how poorly Bush is handling the Iraq war to are the Democrats treasonous naysayers? Howard Dean has made a significant contribution to the Democratic Party, but he should never have been chosen as its leader. Now he should step down and run for the Senate where he'll only embarrass a few hundred thousand people from the state of Vermont, not Democrats across the country.

In Bush's America, facts are for those who lack power

John DiIulio, President Bush's former director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said it best in a story that appeared in Esquire Magazine in January 2003:

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

So it is with the news this week that political appointees in the Justice Department overruled the findings of a team of lawyers who unanimously concluded that the 2003 Texas redistricting plan, initiated by a certain indicted figure, was a violation of the Voting Rights Act. As we know, the plan was approved and five new Republicans were elected in Texas in 2004 singlehandedly increasing the Republican majority in the House.

Similarly, we learned several weeks ago that administration officials at the FDA had circumvented the agency's normal procedures to block Plan B emergency contraception from being available over the counter.

With this administration, the pattern is clear. There is no room for dispassionate policy analysis. Facts and data are merely for people who lack power. In this White House, there is only power and the will to exercise it.

Bring it on

As memos continue to leak out revealing the activist leanings of Judge Samuel Alito, it's becoming clear that this man could be the guy to overturn Roe v. Wade. Of course, he won't say it during the course of his hearings and he'll look like a sweet little puppy when DiFi confronts him over some of his Reagan era writings. But sooner or later, we are going to have to deal with the fact that the right-wingers on the court are determined to overturn the right to an abortion.

While this action may be devastating for women for some years to come, it's time to air this spat before the entire nation. A solid majority of Americans believe that women should have the right to choose. And another solid segment of the Republican Party supports it, too. But both sides have been allowed to hide behind hypotheticals for decades. It's time to stand and be counted. Should the state force a woman to have a child against her will?

This writer strongly supports efforts to reduce abortions from occurring in the first place, but at the end of the day, he would NEVER take away a woman's right to choose. Would you, President Bush, or you Chief Justice Roberts, or you soon-to-be Justice Alito? It's time to bring this discussion out in the open.

What's another word for lying?

In Slate last week, Jacob Weisberg explores the question of whether the Bush Administration deliberately misled the American public during the buildup before the Iraq war. His conclusion- it most certainly did. Money quote:

If you examine these [erroneous claims] and other pillars of the administration's case for invading Iraq, a clear pattern emerges. Bush officials first put clear pressure on the intelligence community to support their assumptions that Saddam was developing WMD and cooperating with al-Qaida. Nonetheless, significant contrary evidence emerged. Bush hawks then overlooked, suppressed, or willfully ignored whatever cut against their views. In public, they depicted unsettled questions as dead certainties. Then, when they were caught out and proven wrong, they resisted the obvious and refused to correct the record. Finally, when their positions became utterly untenable, they claimed that they were misinformed or not told. Call this behavior what you will, but you can't describe it as either "honest" or "truthful."

It's nice that Weisberg shows the administration the courtesy of not calling them liars, but let's be honest, the Administration presented Saddam as a clear and present danger to the United States. It simply wasn't true. Images of mushroom clouds and smoking guns were bandied about without any tangible evidence. Several years later not a single shred of evidence has emerged revealing that we were in any danger. Yes, even this writer thought that Iraq probably had WMDs, but he was skeptical about whether those weapons were a threat to us. Clearly, they were not. They lied.

The worst consequence of our actions is that they've given the radicals in the Middle East what they always wanted- a legitimate reason to hate us. They no longer have to hate us because of our support for Israel. They don't have to mention the sanctions we placed on Iraq which harmed so many children. Now they can just show pictures of the many thousands who have been killed since this war began.

We invaded a country that was no threat to us and may have spawned a civil war that could become a pan-Arab war. Way to go, President Bush.

Op-ed: Another difference between Democrats and Republicans

DC Clipmonkey has had countless conversations with his many very liberal friends and acquaintances about whether it matters who wins presidential elections. During the 2000 election, he regularly battled with Nader supporters over whether it mattered if Gore or Bush won. He'd like to think that those debates have been clearly decided, but if not, it's important to remind those Naderites that there are small, but significant ways in which the current administration's policies contrast with those of hypothetical Gore and Kerry administrations every day.

This week another glaring example of this appeared in the news when a report revealed that political appointees at the FDA had overruled scientists in determining whether the morning-after pill, also known as Plan B, should be available without a prescription. For those friends of clipmonkey who aren't aware, Plan B is an emergency contraceptive that can prevent a woman from becoming pregnant if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Approved by the FDA in 1999 as a prescription drug, it is most effective within the first 24 hours after unprotected sex. If a woman is required to see a doctor and obtain a prescription, the delay could make the drug far less effective. For example, if the unprotected sex occurs over a weekend and no appointments are available until Monday, it could mean an unwanted pregnancy.

The GAO report found that the FDA did not follow its normal procedures in determining the status of Plan B, deferring instead to political appointees like Dr. Mark McClellan, the brother of beleaguered White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. During the course of the review process, McClellan repeatedly raised many of the objections to the drug's availability posed by various right-wing "Christian" groups.

This case is but another example of how the current administration simply hands off decision-making to one interest group or another regardless of the evidence or policy impact. Remarkably, it also raises the question of whether the policies of Bush and the religious zealots who back him have actually increased abortions.

Do these so-called Christians actually care about reducing abortions or do they simply like to use the issue as a cudgel with which to win elections?

Must-read: The case against torture

It's fascinating to think how different the world would be had Al Gore been elected president back in 2000. Would we be anywhere near Iraq right now? Would global warming be on the national agenda? Would 9/11 have even occurred?

But an even more interesting question for this moment is what the world would be like if Sen. John McCain (pictured in a Hanoi hospital) had secured the Republican nomination in 2000 and become president. Over the years, McCain has proven himself to be a decent, reasonable man. On issues ranging from health care to gun control, he has been a voice of moderation and compromise. Although something of a hawk on national security, it's hard to imagine that the war in Iraq would have been fought as it has been or even at all under a McCain administration.

One thing that would certainly be different is our government's policy on torture. McCain, a victim of torture himself, knows how reprehensible and impractical the use of torture is. He lays it out beautifully right here. Money quote:

To prevail in this war we need more than victories on the battlefield. This is a war of ideas, a struggle to advance freedom in the face of terror in places where oppressive rule has bred the malevolence that creates terrorists. Prisoner abuses exact a terrible toll on us in this war of ideas. They inevitably become public, and when they do they threaten our moral standing, and expose us to false but widely disseminated charges that democracies are no more inherently idealistic and moral than other regimes. This is an existential fight, to be sure. If they could, Islamic extremists who resort to terror would destroy us utterly. But to defeat them we must prevail in our defense of American political values as well. The mistreatment of prisoners greatly injures that effort.

John McCain is a man truly worthy of the presidency. Too bad George W. Bush and his sleazy benefactors deprived our nation of this man's leadership.

Alaska, Aleutian for "land of government waste"

Several weeks ago, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens gave an indignant speech on the Senate floor in response to a proposed amendment that would cut some pork designated for his home state and redistribute it to the ravaged Gulf Coast region. Stevens warned his colleagues:

"I will put the Senate on notice -- and I don't kid people -- if the Senate decides to discriminate against our state and take money only from our state, I will resign from this body."

Unfortunately for our nation's fiscal health, it didn't come to that. The amendment was defeated 82-15 and Alaska will continue to receive its ridiculously disproportionate share of government largesse. But this episode has called attention to the scandalous amount of tax dollars that ends up in the pockets of Alaskans.

Alaska is a stunningly beautiful place. It remains one of the last places in the world where you can truly witness nature unencumbered by human beings. On two trips there I've encountered grizzly bears, a wolverine, watched multitudes of salmon swim upstream, and viewed towering mountain ranges. On these trips, I've been impressed by the kind of rugged individualism it takes to live in Alaska. You've got to be tough to survive those winters.

With that toughness, Alaska's conservatism seemed to make sense. I imagined that Alaskans had a self-reliant, independent streak. In reality, Alaska is an enormous welfare state that would make the Europeans blush. Its residents pay no sales or income tax and each year every man, woman and child who has lived in Alaska for the preceding year receives a dividend check from the Alaska Permanent Fund. This year it's $845.76 just for breathing the Alaska air.

Meanwhile, Alaska receives more federal spending per capita than ANY state, $1,150 per person. And soon, U.S. taxpayers are poised to spend $223 million for a bridge to nowhere in the 49th State.

Any notion of conservatism and self-reliance among Alaskans is nothing more than a myth. It's time to cut Alaska and Sen. Stevens off. Learn more about the "bridge to nowhere" and how Alaska's congressional delegation is fleecing you from Taxpayers for Common Sense.

A glimpse of what's to come?

It's premature to call the solid victories by Democrats Tim Kaine and Jon Corzine a bellwether for the 2006 elections. Much can happen between now and then to change the political landscape and there were many factors unique to their respective states that enabled Kaine and Corzine to win. But yesterday's results are certainly a promising sign for Democrats.

Tim Kaine's victory in Virginia was a resounding rejection of the Republican attack dog style of politics which has been employed so successfully in recent decades. Kaine's opponent, Jerry Kilgore, tried to tap deep into the Republicans' arsenal of wedge issues, bashing illegal immigrants and stoking fear of death row killers, most prominently. For some reason, he forgot to bash gays. Fortunately, Kilgore's vapid negative campaign failed miserably.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey Jon Corzine won an ugly, nasty election he was widely expected to win. No great lesson came out of Corzine's race other than a reminder that New Jersey is now a safely blue state.

What does all this portend for the 2006 election? Probably not much, but after the devastating loss of 2004 it feels good to be a Democrat again.

What's really the matter with Kansas

On Nov. 8th, 2006 the Kansas Board of Education formally filed for a divorce from reality. By a 6-4 margin, board members adopted new public-school standards that elevate the concept of intelligent design to the same academic standing as the theory of evolution.

This is particularly distressing at a time when less American kids are going into fields involving Math and Science. While China produces 150,000 programmers per year, children in Kansas will be forced to study supernatural causes for opposable thumbs. Not only is this decision damaging to the children of Kansas; it also perpetuates an ugly, anti-intellectual crusade intended to introduce a very Christian God into every classroom in the United States.

Charles Krauthammer writes a very stirring op-ed piece explaining the blatant fraud of intelligent design.

Spotlight on Dick Cheney

The Vice President has always been a shadowy, Wizard of Oz-like figure presumed to be pulling levers behind the scenes in the Bush White House. Of late, he's garnered attention for his involvement in the unfolding Valerie Plame/CIA leak scandal. Indeed, it appears Cheney may have even started the entire mess. But as Karl Rove and the VP's pal, Scooter Libby, practice their perp walks, the roguish Cheney continues to walk freely while doing his best to shame the United States and earn the scorn of the entire world.

His latest misguided project is ensuring that CIA interrogators retain the right to practice torture on detainees. This is an interesting move by Cheney considering he doesn't even think the CIA should be charged with its primary functions, gathering and analyzing intelligence. As he demonstrated in the lead-up to the Iraq War, Cheney doesn't trust the CIA, so he and SecDef Donald Rumsfeld set up the Office of Special Plans within the Defense Department to build the case for war (Newsweek lays the entire story out here.). According to the British newspaper the Guardian,

"The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war. "

In another time and with a less compliant news media, Dick Cheney would be a ridiculed figure. His public statements would be laughed at by reporters much like the words of the infamous Iraqi information minister. To wit,

"The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." -Cheney, June 20, 2005.

"Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." -Cheney, March 16, 2003.

Meanwhile, his current, er, former employer, Halliburton, continues to win huge contracts from the U.S. government despite innumerable shady dealings. Cheney continues to receive a deferred salary from the company and owns stock options worth as much as $8 million.

Now, the Vice President is battling with a torture survivor, Sen. John McCain, to protect the right of our government to commit torture. This is coming from a guy who received five deferments from serving in Vietnam.

The man is truly shameless.

A glimpse at Corporate America

After a brief foray into corporate responsibility following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, is back at its usual ways of gutting employee benefits and freeloading off the government to care for its employees. In a memo obtained by the New York Times, Wal-Mart has revealed its true colors- it wants to cut employee benefits without looking too awful in the eyes of the public.

The proposals laid out in the memo include:

• discouraging unhealthy employees from accepting work at Wal-Mart by requiring that "all jobs include some physical activity,"
• hiring more part-time workers, and
• attracting more young workers at lower pay since older workers are no more productive.

The memo acknowledged that in cutting benefits Wal-Mart must walk softly because 46 percent of the children of its 1.33 million U.S. employees lack health insurance or receive Medicaid. I guess times are tight for the Walton family since the company only earned $10.5 billion last year.

Meanwhile, another industry with questionable business practices is reporting jaw-dropping earnings this week. ExxonMobil is expected to announce today that it has earned the largest quarterly profit of any company ever!

I wonder what proposals for corporate welfare Congress has in store for the oil companies now?

Op-ed: Standard Operating Procedure

The Weekly Standard has revealed what I’ve suspected for years. Unethical, amoral, and probably criminal behavior is the hallmark of conservative governing. Jeffrey Bell and William Kristol unite to search low but not high for an explanation to the unfortunate fact that the entire Republican leadership seems to be under investigation. Bell and Kristol might find the answer to their probing question if they were to look within; of course, conservatives are incapable of introspection, reflection, or any other form of self-critical analysis.

Still I must query the authors: if conservatives control the executive and legislative branches of government (not to mention that a majority of the Supreme Court has been appointed by Republican presidents), how could a conspiracy of criminalization exist – let alone thrive – in the first place? Democrats, both liberal and moderate, are on the outside looking in and the so-called “moderate Republican” is such a rare species that it couldn’t possibly exert a significant influence. No, it seems to me that other forces must be at work.

I suggest two alternatives. First, conservatives are cannibals. This seems far-fetched and, as Bell and Kristol note, so many conservative leaders are under investigation for so many transgressions that the cannibalistic explanation seems incomplete as well. For this explanation to hold, conservatives would have to be cannibals on the order of gerbils and I for one have a hard time believing – given their limited appetite for thought – that they could devour much above the order of a lost expedition. My point is that they wouldn’t choose to eat their own. Rather they would only attempt to stomach themselves if driven to it by some force majeure.

The second alternative is that DeLay, Libby, Rove, Frist, and Co. may be miscreants whose bad acts have run afoul of the system of laws that we as a nation cherish. Admittedly this is a less sexy explanation but it’s where I’ll put my money. Under this premise there is no vast any-wing conspiracy presently at work – only wrongdoers and conscientious enforcers of the law. In short, the dilemma for Bell and Kristol is not that there is a conspiracy that is out to criminalize conservative governance; rather, it’s that there isn’t one in place to shield them from their criminal acts. I guess that will give them something to work for in 2006.

-This post was written by Brookland Clipmonkey.

Outrage of the week: Screwing the troops, Part II

It continues to amaze DC Clipmonkey how members of the military get routinely screwed by their leaders yet continue to strongly support their government (For Part I, click here). It is particularly stunning how anyone in the military would vote Republican after the disaster that is the war in Iraq.

The fruitlessness and short-sightedness of the Iraq war aside, in recent weeks we've learned:

• Injured soldiers who've returned to the U.S. are continuing to receive combat zone wages, but are later sent huge bills to repay the government for its mistake.
• The Armed Forces earn $120 million from on-base slot machines, forcing many servicemembers into debt (You can't help but wonder if Abramoff is behind this.).
• The Army has tried to cover-up the truth about how football star-turned-Army Ranger Pat Tillman died in Afghanistan.

These bits of news come on the heels of a Pentagon report that the Bush Administration failed to pay attention to prewar intelligence that "predicted the factional rivalries now threatening to split Iraq." According to USA Today:

"In an ironic twist, the policy community was receptive to technical intelligence (the weapons program), where the analysis was wrong, but apparently paid little attention to intelligence on cultural and political issues (post-Saddam Iraq), where the analysis was right," they write.

U.S. servicemembers, Pat Tillman's family and the American people deserve better than the dishonest, short-sighted, malevolent leadership of the current administration and its civilian cronies at the Pentagon.

Update: For even more military shenanigans, click here.

Virginia 2005 or California 1994?

In 1994, California Gov. Pete Wilson (R) staked his reelection campaign on Proposition 187, a measure to deny public services to illegal immigrants. The strategy was extremely successful, helping Wilson to garner 55% of the vote that year alongside the 59% support won by the anti–illegal immigrant ballot measure.

During the 1994 campaign, Gov. Wilson also eagerly contrasted his strong support for the death penalty with his opponent’s (Kathleen Brown) opposition to it due to her Catholic faith. Nevermind the fact that Wilson had allowed only a handful of executions to proceed during his first term in Sacramento.

Lastly, Wilson trotted out another old reliable – painting his opponent as a tax-and-spend liberal. Again, he did this despite the fact that Wilson himself had raised taxes in his first budget by $7 billion.

When Republicans lack any positive agenda, they trot out wedge issues that terrify suburban moms and inflame angry white men. They bash illegal immigrants. They stoke fear of crime. And they cast their opponents as tax-and-spend liberals. The mind-numbing simplicity and effectiveness of it are a sad commentary on the electorate. Has anything changed in the past decade? In Virginia, probably not.

Jerry Kilgore, the Republican candidate for governor, has ripped his opponent, Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, for seeking a responsible policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, personally opposing the death penalty, and pursuing reasonable tax increases to address Northern Virginia's horrendous traffic problems. It's the same garbage that has helped Republicans divide and conquer this nation for the past two decades.

Tim Kaine is an honorable man who has worked to advance civil rights, help the poor in America and abroad, and serve the public. Hopefully, Virginians will stand up to this naked attempt to wedge the voting public. You can help, too.

There's some hope for the American people

Bush continues to tumble in the polls. From CBS News:

PRESIDENT BUSH President Bush's job approval rating has fallen to his lowest rating ever. 37 percent now approve of the job he is doing as president, while 58 percent disapprove. Those in his own party are still overwhelmingly positive about his performance (nearly 80 percent approve), but the president receives little support from either Democrats or Independents. And while views of President Bush have lately not changed much among Republicans or Democrats, his approval rating among Independents has dropped 11 points since just last month, from 40 percent to 29 percent now.

Now that he's enraged the right-wing with the nomination of lightweight Harriet Miers, he might be under 30 within the month.

A failure of leadership

Because President Bush wouldn't set standards regarding the appropriate treatment of detainees, the Senate had no other choice. Thank you, senators, for voting 90-9 to restore some dignity to this nation.

In case you are wondering, here is a list of the pro-torture nine:

1. Allard (R-CO)
2. Bond (R-MO)
3. Coburn (R-OK)
4. Cochran (R-MS)
5. Cornyn (R-TX)
6. Inhofe (R-OK)
7. Roberts (R-KS)
8. Sessions (R-AL)
9. Stevens (R-AK)

I guess Oklahoma is now known as "The Torture State."

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

One architect of sleaze gives way for another.

Here's a little about the new Majority Leader, courtesy of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington:

In 2003, Rep. Blunt divorced his wife of 31 years to marry Philip Morris (now Altria) lobbyist Abigail Perlman. Before it was known publicly that Rep. Blunt and Ms. Perlman were dating – and only hours after Rep. Blunt assumed the role of Majority Whip – he tried to secretly insert a provision into Homeland Security legislation that would have benefitted Philip Morris, at the expense of competitors.

In addition, Rep. Blunt’s son Andrew lobbies on behalf of Philip Morris, a major client he picked up only four years out of law school. Notably, Altria is Rep. Blunt’s largest campaign contributor, having donated more than $270,000 to political committees tied to him.

More ideological bankruptcy from the Republicans

Following up on Brookland Clipmonkey's fine post from yesterday, an article from last week's LA Times about the post-Katrina relief effort reveals how success has undermined the principles of the Republican Party. Check out the excerpt below with a money quote from Newt:

At least in the case of housing, critics say that the president's unwillingness to rely on existing programs could raise costs. Instead of offering $10,000 vouchers, FEMA is paying an average of $16,000 for each trailer in the new parks it is contemplating. Even many Republicans wonder why the government would want to build trailer parks when many evacuees are now living in communities with plenty of vacant, privately owned apartments.

"The idea that — in a community where we could place people in the private housing market to reintegrate them into society — we would put them in [trailer] ghettos with no jobs, no community, no future, strikes me as extraordinarily bad public policy, and violates every conservative principle that I'm aware of," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican.

"If they do it," Gingrich said of administration officials, "they will look back on it six months from now as the greatest disaster of this administration."

What has happened to the Grand Ole Party?

This is what patriotism looks like

Today's WP publishes a letter from an Army Captain who tried for 17 months to determine what the U.S. policy on treating detainees was. As you can imagine, he failed. For commentary, go here. For the letter, go here. But first, read this money quote:

Some argue that since our actions are not as horrifying as Al Qaeda's, we should not be concerned. When did Al Qaeda become any type of standard by which we measure the morality of the United States? We are America, and our actions should be held to a higher standard, the ideals expressed in documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Don't blame Lynndie England. This is the fault of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Flanigan, and many, many others. They have shamed our nation.

Tom DeLay indicted

From the Washington Post- DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe.

Karl Rove, you're next.

Op-ed: The Conservative Movement: Principally a bankrupt ideology

The headline of Tuesday’s Washington Post reads: “FEMA Plans to Repay Faith Groups for Aid”. The article, which reports on efforts by Congress and the administration to reimburse faith-based organizations for the aid they have provided in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, primarily emphasizes the problems such reimbursements would create under the doctrine of separation of church and state. From a more fundamental perspective, however, the push for reimbursements by Republican leaders and conservative groups illuminates just how ideologically bankrupt the conservative movement has become.

Reagan Republicans, Republican Revolutionists, and the Bushies used to argue for limited government based on the principle that private charity was the more effective and virtuous avenue for directing aid to the needy. This argument was a corollary of the proposition that private markets always produce more efficient outcomes than markets marked by government intervention. The theory went that instead of devising big government programs concerned with the general welfare we should shrink government, cut taxes, and let charitable organizations funded by private donations provide solace and support to those in need. This principle was no small part of the conservative ideology. And, as we find out, it’s no part at all of the conservative practice.

Bush, Cheney, Rove, Frist, DeLay, Norquist, Abramoff, George Will, the Heritage Foundation and the rest of the Conservative Movementarians remembered the tax cutting part of the formula, at least for the jet set crowd. Unfortunately, in their haste to raid the piggybank they seem to have forgotten the part about private charities being the better resource for allocating altruism. Under the proposed scheme private charities will become public charities financed by the U.S. taxpayer. To make matters worse, the religious right has evidently begun taking its cues from Halliburton. Why compete in the private sector when the Republicans have opened Uncle Sam’s wallet like Bill Bennett at Bally’s to anyone on the Right side of things?

Apparently the point is not – as free market capitalists would have us believe – that government prima facie should not undertake certain activities, rather the point is that government should give money to Republican constituencies to undertake those same activities. (It’s considered a bonus if there’s a chance to proselytize along the way.) Then instead of bloated government, we’ll have bloated fat cats. Of course we’ll have bloated budget deficits too but that doesn’t matter to the folks who are lining their pockets and stocking the coffers of the RNC. If you’ve got an invite, it really is a Grand Old Party!

The conservative movement has gone from the principled (but wrong) argument that government should not intervene to provide for the general welfare because it crowds out donations to private charities, which otherwise would achieve more optimal outcomes, to the unprincipled (and still wrong) practice that churches that open their doors to those in need should suckle off the teat of Lady Liberty. Market intervention is market intervention. But apparently conservative ideology is more malleable. In any case, the doctrinal wellspring of conservatism has run dry. Say an ode; hold your nose.

-This post was written by Brookland Clipmonkey.

Outrage of the week: What they always wanted

An excuse to ravage our nation's natural resources.

Finally, a call for sacrifice

President Bush loves to say that we are a nation at war. At every opportunity he mentions this to remind people that he's tough and to justify his misguided policies. But he's never asked any of us to sacrifice for the war in Iraq or anything else. After five years of running up the national credit card bill, giving us tax cuts, prescription drug benefits, and a war we cannot afford, Bush has finally asked us to do something for the good of our country.

Too bad President Bush is not following his own advice.

Corruption and fiscal mismanagement

The recent news that a Bush administration official is ensnared in a corruption probe and the rampant waste, fraud and abuse by companies working in Iraq and on the Katrina cleanup with ties to the Bushies and Republicans in Congress will be the party's downfall in 2006.

Must-read: Richard Cohen on Bush and race

Cohen gets it right in today's Washington Post (where the opinion pieces are still FREE- screw you, NYT), it's incompetence, not racism. Money quote:

We owe the poor our special consideration. We especially owe the black poor an appreciation of their plight and their dolorous history. But in general it was incompetence, not racism, that slowed the relief effort -- incompetence on the local and state levels, too, and incompetence on the part of black as well as white public officials. The search for racist scapegoats does the poor no good. This relief effort ought to start, above all, with some clear thinking.

Live to fight another day

The Washington Post said it first Sunday, but this clipmonkey's been saying it for some time. John Roberts should be confirmed by a solid, nearly unanimous vote.

Roberts has proven himself fully qualified to serve on the Supreme Court. Admittedly, he was not the most forthright nominee in confirmation hearing history, but his credentials are impressive and nothing came up during his hearings that disqualified him. Of course, many left-wing clipmonkeys would prefer Laurence Tribe or Mario Cuomo or some such liberal, but we lost the election last November and we can't change that.

Left-wing interest groups are creating hysteria over Roberts, as they did with Justice Souter's nomination a while back ("Stop Souter or women will die"). They may even be right that Roberts will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Unfortunately, little can be done a) to predict that, and b) to make President Bush pick someone acceptable to the left. That's why Democrats should conserve their ammunition in case Bush nominates some genuine nut such as Janice Rogers Brown for the high court.

For now, though, Senate Democrats should show this president the same courtesy extended to Bill Clinton and his nominees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, nearly unanimous support. The best we can do is hope that Roberts recognizes that many Americans do not grow up with all of the opportunities that he had, and start working to help win the majority in the Senate in '06 and the presidency in '08.

Outrage of the week: Lights on for Bush, off for everyone else

From Brian Williams' blog:

I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.

We are all liberals now

Standing in front of the Magic Kingdom, President Bush proposes a lavish effort to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina and confront poverty with "bold action." Tom DeLay says there is no fat left to cut in the federal budget. MSNBC host, former Republican Congressman, and Bush lackey Joe Scarborough is reexamining his views on the role of the federal government. Newt Gingrich is working with Hillary Clinton on improving our health care system.

What's next, Rush Limbaugh calling for an end to the war on drugs?

The Onion gets it right once again

Halliburton Gets Contract To Pry Gold Fillings From New Orleans Corpses' Teeth

September 14, 2005 HOUSTON—On Tuesday, Halliburton received a $110 million no-bid government contract to pry the gold fillings from the mouths of deceased disaster victims in the New Orleans-Gulf Coast area. "We are proud to serve the government in this time of crisis by recovering valuable resources from the wreckage of this deadly storm," said David J. Lesar, Halliburton's president. "The gold we recover from the human rubble of Katrina can be used to make fighter-jet electronics, supercomputer chips, inflation-proof A-grade investments, and luxury yachting watches."

Bush's accountability moment

Yesterday's acknowledgment by President Bush that he accepts responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina is a breakthrough for the president and for this nation. For a guy who refused to acknowledge any mistakes during the 2004 campaign, this was an act of maturity that has never before been seen in this man. Maybe W. has finally grown up.

Now if he'd only accept responsibility and work to correct another miserable government failure, the war in Iraq.

Outrage of the week: Another out of touch member of the Bush Aristocracy

From MSNBC:

At a school in Mississippi, it was first lady Laura Bush defending the government’s response to Katrina. “I think we’ve seen a lot of the same footage over and over that isn’t necessarily representative of what really happened in both — in a lot of ways,” she said. “Overall, it was a very good response.”

Laura Bush faults media coverage, but was she even there? How would SHE know? What is she basing this on? How would she explain the still yet unrecovered bodies in the streets? How about the scathing assessments from impartial entities like the Red Cross, who have described conditions as "horrendous"??? (I went to a volunteer training this past weekend, the local director read a national memo assessing the very dire conditions.)

Also, on the "same footage," she's right to a degree. But so what? That's because news teams under pressure like that can't keep constantly collecting new footage every 10 seconds. It's impossible. It's the constraints of the situation, not an indication things are overblown.

By the way, did you hear what Barbara Bush said earlier this week?

-This post was written by the original clipmonkey.

Tax cuts + a war of choice + a natural disaster = fiscal doom

As the situation in Iraq continued to worsen this summer it was starting to become clear that the war was no longer an endeavor our government could afford. Still, Republicans in Congress continued their relentless pursuit of tax cuts for the wealthy, at least until this week. Now that Hurricane Katrina has invaded our political landscape and Congress has responded with over $60 billion to get us through the next few weeks, it is becoming clear that something's got to give.

Will it be their beloved tax cuts or the misguided effort in Iraq?

What goes around comes around, Dick Cheney

Remember Dick Cheney's salty words for Sen. Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor last year? Well, watch this.

One casualty that was worth it

One of the items at the top of the Republicans' post-recess agenda was a permanent repeal of the estate tax. But the disaster along the Gulf Coast and the tremendous harm it wrought on the region's poor people have taken this issue off the table, at least temporarily.

In recent years, the Republicans have tried to recast the estate tax as the death tax, fabricating sob stories of family farmers and small business owners who have been devastated by the tax. In reality, though, the tax impacts a minuscule number of people, encourages charitable giving, and rarely, if ever, has cost a family its business. Nonetheless, the Bush Administration continues its march toward returning America to a Dickensian England-like state.

Stopping this repeal is one bit of good Hurricane Katrina did.

Op-ed: America fails its poor (again)

The images of impoverished, desperate and largely African-American people roaming the streets of ghost-towns, collected on rooftops, gathered inside and outside of stadiums, ravaging stores for food and water, and looting unnecessary items is a tragic sight. It is but another instance of our government's failure to address the needs of poor Americans.

Whereas nearly all those of means escaped to friends, family, and hotels via their own automobiles or rental cars, those left behind had little with which to help them escape. They were stuck depending on a government that is supposed to be the envy of the world. A government with nearly limitless resources. A government that spends over $2 trillion each year.

We're well aware that the Bush Administration has been dismantling FEMA since 9/11. We know by now that our environmental policies have been endangering parts of the Gulf Coast for decades.

But few people know that those most devastated by the hurricane and its aftermath are victims of another quiet tragedy that attacks more Americans every day. These are the victims of a poverty rate that continues to rise, a health care system that falls short, and an "economic recovery" that leaves them, and most other Americans, behind. And for those just above the poverty line, many states are cutting the few supports that prop them up in our society.

Now, in their greatest hour of need, our government has failed them once again. Some will blame President Bush for not investing enough in emergency preparedness and sending National Guard troops on a mission few of them signed up for. But this is a larger failure that goes beyond the particular ideology of one president or one party. It is a failure of a nation that has largely turned its backs on poor people and scapegoated them for the struggles they are often born into.

Maybe this catastrophe will get Americans and our government to recognize that while we have pacified the poor, we have still failed them. Warehousing poor people in abysmal schools and tightly-packed jails and prisons are not anti-poverty policies.

Mr. Bush, we've seen the conservatism. It's time for the compassion. But we also need to show some compassion of our own.

Op-ed: John Bolton: Straight from Rough-and-Ready Creek

My girlfriend and I recently made our annual sojourn to Northern California’s Lost Coast to attend a 3-day reggae festival. The drive requires a short jaunt through the sweltering Illinois River Valley in southwestern Oregon. As we passed the dried-up remnants of Rough-and-Ready Creek, I noted that a few earnest homeowners had taken it upon themselves to let all passers-by know their true feelings about the UN. Their comments can be summarized in two statements: 1) The US should get out of the UN because it undermines US sovereignty, and 2) UN payments are a global tax and taxes should be avoided at all costs. All messages were painted in red and blue on large white backdrops.

I don’t know if John Bolton has ever visited the area around Rough-and-Ready Creek, but his latest end-run at the U.N. proposal on humanitarian relief, genocide, and terrorism indicates that he more than sympathizes with the residents. The White House and Bolton are conducting an all-out blitz on the empowerment initiatives in the U.N. These proposals are meant to strengthen international resolve on fundamental issues such as genocide and terrorism. Instead of picking and choosing where to act based on geopolitical significance, these new measures would require wealthier nations to stand and act together against the maladies of our time.

Yet let’s be honest. John Bolton wasn’t chosen by the Bush family to cooperate with Kofi Annan’s plans or provide insightful leadership in revising the U.N. charter. Instead, Bolton denounces plans for increased aid to poorer countries as a global tax and insists that any definition of terrorism cannot apply to state-sanctioned forces.. Bolton is essentially a walking monkey wrench, meant to undermine the current negotiations and disrupt any policy that the administration deems a threat to US unilateralism.

So take heart citizens of the Rough-and-Ready. Your voice has been heard in the highest offices of the country, and your views are being carried forth with rabid ferocity.

Under the radar: Bush takes on our national parks

While much of America is focused on the war in Iraq and more recently on the natural disaster along the Gulf Coast, the Bush administration is quietly destroying our national park system.

In typical Bush administration fashion, a person without any park service experience was tasked with revising the park system's basic management policy document. The draft revision that is circulating within the Interior Department will allow off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, and Jet Skis to roam about in nearly every national park under the guise of providing "opportunities to use and enjoy" the parks. Now that's what I'm looking for when I go to a national park to quietly commune with nature – the roar of such vehicles in the background. Since when did it become necessary for people to use a motorized vehicle to enjoy the national parks? Maybe it was when the obesity rate of our population began skyrocketing…

One of the reasons that Hurricane Katrina had such a powerful impact on the city of New Orleans is because the wetlands that protected that area for years have been destroyed over the past couple of decades. While Mississippi and Louisiana struggle to recover from this terrible natural disaster, the Bush administration will likely miss one lesson that could be learned from this tragic event – we must learn to protect and conserve the environment in which we live.

-This post was written by Cleveland Park Clipmonkey.

Have oil, will bargain

Western Sahara, a large, sand-filled land bordering Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania recently found itself in the news after the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Richard Lugar, paid a visit under the direction of President Bush. Senator Lugar was tasked with mediating the release of 404 Moroccan soldiers that had been captured by the West Saharan political front Polisario during their long-standing feud with the Moroccan government over self-determination.

Morocco continues to claim Western Sahara despite the fact that no state currently recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over the region. What crucial US interests would prompt such an intense and active diplomatic effort in this 30 year-old post-colonial hangover? The big “O” of course.

Kerr-McGee, the infamous Oklahoma energy concern that was the defendant during the Karen Silkwood contamination trial, along with French oil giant Total/Elf, contracted with the Moroccan government to explore Western Saharan waters with the hope of finding new oil reserves. However, given the uproar over the status of Western Saharan sovereignty, the exploration consortium fell apart leaving Kerr-McGee the only company still willing to continue work. The company has a number of influential board members including former Haliburton Chairman William E. Bradford and former Arthur Andersen Audit Division Head, Robert O. Lorenz.

Oh, those ties that bind!

Chaos in New Orleans

As anyone who has ever been to New Orleans knows, the city needed a good washing.

But this is ridiculous.

Must-read: Fareed Zakaria on oil dependence and foreign policy

DC Clipmonkey just returned from a nice trip to Vermont during which he filled up his gas tank 7 or 8 times to the tune of roughly $25 at each stop (Obviously, he doesn't drive an SUV). DC Clipmonkey loved shelling out $2.50, $2.60, $2.70 per gallon and hopes that the price of gas continues to shoot up. Because only then will Americans start taking the problem of our addiction to oil seriously.

In an insightful commentary about oil consumption as foreign policy, Fareed Zakaria describes how our dependence on oil has us in a Catch-22 situation with brutal regimes throughout the Middle East.

This week, the Bush administration made a half-assed attempt to address the problem, but it will probably take $5 per gallon gas prices for our government and the American people to change their ways.

Bring it on.

A responsible path out of Iraq

The left-wing blogosphere is salivating at Bush's plummeting poll numbers, claiming they are a justification to bring the troops home. But nowhere in their emotional cries is an answer to the question of what is right both for Iraq and the U.S. Moveon.org, Daily Kos, The Nation, Cindy Sheehan, et al. are simply and irrationally spouting for our government to bring the troops home.

What happens if we abandon Iraq and a civil war breaks out? What happens if Iraq becomes like Afghanistan under the Taliban? What happens if Iran then invades Iraq? As Colin Powell foretold, we broke Iraq, now we own it. We may not have wanted this war, but we now owe it to the Iraqi people to help them stabilize their country.

Unfortunately, Nicholas von Hoffman may be right in this satirical post. On another note, this clipmonkey leaves it to George Will to remind us of the danger Democrats are courting.

A couple more differences between red and blue America

There are many obvious differences between the residents of red and blue America. In red America, they like to shoot guns, execute people, and watch NASCAR. We in blue America like to drink wine, attend gay pride parades, and listen to NPR. But there are a couple of other notable differences in the news today-

• Because the Bush Administration has failed to act, a group of nine blue state governors has just reached an agreement to reduce power plant emissions in the Northeastern United States. Another three blue state governors from the west coast are in the early stages of a similar process.
  
• Obesity continues to rise and yes, red staters have a bit more heft.

Outrage of the week: Making George Orwell proud

After cooking the numbers on the cost of the Medicare prescription drug benefit and altering reports on global warming, the Bush administration is at it again. This time they're lying to us about racial profiling by police.

These guys are indefensible.

So much for the Ten Commandments....

Not only is Pat Robertson praying for more vacancies (i.e. deaths) on the Supreme Court, now he's openly promoting assassination of a democratically-elected leader. According to Wednesday's reports, a few other Christian groups were too busy to disagree with Reverend Pat. Pretty soon they'll be installing statues depicting the Nine Commandments in a government building near you.

This kind of insane rhetoric is exactly why laws defining the separation of church and state need to be cast in iron and coated with titanium.

Buyer's remorse

It's too bad presidential elections are held every four years. Check out the bad news for Bush here. There's even more startling news for Bush in his state-by-state approval ratings here.

Op-ed: Bush's stain on our nation

There are plenty of reasons to despise President Bush- his favoritism for the wealthy, his blustery talk (especially given his unwillingness to serve in Vietnam), the fact that tens of thousands of people have died because of his policies, or his use of religion for political purposes.

But no reason stands out more than his administration's stance on torture. In endorsing torture, Bush has brought shame on our nation and endangered us all. Our soldiers in Iraq are the most vulnerable because of this policy, but ultimately, all of us are at a greater risk of terror because our president did not clearly and emphatically lay out a policy that banned torture.

By "playing cute" with the Geneva Conventions, as Sen. Lindsey Graham likes to say, President Bush has necessitated that members of Congress set the rules by which we treat detainees. Republican Sens. Graham and John McCain have admirably led this effort. It's just embarrassing that it has been left to them. Members of Bush's own military urged the Administration to prohibit torture, but shiny-loafered lawyers at the Justice Department tried to redefine the meaning of torture and the meaning of the Geneva Conventions.

Millions if not billions of people around the world hate us. Some can't stand our cultural and economic dominance. Others loathe us because of our support for Israel or our stationing of servicemembers in the Middle East. Still others hate us because we coddle repressive regimes while talking a good game about freedom and democracy.

Then there are the paranoids who hate us because they believe we want to destroy them. They think we want to wipe out the Arab world. And now, with the invasion of Iraq and the events at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and God knows where else, we've fed their paranoia. We have no designs on empire, despite what many liberal conspiracy theorists say, but who is going to listen to us now?

The damage to our nation's standing has been done. The question is now what we can do to repair it. Unfortunately, Karen Hughes is not the answer.

About John Roberts

DC Clipmonkey finds it ridiculous how folks on the left and right are getting into such a tizzy over John Roberts. To those on the left, who the hell did you expect Bush to nominate, Alan Dershowitz? To those on the right, please read the New Testament before we discuss this any further.

In total, the guy seems like a solid conservative who also happens to be a decent human being. Leave him alone and save your fire for some battles you can actually win.

Punished for adultery, but not for torture

The perversion of moral values by conservative Christians has not only taken over our political landscape, but also our military. Yesterday, the Army relieved Four-Star General Kevin Byrnes of his command because of an extramarital affair he had with a civilian.

Although Gen. Byrnes's affair is clearly a violation of the military's code of conduct, it certainly is not a crime that endangers us all and humiliates our nation. No, that crime would be practicing torture on detainees. Despite abundant evidence that the use of extreme tactics was approved by officials at the very top of the US government, not a single high-ranking member of the military, or any of their civilian enablers, has faced any significant punishment for this dark episode in American history. In fact, the only person punished in a significant way is Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the useful idiot "in charge" of the Abu Ghraib prison.

Not even Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, the fellow who once claimed about a Muslim adversary, "I knew my God was bigger than his," has been disciplined for making this and other more outrageous statements WHILE IN UNIFORM. The guy hasn't even been punished for failing at his actual duties- finding Osama bin Laden and aiding in the Iraq War. Boykin alone may be responsible for turning more people into anti-American terrorists than President Bush.

Remember, this is the same military, aided by civilian enablers, that runs out the few Arabic-speakers serving in it because they're gay.

God help us.

None of this is to say that adultery is not wrong, but there is a question of proportionality. Is it a greater crime to hurt your family or embarrass and endanger your country?

Dems and values

Regular readers of this site know that DC Clipmonkey bristles with rage at Republican claims that their party better represents the albeit-nebulous term "moral values." The idea that a party that eagerly supports the death penalty, torture, and bombing other countries, shows little regard for the environment, and cuts funding for services to the poor at every opportunity, is morally-upright is laughable. This month's Harper's describes the absurdity of this notion in great detail.

Ultimately, it is merely a function of marketing. Republicans are simply better at it. But many Democrats are finally getting the point, led by the Rev. Jim Wallis. In today's NYT, Wallis lays out how the Democrats can reclaim the values mantle.

Excerpt:

"...somebody must lead on the issue of poverty, and right now neither party is doing so. The Democrats assume the poverty issue belongs to them, but with the exception of John Edwards in his 2004 campaign, they haven't mustered the gumption to oppose a government that habitually favors the wealthy over everyone else. Democrats need new policies to offer the 36 million Americans, including 13 million children, who live below the poverty line, as well as the 9.8 million families one recent study identified as 'working hard but falling short.'"

Outrage of the week: Drunken sailors in Congress

Like a band of sailors rolling into a port town full of bars and prostitutes, members of Congress continue to empty their wallets, actually our wallets, via the latest transportation bill. Here are some of the more egregious earmarks:

• $200,000 for a deer avoidance system in Weedsport, N.Y.
• $330 million for a highway in Bakersfield, Calif.
• $480,000 to rehabilitate a historic warehouse on the Erie Canal.
• $3 million for dust control mitigation on Arkansas rural roads.
• $2.3 million for landscaping on the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California.

The worst perpetrator of all, as always, was Alaska, which means "the land of government waste" in the Inuit Language. The third-least populated state received $941 million - the fourth most in earmarks - courtesy of its lone representative, Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young. $231 million of it was for a bridge near Anchorage to be named "Don Young's Way."

Even worse, Congress is hiding how much it actually spent behind some accounting tricks that would make Enron proud. So much for fiscal conservatism.

A middle finger to the world

Nominating John Bolton through a recess appointment is a giant f-you to the rest of the world. The guy is insane, incompetent, and a human affront to the United Nations. This appointment reminds this clipmonkey once again that we need to reclaim our country from these corrupt, Bible-misusing, torture-loving, UN-hating, innocent people-bombing, oil-loving, job-outsourcing bastards ASAP.

Here's what this clipmonkey wrote when the Bolton nomination was first announced.

A new litmus test for the post-9/11 world

Are you pro-torture or anti-torture? The Bush Administration, its Attorney General, and many of its cronies are clearly supportive of it, even over the objections of the military.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, however, stand with Human Rights Watch, the ACLU and Amnesty "Gulag" International.

Where do you stand?

Robert Reich posits some interesting questions along similar lines.

Ripping us off left and right

They present themselves as patriots. They claim to be good Christians. But in reality, they are just corporate lackeys ripping off taxpayers.

• 52% of Republicans who have left Congress since 1998 have become lobbyists.
• The energy bill contains $14.5 billion in corporate tax breaks including $1.5 billion for Tom DeLay’s pals.
• Homeland Security funding continues to go down the toilet.

When are the red-staters going to wake up?

Outrage of the week: Bernard Goldberg and the coarsening of our culture

"Journalist" Bernard Goldberg has just written a book, now second on Amazon.com's bestseller list, blaming liberals for all that is wrong with American culture. The right-wing tirade targets various left-of-center figures including Paul Krugman, Jimmy Carter and John Edwards (????) for coarsening our culture while failing to hold Rupert Murdoch and other conservative media moguls accountable for the damage they've done.

The laughable thing about this is that Goldberg, a correspondent on the show Real Sports, gets his paychecks from HBO, a channel whose bread and butter is airing movies and television shows that display sex, violence and profanity (Please note, DC clipmonkey loves HBO because it is the only intelligent programming on television, but he fully acknowledges that much of its content is not appropriate for underaged clipmonkeys.). Even more laughable, in defending his book on television this week, Goldberg asked a woman to "shut up" repeatedly.

Stick to sports, Bernie.

The next Supreme Court battle

While much of Washington is gripped with determining how good or evil John Roberts actually is, this clipmonkey is taking a few moments to look at another man who we'll be hearing a lot more about soon- Antonin Scalia, Bush's likely nominee for chief justice when Rehnquist steps down.

Justice Scalia is an interesting character. He is the father of nine children. He's pals with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He goes hunting with Dick Cheney. He doesn't like reporters. Like so many others in the Republican establishment, he has a son who feeds at the business-government trough. Most intriguing of all, though, he fancies himself a higher authority on the death penalty than the recently departed Pope John Paul II.

From Catholic News Service:

In public appearances Scalia not only has defended the death penalty as constitutionally solid, but he has argued that the church doctrine approving of capital punishment dating to St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century and St. Augustine in the fourth century still prevails. He has said that more recent teachings of Pope John Paul II are not obligatory because they were not spoken ex cathedra, Latin for from the chair, meaning the pope intended them to be accepted as infallible teachings of the church.

Talk about a God complex......

Thanks again, Ralph

Regarding the Bush nomination of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court: Guess it’s time to get another "Thank-you" card in the mail for the danged Nader people. (Maybe I’ll just mark out the parts that apply to me in the "Thank-you" card that me and the 52 other Barry Commoner/LaDonna Harris people got 25 years ago. Shoot. I’m sorry, I’m sorry!)

Republicans and race

RNC Chair Ken Mehlman's recent statement that his party was "wrong" to exploit racial tension to win votes is an incredible affront to all those concerned about race relations in America. This guy wouldn't even have a job if Republicans hadn't used race to bludgeon Democrats throughout the South.

There are certainly other issues that have hurt the Democratic Party in Dixie – gun control and abortion rights, to name a few – but none has been more devastating than its efforts to accord African-Americans the same rights as everyone else in America. Sadly, Republicans continue to exploit racial tension to this day.

President Bush, who spoke at the notoriously bigoted Bob Jones University while campaigning for president, has opposed affirmative action even as numerous top-ranking former military officials have said that its preservation is a matter of national security. And just two years ago, Haley Barbour won his race for Mississippi governor by sending coded messages about where he stands on race relations.

If Jesse Helms, Lee Atwater, Haley Barbour, and so many of Mehlman's other forebears in the Republican Party hadn't exploited racial tension, the world would be quite a different place....

Outrage of the week: Rick Santorum on Boston

Once again, Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has gone too far- this time blaming the Boston Archdiocese's child sex abuse scandal on the liberalism of the Boston area. From The Boston Globe:

"It is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm" [said Santorum] of the clergy sexual abuse scandal. In a brief interview with The Globe on Tuesday, Santorum reiterated his view that the ''basic liberal attitude" in Boston fostered an environment where sexual abuse of children could occur.

This incredible affront to the state of Massachusetts is Falwell-esque and utterly beyond the pale. It's particularly absurd given that Massachusetts, far from being some orgiastic sexual haven, has the lowest divorce rate in the nation. Even worse, Santorum's "values" were on display this week as he successfully conned a school district in Pennsylvania to pay for the home-schooling of his children in, umm, Virginia.

Fortunately, like the plucky Red Sox, Bostonians (The Globe and Ted Kennedy) are hitting back. For more about the hideousness of Sen. Santorum, click here.

Screwing the troops

Those yellow bumper stickers proclaiming "I support the troops" probably help a lot of people feel good about themselves. For most, the stickers are a meaningless symbol and a self-congratulatory indulgence.

For the few who actually do something to support the troops, such as sending a son or daughter off to war or visiting a wounded soldier in the hospital, this diatribe is not for you. But for the rest who ask kids from the wrong side of the tracks in places like rural West Virginia, inner-city Detroit, and east Los Angeles to sacrifice their lives so that they can continue to drive their SUVs, you should be ashamed.

The "support the troops" rhetoric and imagery belies the reality of what President Bush, and by extension, those who voted for him, have done to the young men and women in the military:

• Repeatedly misled them about the reasons for the Iraq war.
• Failed to send enough troops to secure Iraq, leaving American soldiers more vulnerable to attacks.
• Endorsed the use of torture and humiliation, enraging many Muslims and further endangering the troops.
• Invoked policies to chain people to the military well beyond the commitments they've agreed to.
• Provided inadequate funding for veterans.
• Watched military divorce rates skyrocket because of these disastrous policies.

If you really want to support the troops, click here.

London

Today's bombings are deeply tragic, but they are also an important reminder that the Bush and Blair governments have taken their collective eye off the ball of stamping out terrorism. The war in Iraq has drained our finances, hurt our military capability, and distracted everyone from the threats we face at home.

Instead of being bogged down by the debacle in Iraq, we should be combing the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, clamping down on the radicals in southeast Asia, and investing in effective counterterrorism measures at home, rather than hassling grandmothers in airports.

The best of a bad lot

Wookin ' pa nub

Christian conservatives are apoplectic at the prospect of Bush nominating Alberto Gonzales to the Supreme Court because he has not met their litmus test of clearly and publicly opposing abortion with the fervor of a fire-breathing dragon.

It's difficult for clipmonkey to say this, but President Bush, PLEASE nominate Alberto Gonzales. Yes, he may be an enabler of torture. Yes, he may have let innocent people be put to death while serving as Governor Bush's counsel in Texas. But if the folks on the right hate him so much, he must be a pretty reasonable guy.

The religious right steps up (finally!)

For years, the religious right has focused obsessively on restricting abortion rights, electing Republicans and demonizing gays. In the process, they've painted themselves as a rather un-Christian lot.

But there is good news out of the recent Southern Baptist Convention and from the National Association of Evangelicals. Apparently a few of them started reading the New Testament again and figured out that Christ was far more concerned about another issue- poverty.

At long last, the religious right is responding to that call and working to alleviate world poverty.

Outrage of the week: The boondoggle of homeland security

Republicans once claimed to be the party of fiscal responsibility inveighing against government waste, calling for limitless tax cuts, and proposing a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. But now that they're controlling the levers of power in Washington, they seem to have forgotten their former selves. In recent weeks we've learned:

• The Transportation Security Administration has been engaging in rampant waste;
• Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, demonstrated the worst contract abuse ever observed by one Pentagon procurement official; and,
• The FBI continues to throw away money after blowing $104 million on software to create a huge database of open cases.

It almost makes me miss the Republicans of old.

Walking into an ambush

As Americans prepare for another 4th of July weekend of flag-waving and freedom-loving, it's important to remember the words of Samuel Johnson- "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." In recent months, the corruption of the current Congress and the corruption by any other name of the White House has been exposed. So what have the Republicans fallen back on? That ol' reliable wedge issue they love- a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning.

Republicans have used the flag-burning issue to taunt Democrats for decades now. The taunting reached its apex during the 1988 presidential campaign when rumors abounded that Kitty Dukakis had burned an American flag to protest the Vietnam War during the 1970s. Of course, it's hard to get those patriotic juices flowing when you see a prospective commander-in-chief looking like this. But Republicans have carefully and strategically used this issue to paint Democrats as disloyal Americans. Karl Rove's recent statements about the Dems' response to 9/11 were notable only because they were so blunt.

Unfortunately, Democrats (and their liberal allies) know the patriotism trap is out there and keep walking into it again (Amnesty International) and again (Durbin) and again (flag-burning). Of course, Americans should be able to burn the flag if they really want to. And of course, a responsible government whose military has a significant problem with mistreating detainees should appoint an independent entity to investigate the problem.

But the leadership of this government doesn't care about principles of free speech or accountability, it just cares about maintaining and enlarging its power.

The road back to the majority

The worst thing about being a Democrat these days is that fear that we will be in the minority for many years to come. Given the results of the last election it almost seems that no matter how dishonest the Bush administration is, no matter how poorly it runs the war in Iraq, no matter how rapidly it drives our economy into a ditch, no matter how large the deficit becomes, Americans will stick with the Republicans. Even worse, there is the fear that even if voters did turn on the Republicans there are too few congressional seats up for grabs for Democrats to regain the majority.

But there's hope yet. Democrats just need to hold their current seats and pick up 14 more. If we help out and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee does its job, the following members of Congress are ripe for the picking:

• Tom DeLay (TX)- The stench of corruption has overwhelmed Congress' prime architect of sleaze. 2004 vote percentage= 55%.
• Randy "Duke" Cunningham (CA)- Already under investigation by the FBI and likely to soon be investigated by the House Ethics Committee, Duke might need to call in Coach K to win his next race. 2004 vote percentage= 58%.
• Don Sherwood (PA)- Just sued by a 29-year-old woman who claims he abused her during their five-year affair, this 64-year-old husband and father surely won't be duplicating his 2004 numbers. 2004 vote percentage= 93%.
• Bob Ney (OH)- Nearly every story about Jack Abramoff mentions this guy. 2004 vote percentage= 66%.
• J.D. Hayworth (AZ)- Also associated with Abramoff, Hayworth is probably a long-shot to defeat, but the Abramoff-DeLay odor is hanging around him now. 2004 vote percentage= 60%.
• John Doolittle (CA)- The Dr.'s ties to Abramoff could mean trouble. 2004 vote percentage= 65%.