Older voters, a critical component of Republican Congressional victories for more than a decade, could end up being a major vulnerability for the party in this year's midterm elections, according to strategists in both parties. Paradoxically, one reason is the new Medicare drug benefit, which was intended to cement their loyalty.
Senior figures linked to the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government took part in two days of talks in Texas. The meeting was chaired by Edward Djerejian, 65, a former US ambassador to Israel and Syria, who was briefed by the US State Department before it began.
"Only when liberals in Congress begin acting as Democrats will voters realize that the Democratic Party is one which is coordinated and courageous enough to stand up for their interests. When voters know that if they vote for a candidate with a "D" by their name, that candidate will have the strength of the entire Democratic caucus behind her, only then will we gain enough public confidence to once again see majority status within our grasp."
--dailykos
In the last several years, there has been much talk about the powerful role Dick Cheney plays in the Bush White House. Some of that talk has been based on anecdotal evidence, and some on entirely fanciful speculation. But Executive Order 13292 is real evidence of real power in the vice president's office. Since the beginning of the administration, Dick Cheney has favored measures allowing the executive branch to keep more things secret. And in March of 2003, the president gave him the authority to do it.
"We have found one of the death squads. They are a part of the police force of Iraq."
--a U.S. general told the Chicago Tribune
attribution
The NYT declares, "ACCORD IN HOUSE TO HOLD INQUIRY ON SURVEILLANCE." That's probably news to the intel committee chair, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who makes such decisions. "This is not an inquiry into the program," said Hoekstra's spokesman. Though a Republican maverick on the committee said she's hoping for a real probe, the spokesman explained there will be a "comprehensive review" not of the snooping but of the FISA law that the snooping sidestepped: Hoekstra "wants to set up a process to move forward and look at the entire statute and ways to modernize it." No other paper sniffs the glue too and gives significant space to the "inquiry," "review," whatever.
Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday.
The Washington Post's top story of national significance is a NASA-supported study showing Greenland's glaciers melting at twice the rate previously believed, which suggests the world's oceans might rise a whole lot faster than currently projected. "We are witnessing enormous changes," said one NASA scientist, "and it will take some time before we understand how it happened."
You may have noticed that "Chatterbox," the column I've been writing since 1998, has tapered off. That's because I've been preparing to launch a new Slate feature called "Document of the Day." The column will be a sort of cross between The Smoking Gun, the Harper's "Annotation" feature, and the Washington Monthly's late, lamented "Memo of the Month," combined with certain elements all our own that company scientists are still developing at our state-of-the-art laboratory facility in Huntsville, Ala. Barring a severe industrial accident, "Document of the Day" will debut in early March.
What I need from you, dear reader, is documents. White House memos, wiretap transcripts, financial disclosure forms, college transcripts, wills, e-mails, police reports, pending regulations, expense account filings—anything sufficiently piquant to interest the lay public. I'm especially interested in documents that have not previously been made public, but I won't exclude from consideration interesting documents that the public has overlooked. I'm just as interested in government documents as I am in documents from the private sector. I intend to define "documents" as broadly as possible, so that it would include, say, a particularly asinine instruction manual or a particularly cowardly liability waiver for some consumer product, or an especially interesting billboard, or something telling that's been scribbled in the margin of a book.
The Feb. 6 headline regarding Iowa state taxes on retirement income was disingenuous at best ("Seniors Uncertain They Want Tax Break").
The Register quoted one woman in Urbandale who opposed exemption and commented "her peers feel the same way."
I am a senior citizen and want my retirement income exempt from state taxes. All of my peers with whom I have discussed this issue agree with me. We worked all our lives and paid taxes on all our income. Now is not the time to tax it a second time.
The article also tried to make this a class issue, pitting the "needy" elderly against the "well-to-do" elderly. Financial status has nothing to do with this legislation. It is one of fairness and self-reliance.
It is insulting that the Register thinks we need AARP to tell us what our stance should be on this or any other issue. Senior citizens are a powerful force in the economic engine, and it will bode well for state government to treat us as competent, independent individuals who resent double taxation.
- Carole Ann Fournier, Polk City.
When President Bush says America is addicted to oil from unstable regions, does anyone else hear it as, "I want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge"?
— Jeni Nosbisch, Des Moines.
WASHINGTON - Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts said he has worked out an agreement with the White House to change U.S. law regarding the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program and provide more information about it to Congress.
--source
USA Today fronts records showing that Republican Sen. Arlen Specter channeled $50 million in defense-related earmarks to clients of a lobbyist who's married to one of Specter's top aides. The aide happens to deal with Specter's work on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where, as it turns out, the earmarks were inserted.
The NYT stuffs NASA staffers complaining that political appointees pressured them to, in the Times' words, "cut the flow of news releases" on global warming and other touchy topics prior to the 2004 presidential elections. Bureaucrats also complained about one order this summer to do a search-and-replace from "global warming" to the fuzzier "climate change."
As the Washington Post's Dana Milbank notes, Chertoff and Cheney each "accepted responsibility" for their actions while neither could not "come up with much in the way of what he had done wrong."
"Corruption Is Threatening Iraq Progress, Rumsfeld Says" (Feb. 8 headline). Now there's a success story the Bush administration can be proud of: Just like home.
- L.F. Menter, Marshalltown.
like what else would he have said? that he didn't know who pulled the trigger?
In Fox TV interview, Cheney accepts responsibility for
shooting accident
Cheney has a curious, shifting history on issues of blame and responsibility. He was vice chair of the congressional committee that spent 11 months investigating the Iran-Contra affair and author of its minority report. As John W. Dean highlights in a recent essay, the 500-page majority report concluded the entire affair “was characterized by pervasive dishonesty and inordinate secrecy.” But Cheney’s report said the Reagan administration’s repeated breaking of the law was “mistakes ... were just that—mistakes in judgment and nothing more.”pervasive dishonesty and inordinate secrecy. describes the bush administration to a "T".
‘Top Ten Ways Iraq is like Harry Whittington
1. Cheney attacked secular Iraq, mistaking it for an ally of Usamah Bin Laden. Cheney attacked Harry Whittington, mistaking him for a small bird.
2. Iraq has been peppered with Cheney’s munitions. Whittington has been peppered with Cheney’s munitions.
3. Cheney did not have a legal license to hunt quail on the trip that saw Whittingon wounded. Cheney did not have a United Nations license to invade Iraq or reduce it to rubble.
4. Cheney tried to blame Iraq for getting itself invaded by not signalling hard enough that it really did not have weapons of mass destruction. Cheney tried to blame Whittington for getting himself shot by not signalling hard enough that he was not a small bird.
5. Cheney thought Iraq’s insurgency was in its last throes nearly a year ago. Cheney was deathly afraid that Whittington might be in his last throes.
6. Whittington thought Cheney as hunting partner would keep him secure. Iraqis thought that after the fall of Saddam, Cheney would make them secure.
7. Cheney gave Whittington a heart attack by shooting him in the heart. Cheney gave Iraqis a heart attack by having them bombed relentlessly.
8. Cheney tried to cover up how bad Whittington’s condition was after he shot him. Cheney tried to cover up how bad Iraq’s situation is after he had it invaded.
9. Cheney thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Cheney thought Whittington was a small bird.
10. Cheney shot Whittington while hunting in the dark. Cheney invaded Iraq while being in the dark.’
The NYT fronts what feels like a thin piece on the Lincoln Group, the Pentagon contractor that ginned up phony news stories in Iraq. The story details the mysterious rise of the amateur company and includes complaints from former staffers who said their young bosses overpromised on contracts and didn't know what they heck they were doing. Among the slight details left out: The company currently has a Pentagon contract, valued at up to $100 million, to help with "strategic communications" worldwideso let me get this right. we contract a company who has a hard time with bosses keeping track of what their underlings are doing, getting a $100,000,000.00 contacts for STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS work????
A piece inside the Post says the White House's lobbying against a proposed congressional investigation of the warrantless snooping appears to be paying off. The probe now looks like it's going to be voted down in committee. "It's been a full-court press," said a Senate Republican aide.
For whatever reason, the NYT decides to absolutely stuff U.S. commanders complaining that the overcrowded Abu Ghraib prison has become what one officer called a "Jihadist University" Another commander said, "Abu Ghraib is a graduate-level training ground for the insurgency." The story, which is datelined Washington, doesn't explain why the prison is so crowded
The NYT off-leads would-be suicide bombers in Afghanistan telling interrogators they're from Pakistan and asserting that's where most of the bombers are recruited from. The Times saw video of an interrogation. "Most of the attackers are non-Afghans," said an Afghan official. "We have proof, we have prisoners. We have addresses, we have cassettes." Afghanistan has long asserted that Pakistan has essentially harbored insurgents.
Whose fault was it? If there is anything that Harry's friends at the Vaughn Building are angry about, it is not the shooting itself but the attempt by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan to place the blame on the victim. It's the shooter's duty to know what he is shooting at and where his companions are. A shooting accident is always the fault of the shooter. Always.--source
"What do you say to a woman who had lost four sons, two daughters-in-law and a grandson to AIDS?"
Anybody ever wanted to be able to drive their vehicle because they lost their license due to an alcohol law? Well if you haven’t, it’s a real pain in the butt, always looking for rides and walking everywhere.attribution
Another problem people are facing is being put in jail for doing drugs and experiencing the high life. Sometimes, druggies are put in prison for more than 25 years, completely changing their family’s lives, their friends’ lives and also community.
I don’t think anybody should look at stoners as criminals because a stoner’s not guilty of anything but having a good time and a good appetite for getting messed up.
Some politicians and citizens are just darn right turned around about the bad things they say about drinking and driving laws, alcohol laws and plain drugs in general. Anybody against this stuff should wake up from their ingenious lives and learn how to respect these kinds of people and work on these laws so these people aren’t burned anymore.
Look at me, for instance. I’m 23 years old already put in jail for smoking marijuana and put on probation for three years and now considered a felon, banning me from the right to join the military and own a gun. I’m pretty much screwed from a lot of things in this world and still feel just as good as anybody else.
--TODD MARTIN, Rockwell
Twenty-one percent of the 1,000 adults who replied to the survey conducted Thursday through Sunday said it was very likely or somewhat likely their conversations had been wiretapped, while 52 percent said it was not at all likely.--source
President Bush has full confidence in Michael Chertoff and has not considered asking the homeland security secretary to step down after criticism of his performance on Hurricane Katrina, the White House said Tuesday.
"Secretary Chertoff is doing a great job," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, answering a reporter's question about Chertoff. "The president appreciates his strong leadership. He is someone who is committed to doing everything he can to protect the American people and to continuing to take steps to make sure we are better prepared to respond to the threats that we face."
The idea, which the Times says is being "discussed at the highest level of the State Department" is to "starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections" so that President Abbas would call for new elections.this is not democracy. it's dictators in action.
today there are two, on the same theme, from the same paper.and
In his Feb. 1 letter, David Pulliam argues that if President Bush has committed impeachable offenses, one must also recognize that Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln also committed impeachable offenses (“If Bush Impeachable, So Was FDR”).
Pulliam claims that “grievous harm” was “inflicted by their wartime measures.” As a teacher of American history and government, I feel compelled to correct this simple error of analysis.
Impeachment is a legislative tool that can be used to remove presidents from power who subvert the U.S. Constitution. Lincoln did not subvert the Constitution. To the contrary, he exercised power outlined in Article 1, Section 9. Habeas corpus can be suspended (it is a privilege, not a right) under invasion or rebellion.
The Civil War certainly qualifies as armed rebellion. Therefore, Lincoln did no “grievous harm” to our country, and he certainly did not suspend the Constitution or subvert it in any way.
As for FDR’s internment of Japanese during World War II, this action (though I disagree with it) was upheld by the Supreme Court.
The only presidents to have been impeached were Andrew Johnson (for violating the Tenure of Office Act) and President Clinton. As we saw with the latter case, the House of Representatives may impeach a president for nearly anything. The bar has been lowered, not raised, regarding impeachable offenses.
The war-time wiretapping power Bush claims to have is a power hinged on a war that by its very definition has no end. That is also something to take into consideration.
— Brian Cleveland, Altoona.
. . . and war hasn’t been declared
The key difference between President Bush and FDR is that America actually was at war when FDR detained Japanese citizens. Unless David Pulliam can point to a declaration of war from Congress, this country is not technically at war. Hence “war powers” are not granted to Bush.
He must still follow the rule of law: “Those who make the law must be accountable to the law.” And as a side note, if President Clinton was impeached for an affair in the White House, why can’t Bush be impeached for clearly breaking the law of the Constitution (namely the Fourth Amendment and its protection of privacy)?
— J.J. Roepke, Altoona.
According to a report by DiamondCluster International, a management-consulting firm, Americans will have saved $75 billion in HSAs by 2010. The report estimates financial institutions can capture $3.5 billion in account and management fees over the next five years, and payment processors can capture $2.3 billion in transaction fees.
Wow. Billions of health-care dollars landing in the pockets of financial institutions.
The DiamondCluster International report is titled “Seizing the HSA Opportunity: Developing a Winning Strategy to Grow Profits & Market Share in a Time of Transition.” It reminds financial institutions that the last time they were “presented with an opportunity like this was the introduction of the IRA in 1974.”unbelievable? not for this (p)resident.
--SOURCE
News Hounds Media Digest # 69
2/5/06 to 2/12/06
1.Janie: Far-right Kansas Attorney General, Phil Kline appeared on Dayside this week, to give his opinion on the current lawsuit that is underway involving his interpretation of a Kansas law, in which he feels all health professionals need to report any child under the age of 16 that is sexually active. He claimed that he would not prosecute these teens, as long as their partner were of a similar age, despite the fact his recent testimony proved otherwise.
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/02/08/farright_kansas_attorney_general_phill_kline_dodges_and_spins.php
2. Marie Therese: Last week Bill O'Reilly lashed out at former President Jimmy Carter for remarks he made during the Coretta Scott King funeral. His guest, Rev. Al Sharpton, defended Carter vigorously, forcefully pushing back against O'Reilly's partisan whining. This made for an exciting, if somewhat loud,exchange. http://tinyurl.com/aech2
3. Melanie: Evangelical Christians are consistently welcomed with open arms on Fox News; their causes celebrated and even promoted. So it was striking when two representatives from an evangelical group promoting action to combat global warming appeared on Your World last Thursday and were given the cold shoulder. Even they weren't able to shake Fox's loyalty to the Bush administration on that topic.
http://tinyurl.com/a8lmq
4. Chrish: FOX is interjecting the defense of Bush's warrantless domestic spying into even the most trivial and unrelated segments, as if the outcome of hearings and investigations will be a matter of public opinion rather than law and Constitutionality.
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/02/09/preemptive_damage_control_covers_for_another_defense_of_american_secret_police.php#more
5. Deborah: Did Libby bring Dick Cheney into his testimony because he's shopping for a pardon?
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/02/10/is_libby_shopping_for_a_pardon.php#more
6. Donna: This week the war drums were beating on Fox, including Studio B. John Bolton made the following statement in speaking about Iran, "It's entirely consistent with what the IAEA did on Libya and North Korea, other cases of nuclear weapons programs." John Bolton insinuarted that Iran did, indeed, have nuclear weapons without a shred of evidence.
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/02/07/bolton_insinuates_that_iran_has_nuclear_weapons_program.php
7. Ellen: Where's the outrage from progressives? In a revolting display of racism and tastelessness, Sean Hannity and guests smeared the NAACP, civil rights leaders and Coretta Scott King's memorial while paying lip service to her memory - all because Hannity, et al. decided the mourners were not polite enough to President Bush. News Hound Ellen urges everyone to complain to FOX News about their self-appointed funeral thought-police.
http://tinyurl.com/b5fog
http://tinyurl.com/7ko8s
wow
Democratic State Treasurer Robert Casey Jr. holds a 51 – 36 percent lead over incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in the Pennsylvania Senate race, with 10 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
--source
"One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
A major American attack on Iran's nuclear sites would kill up to 10,000 people and lead to war in the Middle East, a report says today.--source
"The government is spending over a billion dollars per year on PR and advertising," said Rep. Waxman. "Careful oversight of this spending is essential given the track record of the Bush Administration, which has used taxpayer dollars to fund covert propaganda within the United States."
"No amount of money will successfully sell the Bush Administration's failed policies, from the war in Iraq, to its disastrous energy policy, to its confusing Medicare prescription drug benefits," said Democratic Leader Pelosi. "The American people know the Bush Administration is on the wrong track and the White House PR machine won't change that fact."
--source
The top US diplomat also took an implicit jab at the previous administration of Bill Clinton for failing to deal with Bin Laden before he launched the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon.9/11 happened on who's watch?
--source
Nowhere is the privilege -- and abuse -- of power more visible to ordinary Russians than on the roads, where politicians and bureaucrats, who have special license plates and blue lights for their luxury vehicles, speed recklessly, force other drivers aside and generally flout the rules. At the same time, ordinary citizens are subject to constant harassment from traffic police, who routinely demand small bribes. These irritants have become the source of open anger because many motorists can easily imagine themselves suffering Shcherbinsky's fate.
Thus Moussaoui, once touted as the "20th hijacker," starts the penalty phase of his trial, having already pleaded guilty to six felony counts of conspiracy in connection with the 9/11 attacks. He pleaded guilty, you'll recall, over the objections of his lawyers, and even as he admitted to lying to government investigators, he denied involvement in the attacks on the Twin Towerswell, of COURSE he denied involvement in 9/11. we all know who was behind 9/11.
Yet, the Bush administration first claimed in public statements by Dick Cheney that Moussaoui was probably the 20th hijacker, then claimed he was intimately tied to the 9/11 plot, and now claims that he merely failed to disclose the 9/11 plot to the FBI. Why is it that Moussaoui's story hasn't changed much in four years, while the government has downgraded him from hijacker to secret-keeper?and on and on it goes about how this incompetent government of george bush junior's is incapable of getting any kind of conviction from prosecuting terrorists. a good read
