Year: 2007
Murtha: It May Take Impeachment to Get Bush’s Attention
Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., is being scoffed at by the likes of Tucker Carlson on his MSNBC show today for suggesting that it might take impeachment to get through to Pres. Bush about ending the war. On “Face the Nation” yesterday, Murtha said:
[We] need to make this president understand, Mr. President, the public has spoken. There’s three ways or four ways to influence a president. One is popular opinion, the election, third is impeachment and fourth is, and fourth is the purse.
Bush is impervious to popular opinion and election, and his Republican enablers in the Senate have the votes to keep money flowing to Iraq until he leaves office. Tactically, impeachment is the only viable option.
Tucker did his patented faux astonished outrage at the idea Democrats would propose impeachment now because it would shut the government down during wartime — as if Bush has anything to do with running either the government or the war.
Bush Should Veto the Iraq Spending Bill Until We have a Timetable for Bringing Home the Contractors
The Democrats, as usual, have it all wrong when it comes to Iraq. We don’t need a timetable for bringing home the troops, we need one for the contractors and subcontractors — that’s where the real money is going. Of course, then you’d have to know how many of them there are.
The Iraq reconstruction effort, while prone to waste, is experiencing less fraud since a crackdown in 2004.
David M. Walker, chief of the Government Accountability Office told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that not only doesn’t the Defense Department know howmany contractors and subcontractors it has, it also doesn’t know what they are doing over there..
Because the U.S. military relies so heavily on defense contractors, it qualifies for the trifecta of boondoggles: fraud, waste and abuse. DoD is so bad about spending our money responsibly that this testimony was taken in January, but only released in an unclassified version last week.
Oh, and Defense lacks guidelines on using contractors, too, but if it did have guidelines, it wouldn’t have enough contract oversight personnel to ensure that contracted work gets done.
Is this beginning to sound like the same guys that brought us the post-Katrina response? You bet!
It gets better: Last Thursday the Office of Management and Budget released a new certification for project and program managers designed to ensure they have the skills to define and manage contracts. But — and here’s the good part —
Defense is exempt on the grounds that it already has a similar program.
But there is a bright spot in the government’s management of the war — the reconstruction effort, while prone to waste, is experiencing less fraud since a crackdown in 2004.
American Rightwing Terrorist Arrested in Bomb Attempt – But Not by Homeland Security
On Friday, the Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested a homegrown American rightwing terrorist named Paul Ross Evans who had attempted to bomb an abortion clinic in Austin earlier in the week week:
A cynic might wonder if the reason DHS leaves domestic terrorists to task forces like the one in Texas is political, since clinic bombers are tacitly supported by the GOP’s Christian nationalist allies.
A 27-year-old Austin man was … charged with placing an unexploded [sic] bomb containing some 2,000 nails outside an abortion clinic in the state’s capital.
The explosive device also included a propane tank and a mechanism “akin to a rocket,” Austin Police Commander David Carter said.
The device was discovered on Wednesday in the parking lot of the Austin Women’s Health Center, police said.
It is surprising that Evans was arrested by the terrorism task force — which is comprised of federal, state and local law enforcement authorities — and not the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS). And even though Evans was arrested by a terrorism task force, none of the charges against him are terrorism-related:
Evans was charged with violating federal laws banning the manufacture of explosives and interfering with access to an abortion clinic. He appeared before a federal magistrate, and was being held without bail.
No further arrests were anticipated in the case. “The threat is over,” Carter said.
It is exceedingly strange that in the Republican mindset that dominates our culture abortion clinic bombers do not fall under the purview of DHS and yet child predators and pornograhpers do. (I first learned that DHS tracked pedophiles when the department was instrumental in arresting John Mark Karr, the man who falsely claimed to have killed JonBenet Ramsey.)
Certainly, the government has a responsibility to investigate and arrest anyone involved in child predation and porn, but it’s hard to make the case that this problem, serious as it is, is a threat to homeland security. It seems that these sorts of crimes ought to be handled by the FBI.
Conversely, people who bomb abortion clinics are, by definition and intent, terrorists who threaten America homeland security. Who would be better at investigating them than DHS?
A cynic might wonder if the reason DHS leaves domestic terrorists to task forces like the one in Texas is political, since clinic bombers are tacitly supported by the GOP’s Christian nationalist allies.
Quote du Jour
The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
— Erwin N. Griswold, Dean of Harvard Law School
No Offense? Not Anymore
A lot of us have gotten lessons lately in how easy it’s become to offend.
An entertainment reporter for Jacksonville’s WJXT Channel 4, John Citrone, was recently fired* ala Don Imus. He joked on the air about something profoundly unfunny — runaway wildfires in South Georgia.
“Do we really care if Georgia burns?” he asked.
Being offended has become a national pastime.
Fair question* but as Citrone’s editor at Folio, the independent weekly he also writes for and that stands by him, pointed out in an editorial entitled, “Playing With Fire,” the columnist lacked a sense of timing.
“…the formula for comedy is tragedy plus time. And the exact moment when homes are engulfed in flames and people are being evacuated isn’t the time. For the people involved, it may never be the time.”
In calling the T.V. station which aired Citrone’s segment of early morning entertainment news to express their outrage, Georgians said what really burned their biscuit* was the tone of the Florida coverage. Reports centered on the effects of smoke blown two hours southeast into Jacksonville, which produced asthma attacks and watery eyes. And while these conditions are bad, they are not exactly up there with having to throw the kids in the car and run for your life before a wall of fire.
“Did we get some smoke on you?” the Georgians asked. “Well excuuuse me!”
And yet…It is human nature to make light of terrible situations, even really terrible ones, like losing basketball tournaments and fighting wildfire.*
Florida had its own bout with wildfire almost 10 years ago, and no one who lived through it has forgotten the choking ash, the constant prayers for rain, and the fear that losing everything in a wanton inferno is very close at hand. We don’t wish such things on our worst enemies.
We also don’t stop making bad jokes about it. Palm Coast, south of me in Flagler County and especially hard-hit in ’99, will forever be known to long-time residents as Palm Toast.*
I found out for myself recently how very fragile people’s feelings are with regard to diet. Take it from me and don’t go there.
I think it was right to speak out against Don Imus calling females athletes “nappy-headed hos.” I said so in this very format. I think it was right for Georgians to call foul when Citrone maligned their plight. And I think it’s good to articulate our culinary preferences.
But I think we need to lighten up too. We are too quick to rant and rave and shout each other out, going for the kill. We have become a nation of Bill O’Reillys and Al Sharptons and all it gets us is further apart. Being offended has become a national pastime. And as Imus and Citrone found out, there is no forgiveness. Apologies are no longer accepted.
* I sincerely apologize for my inappropriate and insensitive use of humor to convey any concept in a way that was offensive to some or all readers and promise to do better from now on.
Another GOP Prostitute Scandal – This Time It’s Bush’s Former AIDS Czar, And He’s Not Gay
Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation.
Tobias, 65, director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), had previously served as the ambassador for the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief…
On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the “Pamela Martin and Associates” escort service “to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage.” Tobias, who is married, said there had been “no sex,” and that recently he had been using another service “with Central Americans” to provide massages.
Tobias’ private cell number was among thousands of numbers listed in the telephone records provided to ABC News by Jeane Palfrey, the woman dubbed the “D.C. Madam,” who is facing the federal charges
As AIDS czar he was on message:
As the Bush administration’s so-called “AIDS czar,” Tobias was criticized by some for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.
In a 2004 interview, Tobias explained his approach as “A and B and C. . . Abstinence works. ‘Be faithful’ works. Condoms work. They all have a role. But it’s not a multiple choice, where there is only one answer.”
Tobias is married, of course. So there goes “A” and “B” – hope he had a condom on for the “massage.”
Events This Weekend Celebrate Ryan Skipper’s Birthday
There are two events this weekend to commemorate Ryan Skipper’s birthday — a memorial today in Atlanta, and a fundraiser tomorrow in Auburndale, Fla., for the Ryan Keith Skipper Foundation.
Memorial in Atlanta
Note: Check Georgia Equality website for last minute schedule changes.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
1:00pm
First Metropolitan Community Church
1379 Tullie Road NE
Atlanta, GA 30329
404-325-4143
For more information on attending Ryan’s vigil and other ways you can help please contact Melinda Morgan by email or at (404) 327-9898.
The RSK Foundation Fundraiser
Source: The Lakeland Ledger:
A fundraiser for the Ryan Keith Skipper Foundation will be Sunday at the Auburndale Civic Center. Admission is $10 for the benefit, at 115 W. Park St. in Auburndale.
At 3 p.m. Sunday, Harmonious Universe, an artists’ group that promotes peace and unity through artwork, will be on hand with blank canvases that can be painted by visitors in Skipper’s memory.
Canvas painting is free, and a silent auction and entertainment will begin at 7:30 p.m.
All money raised from the auction, food and drink will go toward the foundation, whose mission statement is to educate and promote the acceptance of diversity. Skipper was gay.
Skipper was found stabbed to death March 14. His killing has been classified as a hate crime.
Ryan would have been 26 today.
Poll: Most Americans Don’t Want Veto of Iraq Funding Bill
The Pew Research Center has just released a poll that found six out of 10 Americans do not want President Bush to veto the Iraq spending bill that calls for a timetable for troop withdrawal. That’s almost as many Americans as voted for Al Gore for president in 2000!
The poll detected deep-seated pessimism among Americans for prospects in Iraq.
The challenge is that neither side seems inclined to compromise: 54 percent of withdrawl timeline supporters do not want the Senate to compromise with Bush to avoid a veto; likewise, 54 percent of those opposed to a timeline for withdrawal do not want Bush to back down on his veto promise. Not that that’s very likely.
The poll detected deep-seated pessimism among Americans for prospects in Iraq, and for the first time a majority (51 percent) of respondents said they did not think the U.S. would succeed in establishing a stable democracy in Iraq. Only a quarter think that the troop surge is having a positive effect and only a third think it will have a positive long-term effect on the situation in Iraq. Forty-one percent believe that maintaining a military presence in Iraq increases the likelihood of a terrorist attack on the U.S., while 45 percent say withdrawing would increase the odds of a terrorist attack on American soil.
Even Republicans are growing disenchanted with Bush’s handling of the war. Almost half (45 percent) say they want a candidate for president who will take a different approach from Bush’s, while only 41 percent say they want a candidate who will cary on in Bush’s footsteps. When applied to both Republicans and Republican-leaning voters, however, the number wanting a change in strategy jumps to 52 percent.
