Month: September 2006

Gore: Tax Biz Pollution, Not Employees

Buck Banks

Radical Al: I never thought of Al Gore as a radical, but seems he’s spreading some pretty out-there ideas these days. Like taxing businesses that generate greenhouse gasses instead of taxing employees’ wages. Hmmm, seems like a good idea.

Former Vice President Al Gore has a novel approach for dealing with global warming: tax carbon dioxide emissions instead of employees’ pay.

“Penalizing pollution instead of penalizing employment will work to reduce that pollution,” Gore said Monday in a speech at New York University School of Law.

The carbon tax would replace all payroll taxes, including those for Social Security and unemployment compensation, Gore said. He said the overall level of taxation, would remain the same.

‘Penalizing pollution instead of penalizing employment will work to reduce that pollution’

“Instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees it would discourage business from producing more pollution,” Gore said.

Gore, a longtime environmentalist, also proposed that the United States rejoin any successor to the U.N. Kyoto Protocol for curbing global warming beyond 2012.

Most scientists believe global warming is caused by the trapping of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, in Earth’s atmosphere. The consequences of this climate change include rising seas, stronger storms and intense heat waves.
[…]

Poll: Terrified Sheeple Rally to Bush, GOP

Jon Ponder

Hapless Dems Watch Tongue-Tied and Hamstrung as America’s Bright Future Appears to Fade to Permanent Darkness Under Bush Regime

On virtually every comparison between the parties measured in the survey, Republicans have improved their position since early summer.

Fear and loathing: As the White House political team mapped out its strategy for winning the mid-term elections, Karl Rove, President Bush and the others plotted a campaign of political terror designed to ratchet up the fear among the populace.

In one of the most audaciously cynical political maneuvers ever undertaken by the Bush White House political office — and that is saying a lot — they launched their campaign of fear in conjunction with commemorations of the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

The White House was willing to risk criticism for using the sacred memory of 9/11 to win votes for one reason: They’re desperate. If they lose control of either branch of Congress, the era of unfettered executive power will end.

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, new polls show that the president’s fear-mongering is working. Despite the GOP record — botching the war in Iraq, losing an entire American city and running up the highest deficits in U.S. history — several recent polls, including the new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, show that President Bush and the GOP are gaining popularity, with mid-term elections about six weeks away:

[…]

Buck, Look Out for the Caribbean Crazy Ants!

Trish

I think these are the ones I noticed on the floor of the bathroom this week.

Caribbean Crazy Ants are now welcome in Trish’s bathroom. But no reggae after midnight.

As the saying goes, almost no one living in Florida is from Florida…

The Caribbean Crazy Ant has made its way to Florida.

“There are ants that were imported into Florida through cargo ships and freighters,” said [Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens Senior Veterinarian Nick] Kapustin.

Jacksonville’s thought to be its second stop in this country, making its first appearance in West Palm Beach.

Hear that Buck? West Palm Beach! Just up the turnpike from you!

But actually, they don’t sound so bad.

“They’re not harmful to the animals, they’re not a problem for our guests, they’re just literally, a nuisance,” said Kapustin.

The Caribbean Crazy Ant, called that because they don’t move in any real direction, isn’t just new to this country. It’s new to the world.

And unlike many other species, these ants don’t usually eat food we leave behind…

“They eat other insects. They’ve been known to eat fire ants,” said Kapustin.

Well, O.K. then. Plus, I like the name. The ones in the bathroom were milling around so randomly that I felt kind of bad stepping on them. Next time, maybe I’ll let them live. I think it’s what Bob Marley would do.

Sen. Allen: I May Be Jewish But I Eat Pork

Jon Ponder
“I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork chops.”
— Sen. George Allen

Pathetic:

[Sen. George Allen, R-Virginia] said his grandfather’s incarceration by the Germans had a profound effect on his mother; that because it was a painful memory, it was almost never discussed.

“Some may find it odd that I have not probed deeply into the details of my family history, but it’s a fact,” Allen said in his statement.

Speaking with The Times-Dispatch, Allen said the disclosure is “just an interesting nuance to my background.” He added, “I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork chops.”

Gardiner Says U.S. Already Conducting Military Ops in Iran

Buck Banks

War’s on: A retired Air Force colonel is making the rounds in the media saying that the United States government is already conducting military operations inside Iran, and is preparing to start targeted bombing attacks. Sound familiar?

Just now on CNN, Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner (Ret.) said, “We are conducting military operations inside Iran right now. The evidence is overwhelming.”

Gardiner, who taught at the U.S. Army’s National War College, has previously suggested that U.S. forces were already on the ground in Iran. Today he added several additional new points:

  • The House Committee on Emerging Threats recently called on State and Defense Department officials to testify on whether U.S. forces were in Iran. The officials didn’t come to the hearing.
  • “We have learned from Time magazine today that some U.S. naval forces had been alerted for deployment. That is a major step.”
  • “The plan has gone to the White House. That’s not normal planning. When the plan goes to the White House, that means we’ve gone to a different state.”
‘The real U.S. policy objective is not merely to eliminate the nuclear program, but to overthrow the regime’

In a press release issued by the Century Foundation today, Gardiner asserts that Bushco is making plans to bomb Iran into submission:

In a new report for The Century Foundation, Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner warns that some in the Bush administration are making the case for air strikes aimed not only at setting back Iran’s nuclear program, but also at toppling the country’s government. He says that these officials are undeterred by the concerns of military leaders about whether such attacks would be effective.

“If this uncertainty does not appear to worry the proponents of air strikes in Iran it is in no small part because the real U.S. policy objective is not merely to eliminate the nuclear program, but to overthrow the regime,” he writes. “It is hard to believe, after the misguided talk prior to Iraq of how American troops would be greeted with flowers and welcomed as liberators, but those inside and close to the administration who are arguing for an air strike against Iran actually sound as if they believe the regime in Tehran can be eliminated by air attacks.”
[…]

As Midterms Near, GOP Chooses Fences Over Real Immigration Reform

Buck Banks

Fence me in: As Congress struggles mightily to appear to be doing the important work of legislating in the remaining weeks before the November midterm elections, the Republican Party has decided to concentrate on something easy — building a 700-mile-long fence — rather than address the challenge of comprehensive immigration reform. The message is simple: Let’s close off our borders first, then deal with the illegals who then would be trapped inside America. Yep, that message will sell very easily to the same people who still think Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.

From the Washington Times:

“It’s time to secure the border with Mexico,” Majority Leader Bill Frist said [Monday] night before filing the parliamentary motions to force the House-passed bill onto the Senate floor in a final effort to get a major immigration bill on the president’s desk before the elections.

‘Mr. Frist was for comprehensive reform before he was against it’
— Jim Manley

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Minority Leader Harry Reid, said the move “smacks of desperation” and was a “clear repudiation of President Bush’s call for comprehensive legislation.”
The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was easily approved by the House last week, contains none of the “comprehensive” measures that President Bush, Democrats and some Senate Republicans have demanded. Those include provisions to grant citizenship rights to about 10 million illegal aliens living in the country and a guest-worker program that would usher hundreds of thousands more foreign laborers into the U.S.
“Mr. Frist was for comprehensive reform before he was against it,” Mr. Manley said.
On the Senate floor [Monday] night, Mr. Frist said he still supports comprehensive immigration reform legislation. But, he said, because no consensus can now be reached on other issues, Congress should move ahead with border security. It’s not “enforcement only,” he said, but “enforcement first.”

This will be the second time the Senate has debated an enforcement bill. The first died a stalemately death when all but two Democrats and 20 Republicans refused to even debate it. Now, there’s a triumverate of senior GOP senators that looks good for derailing the current effort to swap out a fence for comprehensive reform: John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John W. Warner of Virginia.

Those three senators also are bucking the GOP party line on the president’s call for expanded illegal detention and interrogation without representation for the Guantanamo detainees. Frist’s move to file a cloture motion Monday night to limit debate and prohibit amendments to the bill means the three Repug renegades may have to fight a two-front battle in the Senate this week, as Frist is aiming to get the immigration — excuse me, fence-building permit — passed on the Senate floor by week’s end and then sent on to the guy who likes to build fences, not mend them, to sign before the midterms.

When the House last year approved its border-security legislation, it included almost exactly the same fencing provisions. The fence came to symbolize what many Democrats said was an unforgiving bill. They said the fence proved that Republicans harbored a hostility toward immigrants.
But last week, the stand-alone fence bill was approved 283-138, with support from more than 20 Democrats and a handful of Republicans who dropped opposition to the earlier fence proposal.
Still, most Democrats are adamantly opposed to the fence bill, calling it a new “Berlin Wall” and an election-year “gimmick” intended to portray them as weak on security measures. In addition, internal Republican polling has found that immigration is as powerful a motivator for voters as any issue with which Congress is grappling.
“They’re obviously done with legislating for the year,” Mr. Manley said. “Now, they’re just playing to their base.”

Indeed. The question is, how will the Democratic base respond to watching Dem leaders doing their typical hand-wringing and crying foul over such an obvious late-season political ploy.

Sen. ‘Macaca’ Says He Learned He Was Jewish in Magazine Article

Jon Ponder
It is extremely doubtful that Allen would have been elected governor or senator in Virginia if Republican voters had been aware of his Jewish heritage.

Sen. George ‘Macaca’ Allen has been plagued by racial issues since at least his teenage years. In his suburban Los Angeles high school yearbook, young Allen, son of a famous pro football coach, was photographed wearing a Confederate pin. In college, he drove a truck with a Confederate sticker on the bumper and later decorated his law office with a noose hanging from a ficus tree.

Despite his Southern California upbringing, during his political career in Virginia, Allen has created a Southern good ol’ boy persona, including a softly modulated but distinct Southern accent.

Race, and more specifically, racial purity, is still a hot button issue among conservatives, particularly in, but not limited to, the South. It is extremely doubtful that Allen would have been elected governor or senator in Virginia if Republican voters had been aware of his Jewish heritage. In fact, according to Jewish religious law, because his mother was Jewish, Sen. Allen is technically Jewish, even though he was raised Christian.

The revelation that he is racially “impure” in the eyes of many in his racist conservative base could cost him reelection. While that would be a good thing, it is rather pathetic to watch how he dodges the issue and obviously lies about his own knowledge of his family background:

On Tuesday, Allen said his mother, Henriette “Etty” Allen, grew up in the Christian faith. She is a French-speaking native of Tunisia.

Allen and his siblings also were raised as Christians. He said he became aware only recently that his grandfather, Felix Lumbroso, who had been imprisoned by the Nazis, was Jewish.

“I embrace and take great pride in every aspect of my diverse heritage, including the Lumbroso family line’s Jewish heritage, which I learned of from a recent magazine article and my mother confirmed,” Allen said in the statement.

Allen campaign manager Dick Wadhams would not specify when Allen’s mother told him about her ancestry. As a child, Allen knew Lumbroso, who is now deceased, Wadhams said.

Allen accused Webb’s campaign of peddling the notion that he is embarrassed by his heritage, a claim Webb spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd rejected as “completely, totally false.”

Fox defended her questions. She said she wanted to determine if there was a political reason Allen was not forthcoming about a Jewish ancestor. “I don’t know why it would be so upsetting to him,” she said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I was shocked at how he took offense to the question.”

Fox had also asked Allen whether he had learned the word “Macaca” from his mother. Allen had applied the word to a Webb campaign volunteer of Indian descent during an Aug. 11 rally before a mostly white crowd. In some cultures, including Tunisia, the word is considered a racial slur.

Allen glared at Fox for a moment, then said, “I hope you’re not trying to bring my mother into this matter.”

References to the nationality of Allen’s mother prompted the first report of his Jewish ancestry on Aug. 25 in The Forward, a Jewish daily newspaper, said its editor, Ami Eden.

“There was some talk at that time that perhaps he picked this up from his mother, and it was an easy way to get to the story behind the headlines,” Eden said in a telephone interview from New York.

Bush Adding Signing Statement to Geneva Conventions

Trish

It worked the first 750 times: You know about Bush’s signing statements: First, he signs a bill passed by both houses of Congress, the people’s representatives. Next, he signs a statement that cancels out, reverses, ignores, or undermines the letter and intent of that bill.

Since this technique has worked so well for Mr. Bush, allowing him to run things as he — and he alone — sees fit, why not expand it beyond domestic policy to international law?

Don’t like Article III of the Geneva Conventions? No problem! Just issue a clarification — aka signing statement — that says we’ll do whatever the hell we want, and the world can’t stop us because… Well, just because.

I think we should all do this. Got a hangover? Call work and say you’re sick, then sign a statement authorizing yourself to define “sick.” Having an affair? Swear to your spouse you’re true blue, then sign a statement authorizing yourself to clarify “monogamy.” Go ahead, it’s easy. I’m signing one right now authorizing myself to define “president.” Then I’m sending an email to Al Gore.

Bush Demands Retroactive Legalization of Terror Suspects’ Torture – But Why the Rush?

Jon Ponder

In the Middle Ages, waterboarding was called “the water cure.”

Upcoming Transfer of Terror Suspects from ‘Black Sites’ May Uncover U.S. Torture Program

All of this makes the case that waterboarding took place, at the very least, and that permission came from high up in the ranks — maybe as high as the Oval Office.

On September 6, the president announced that he is moving 14 terror suspects from secret “black site” prisons to Guantanamo where they will “face justice.”

When the prisoners arrive at the U.S. prison in Cuba, they will be interviewed by the Red Cross for the first time. Based on the president’s agitation and urgency regarding this issue, it seems likely these terror suspects will claim that they have been tortured by U.S. interrogators.

This could explain the torture laws sudden priority to the president. It is also interesting that Mr. Bush wants the new definitions of torture to apply retroactively, so that alleged past abuses by U. S. interrogators cannot be prosecuted, as Jonathan Turley suggested last week on Countdown:

You know, the thing that is ticking here, in terms of a clock, is the fact that these 14 guys that were recently transferred just arrived not that long ago in Gitmo in Cuba. They are going to be, or have been, interviewed by the Red Cross. Most people believe that waterboarding, they where (ph) you are held underwater until you think that you‘re going to drown. That is undeniably torture under the international standard.

If that occurs in the coming days, the United States, and specifically the president, will be accused of committing a very serious violation of international law. Torture is one of the top three or four things that the international law is designed to prevent.

And so the reason there‘s this move to try to get legislation as fast as possible is because I think the administration senses that there‘s a lot of trouble coming down this mountain.

Opposition from within his own party last week seems to have caught President Bush off guard. He nearly came unhinged on the topic when it came up in news conference on Friday.

Another report indicates there could be as many as 14,000 prisoners held by U.S. forces in various prisons in the Middle East and elsewhere. If true, the odds are close to 100 percent that prisoners will claim to have been tortured.

All of this makes the case that waterboarding took place, at the very least, and that permission came from high up in the ranks — maybe as high as the Oval Office.