Sad but true… Paul Krugman nails the attitude of “today’s leading conservatives” who are “Reagan’s heirs.”

If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, they don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.

On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded S-chip, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, providing health insurance to an estimated 3.8 million children who would otherwise lack coverage.

In anticipation of the veto, William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.” Heh-heh-heh.
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Well, first he said that he’d resign, effective September 30. Then, he said he’d resign, CONDITIONAL on what the judge said about withdrawing his guilty plea. (And that he was completely innocent.)

THEN, he said, that while September 30 had passed, he’d wait for the judge’s ruling.

The judge did not allow him to withdraw his guilty plea.

And so, Idaho Senator Larry Craig’s long bout of bizarre, lying behavior continued today, as he confronted the judicial ruling in what we’ve come to think of as the inimitable Larry Craig manner: Read more…

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UPDATE 5:28 PM PDT: Today, CNN has noted a plethora of stories that relate directly to the issues raised in my earlier story.

• Police probe racial incident at school for deaf
• Coast Guard tries to deal with noose incidents
• Student apologizes for making ‘Jena 6′ re-enactment

Here’s an excerpt from that last story: Read more…

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I am sick to death of all the pussyfooting around the subject that has occupied the media for the duration of this premeditated, illegal war of terror that we the people of the United States have allowed to be waged against the people of Iraq, in our name, for the last several years.

No matter how much lipstick and rouge we smear on the face of this war no matter how we attempt to  dress up the evil and bestial acts that have been performed in its unholy name, it still has the hideous countenance of an evil swine from hell.

It is an illegal war, begun and conducted under false pretenses, by a group of criminal liars and thieves in the United States Government, abetted by a cowardly congress who abrogated their constitutional duties in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds and furthered by a complaisant press that ignored their obligation to remain independent from government, from their sponsors and report the facts. 

The members of the completely rogue executive department acted in their own self interest in a quest for personal power and wealth, in concert with the usual domestic and international corporate pirates who, in the depths of their insatiable greed, continually amplify human conflict to their own ends and bring poverty, war, suffering and death down upon the world.

There is no such animal as extraordinary rendition, nor do I know of the existence of any beasts called enhanced interrogation methods.

The first is kidnapping, it is illegal, a felony and the second word is torture, its meaning is clear:
NOUN:

  1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
  2. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
  2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
  3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.

Torture is illegal in this country, a felonious act, it is illegal in the world at large, according to several conventions that we are legally bound by. Anyone committing torture, causing it to be committed, directing its commission, or training others in its techniques is guilty, guilty of war crimes, of crimes against humanity and crimes against “Nature’s God.

The people who lied us into this war are not statesmen, nor are they patriots acting out of a misguided love of country, as I have heard in some quarters. They are murderers, murderers, modern day Nazis or Fascists if you prefer, cold dispassionate sociopaths, heinous criminals, without conscience, without mercy, without humanity.

I read in the press and heard in the media yesterday and this morning of the “murky legal territory” in which the “private contractors” operate in Iraq and the murky area of law in which our dedicated public servants must operate as they determine just how far they can go in the extreme physical abuse of human beings before they stray in to a “gray area.”

Bullshit, I think that when a lying pig of a lawyer like David Addington describes a “murky legal area” it means that he thinks he can get away with it. The legal situation in Iraq was intentionally  designed to protect the mercenary scum that we send there to perform high priced serial murders as they fulfill bloated contracts to protect our criminal leadership, thieving diplomats and cowardly congressmen.

I believe that the actions of following people must be investigated and, if warranted by the evidence, tried in criminal courts, and if convicted, face the full consequences of both US and International law:

George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Eliot Abrams, Scooter Libby, John Hannah, David Wurmser, Andrew Natsios, Dan Bartlett, Mitch Daniels, George Tenet, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, David Addington

There are more, in every corner of the executive, the congress, among the highest levels of the military as well as the intelligence community, various think tanks, news organizations, public and private corporations and other NGOs.
This is a cancer that must be quickly, loudly and publicly removed from the heart of America.

Enough.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

Related stories,sources and links:
The Architects of War
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Convention Against Torture
Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
Red, white and mercenary in Iraq
Yet More Impeachable Revelations
Bush’s Fascist, Private Army of Paid Cutthroats, Murderers and Mercenaries

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Congressman Tim Ryan, an outspoken opponent of the war and a consistent voice that speaks truth to power, has a fine diary up at DailyKos explaining his endorsement. It explains the process he went through to make this endorsement. It’s revealing of both Ryan and Dodd. Please read the original. Here’s my own reaction to the Ryan endorsement as published in the comment string at DKos.

As a candidate I’ve been impressed with the fire Dodd has shown in the debates, the innovative use of live video ,(thank you, Tim Tagaris), and his specific policy statements.

Look again at Rep. Ryan’s list of Dodd’s accomplishments and you begin to get a better view of this man who has been going about his job quietly for 24 years.

*Dodd authored the Family and Medical Leave Act which allows people to take off work when a family member is sick.

*Chris Dodd was the named by Head Start as their Senator of the DECADE.

*He served 26 years on the Foreign Relations Committee and understands what we need to do to rebuild our standing in the world.

*Chris Dodd, the current chairman of the Senate Banking Committee was one of the authors of the Sarbanes-Oxley act which mandated greater protections for investors after Enron.

*Right now, he is leading the fight in the Senate to protect homeowners from the foreclosure crisis.

As to policy disagreements, if we again get caught up again in single issue politics we defeat our own purposes. Read more…

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Regular readers will recall my posting last month, “CNN, the KKK and the Jena 6” which drew THIS long response in the wee hours last night. Normally, I’d just shine it on, but it really illuminates what I’ve been talking about for a long time: that racism in America, while increasingly hidden, remains deeply masked, deeply felt, and deeply entrenched. Here, on The Democratic Daily, this appeared:

Comment from: DR. FESTLER MN

I find it interesting that you mention the nooses were painted in school colors and were apparantly (sic) intended on “supporting” a football theme of “Hang the Here, Cowboys” - a rival town’s team coming in for a visiting game. Read more…

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Filtered through various Read more…

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When we evaluate the facts, the use of private military contractors appears to have harmed, rather than helped, the counterinsurgency efforts of the U.S. mission in Iraq, going against our best doctrine and undermining critical efforts of our troops. Even worse, the government can no longer carry out one of its most basic core missions: to fight and win the nation’s wars. Instead, the massive outsourcing of military operations has created a dependency on private firms like Blackwater that has given rise to dangerous vulnerabilities.The dark truth about Blackwater

The idea of privatization of American public and governmental functions has been at the center of the neo conservative movement and over the last decade has been presented as the cure for everything that ails us from Social Security to Medicare, prison administration to public education, law enforcement and even the waging of war.

This idea that private enterprise can accomplish governmental functions more efficiently, at less cost while providing better service is, of course absurd and, in fact, is nothing but an enormous lie, and, like all enormous lies, if repeated often and loudly by the right authority figures and affirmed in “scholarly” studies performed by the Heritage or American Enterprise think tanks, it will take hold and seem, to a sizable portion of the uncritical public, to be the truth, simply because they have heard it so many times from so many familiar voices.

The marketing/propaganda professionals of the Cheney /Bush administration have carefully studied their Goebbels and know that the truth is what they can sell to those gullible enough to believe it especially when delivered in a climate of xenophobic, racist or religious fear, and due to the fact that a large percentage of our citizenry are either unable to look at their government and the wider corporate culture which largely dictates public policy, with a properly suspicious eye, or simply doesn’t give a damn as long as no one threatens to take away their snowmobiles, shotguns and cheap access to the mind numbing inanity of popular culture and celebrity, the great lies become public truths and “common knowledge.”

Seven years ago the people of this country nearly elected a federal administration that came to office expressing a hatred of government and an intention to reduce the size and influence of it in regulating the affairs of the ruling capitalist class, while at the same time charting a course to invade the lives and privacy and reduce the fundamental freedoms of the lesser classes. How anyone could expect those who despise government and representative democracy to govern effectively and efficiently is well beyond my understanding.

After their near election and illegal appointment to the highest offices in a government that they had absolutely no respect for, Cheney and Bush along with their corporate mafia criminal associates began to strip the federal regulatory agencies of dedicated professionals who took the job of regulating business and industry in the interest of public health and safety seriously, and started replacing them with industry cronies who simply stopped enforcing the laws so that businesses could achieve greater profits.
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WANDERINGS, with Walter Brasch
For release: Oct. 3, 2007
brasch@ptd.net

by Walter M. Brasch

President George W. (“I-Demand-an-Up-or-Down-Vote”) Bush today [Oct. 3] vetoed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which expired this past week. The highly successful program to aid children was begun in 1997 under the Clinton presidency.

The bipartisan legislation bill to increase funding and continue SCHIP was passed overwhelmingly by the House (265–159) and Senate (67–29). It would have increased health insurance for about two to four million children. Bush vetoed the bill behind closed doors and with no media present. About 6.5 million children are currently covered by state and federal programs. More than 43 million people are not covered by health insurance, with about six million under the age of 18.

The Senate had enough votes to override the President’s veto. However, House minority whip Ray Blunt (R-Mo.), who met with President Bush the day before the veto, said he was “absolutely confident” the House would fail to get the two-thirds vote to override the veto.

This was Bush’s fourth veto, his first one was to deny federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. His other vetoes, both in the Summer, were against House and Senate majority votes to reduce barriers on stem cell research and to systematically withdraw troops from Iraq. Why Bush only vetoed four bills in seven years is easily explained by a Republican Congress that refused to challenge him on critical social issues, and a Democrat minority that during his first term and much of his second term failed to bring numerous issues into full public discussion.

The additional funds for the children’s health care program would come from a 61-cent per pack increase in federal cigarette taxes. Dana Perino, Bush’s press secretary, spinning the veto as a plea for social justice, claimed the tax increase was “completely irresponsible.” Congress was irresponsible, she said, because the tax increase would affect the poor people of America because, as she claimed, the lower classes have the largest numbers of smokers. Her reasons may have been the first time that the Bush–Cheney Administration acknowledged there were poor people in America and that the oil-rich Administration “cared” about them.

President Bush himself threw the fear of socialized medicine into the discussion, claiming that the legislation would entice people to switch to government health insurance and, thus lead to socialized medicine. He didn’t mention that he, the Vice-President, all members of the Cabinet, the Executive office, Congress, most federal agencies, and the military all are covered by a socialized medicine program.

The cost of SCHIP would increase spending only $7 billion a year for five years, $35 billion total, up from the current $5 billion a year. The entire five-year cost of the health care program, including the increase, would be about four months of the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In contrast to the $25 billion increase, Bush demands that Congress authorize an additional $189 billion to continue his invasion and occupation of Iraq. The total cost is expected to be at least $1 trillion, not including costs of extended health care for wounded and disabled veterans. President Bush, apparently, also had little concern about turning a surplus when he took office into a $3.5 trillion federal debt in less than seven years.

It makes no difference if Bush vetoed the health care bill because he wrongly believed he was “helping” tobacco-puffing lower income families or because he was frightened because terrorists, who imposed socialized medicine upon most civilized Western countries, would cross from Canada into the United States and scare Americans into becoming healthy.

George W. Bush, the strutting and smirking commander-in-chief, should have signed the bill because he needs every child in America to be healthy. It will be the children, protected by SCHIP, who will be called to Iraq and Afghanistan in the next decade.

[Walter Brasch’s 17th book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, available at amazon.com, bn.com, and most bookstores. Dr. Brasch, an award-winning social issues journalist, is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. Assisting on this column was Rosemary R. Brasch.]

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The line was drawn in the sand today… Bush followed through with his threat to veto State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), “in a sharp confrontation with Congress.”

It was only the fourth veto of Bush’s presidency, and one that some Republicans feared could carry steep risks for their party in next year’s elections. The Senate approved the bill with enough votes to override the veto, but the margin in the House fell short of the required number.

Democrats unleashed a stream of harsh rhetoric, as they geared up for a battle to both improve their chances of winning a veto override and score political points against Republicans who oppose the expansion.

Sen. John Kerry issued the following statement today, in the wake of Bush’s veto of the legislation that reauthorizes and extends the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The legislation was passed by both the House and Senate with a broad bi-partisan majority, and John Kerry pushed aggressively for additional SCHIP funds during the Senate Finance Committee’s development of the plan. He was vowed to work hard to overturn the veto:

“Today with a single stroke of his veto pen, President Bush single-handedly jeopardized health care for millions of poor children,” Kerry said. “The President’s twisted rationale that he opposes ‘federalizing’ health care is a hollow excuse for undermining a successful effort to give Governors the control and the tools to deliver health care for kids who desperately need it. President Bush conveniently forgot that he ran for reelection with a promise to give health care to millions more children and now as a lame duck president he is working to take it away. It seems George Bush was for kids’ health care before he was against it. An overwhelming majority in Congress will fight to keep our promises to America’s children, and we will work to override this cynical, callous veto.”

Jennifer Loven of AP News reported, “The White House sought little attention for Bush’s action, with the president casting his veto behind closed doors without any fanfare or news coverage.” The cowardly action of a cold hearted and callous man who cares nothing of the fate of America’s children.

Ted Kennedy had a message today also for “Bush and the Members in Congress who support his veto”:
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Today’s candidates, for the most part we’ll use the Presidential candidates as an example, are aware of the powerful presence of the Blogsphere and, for lack of a better term, The Social Networking Sphere.

Each campaign has hired Online Coordinators, Bloggers and Strategists. We see the candidates themselves make posts from time to time. Their Campaign Bloggers we see in print more often.

The Campaign’s understand that the Campaign Blogger, (CB), isn’t a vehicle for releasing media advisories or news releases. The CB must be far more effective than simply another channel for news releases or event announcements. Most campaigns understand that the primary task of the CB is to create two way communication with the blog reader. This two way communication, far more effectively than in the past, gives the reader a greater sense of involvement in the campaign. It can, and does, become a very emotional attachment to the Candidate.

By and large, they’ve done a fair job of implementing that concept. Fair. Not great Fair.

So if they understand the importance of the Blogsphere and The Social Networking Sphere why aren’t they supporting, in return, the very medium that gives them, essentially, a free unlimited forum?

Well, first the reality of Blog Advertising: Read more…

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Courtesy of a Hat Tip from Prezvid here’s a fine video of John Edwards addressing a crowd in Conord, NH that was posted at PrezVid on September 28. As Peter Hauck of PrezVid said in his post:

After Ralph Stanley II and the Bluegrass Brothers finish up “Man of
Constant Sorrrow,” a blue-jeaned John Edwards talks about “economic
fairness” at a town meeting in Conway, NH.

Sound Bite: “We should have a national capital fund
to make money — capital — available to new businesses that will operate
and start in smaller towns and smaller communities. Right now all the
capital stays in big cities. We’ve got to get it out into the rural
areas.”

I believe this is worth watching because it addresses one of the biggest disparities we face today: Rural America and Economic Fairness. It also shows Edwards, in my opinion…having no dog in the fight yet…as a man with a mission. It is the same mission he has talked about for over 4 years: Economic Fairness/The Two America’s. Even if you have a negative opinion of John Edwards, I ask you to watch this video. When he’s addressing a crowd, in an informal situation, I believe him to have a powerful presence.

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In just a short couple of weeks, John Kerry and his staff will “bid farewell to Setti Warren, the deputy director of his Massachusetts office.” Warren is headed to Iraq, is “leaving to spend the next year in Iraq as a Navy intelligence officer.”

Peter Gelzinis reports in the Boston Herald and catches perfectly the relationship between Kerry and Warren:

Warren, 37, is just the latest in a long line of Kerry staffers who are presently stationed, or have served, in Iraq. Kerry’s scheduler, Jackie Kohn, is on the front lines for the second time, serving in a combat support hospital unit.

Brady Van Engelen, Kerry’s adviser on veterans affairs, was a platoon leader with the “Tombraiders” of the 1st Armored Division. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart and spent the better part of a year at Walter Reed Army Medical Center coming back from a head wound.

At a time when we tend to reach for the nearest stereotype and hide behind red or blue banners, Setti Warren goes off to war calling his boss, an impassioned critic of the current strategy in Iraq, “a true patriot.”
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Democratic presidential candidates have out raised the Republican candidates yet again, and strategists in both parties contend that the Democrats are “more energized this year as they battle to reclaim the White House after nearly eight years of Republican rule.”

The imbalance is not lost on the candidates themselves. Mr. Giuliani said over the weekend that the ability of Democrats to raise money this year has been “phenomenal.”

All of the campaigns who gave their tallies reported drop-offs in contributions in the third-quarter, which is considered a difficult time to raise money as many well-heeled donors get out of their offices and off the fund-raising circuit to go on vacations and to their summer houses. And the campaigns often have already tapped their donors to the legal limit in contributions. But the Democrats still appeared to weather the summer months better than the Republicans.

One Republican strategist, Scott Reed, noted that, “This just shows the difficult political climate that Republicans are facing.” Reed went on to say, “The bright side is that next spring, the Republicans will have plenty of money to give the candidate who goes up against Hillary Clinton.” Which leads one to wonder, are the Republicans holding back waiting to see who the Democratic nominee will be and will they then unleash a flurry of donations to their own contender.

Possible… but we’ve seen voters become more and more dis-enchanted with the GOP. Which leads me to think that Scott Reed is musing some wishful thinking. Make no mistake, we all know they will go after Hillary with a force, if she becomes the nominee, but we’ve all seen that Hillary seems to be able to hold her own quite well against both the Republicans and the assaults lobbied against her by the other Democratic candidates.

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The Supreme Court roared back into session yesterday. I was profoundly troubled. But what bothered me wasn’t in this news story:

Supreme Court Back in Session
By Robert Barnes
WASHINGTON POST
Article Launched: 10/02/2007 03:05:53 AM PDT

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court convened its new term Monday, and the justices immediately immersed themselves in the first of several election-law challenges the court has agreed to decide in the midst of the 2008 elections …

Nope. It has absolutely nothing to do with election law. Read more…

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