posted by niteskolar @ 9:26 AM
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The Senate on Tuesday put off until fall completing a $491 billion defense bill to act this week on the National Rifle Association's top priority: shielding gun manufacturers and dealers from liability suits stemming from gun crimes.
On a 66-32 test vote, the Senate indicated there's plenty of support for Republican leaders' determination to pass the gun bill before lawmakers leave at the end of this week for a monthlong vacation.
"The only reason it is coming to the floor, in a time of war to interrupt the debate on the Defense Authorization bill is that members are feeling pressure form the gun lobby," said Sen. Jack Reed (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I.
In a time of war, blah blah blah. All the Grand Ole Party (Republican) does is ride off the emotional fuel du jour. They went from and continue to exploit 9/11 to passing the Patriot Act to Terri Schiavo and it all means nothing. Hard not to get cynical but these calloused rich thugs take advantage of fearmongering to remain in power and yet when there is something they are supposed to be doing, they bow to the will of corporate power or large lobby. So if they aren't passing bankruptcy laws to hurt blue collar America, they are bowing to the gun lobby or the religious zealots. Pathetic.
In a count of 50-48, seven Republicans joined Democrats in voting not to restrict debate, a move that Democratic leaders said would have prevented consideration of amendments to help veterans and survivors of deceased service members, along with other issues.
posted by niteskolar @ 4:32 PM
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Temperatures soared past 100 in several cities, and the National Weather Service posted excessive heat warnings and advisories from Illinois to Louisiana and from Nebraska to the District of Columbia. Some areas weren't expected to receive a break until Wednesday.
Some 200 cities in the West hit daily record highs last week, including Las Vegas at 117, and Death Valley soared to 129, the weather service said.
The blistering heat has caused numerous deaths this summer. In the Phoenix area alone, 24 people, most of them homeless, have died.
posted by niteskolar @ 3:45 PM
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Martha Zoller, a conservative radio talk show host spoke at 2:50PM EST on Fox News about being allowed to speak to all soldiers and that they, even the ones with complaints, are committed to the mission.
Newsflash: Of course, their committed to the mission. They are the finest soldiers on the planet. What feeble point she was attempting to make was that the soldiers are behind the president and that must mean the president is right and that the situation is progressing.
Adding insult to injury, Zoller said that the bombing in Musayyib that left scores of children dead would be a turning point for Iraqi citizens. How callous and explotative this is. Besides, does the talk show host have a crystal ball?
Those radio hosts haven't a clue as to what is going on as they stay barricaded in the Green Zone and the palace. Broadcasting from Iraq, their efforts were little more than volunteer propaganda.
Today, 18 Iraqi police and government workers were killed. Does that mean that Zoller's turning point is a turning point for the worse?
BTW, Fox News propaganda is so unbelievably, incredibly over the top. I would weigh in on more but I can only swallow an hour at a time without swearing at my TV set and gritting my teeth.
posted by niteskolar @ 3:45 PM
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posted by niteskolar @ 11:49 PM
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Whatever happened to the Texas cowboy who would fight to defend the honor of a woman being attacked by bullies? Whatever happened to the Commander-in-Chief responsible for protecting the lives of CIA officers? George Bush, unfortunately is missing in action. He is standing idly by while a legion of Republican operatives fan out on the airwaves in an unrelenting assault on the character and reputation of Valerie Wilson, a CIA intelligence officer. Valerie, who is still a full time employee of the CIA, is not allowed to defend herself against this attack.
At the heart of the matter is the specious claim that she dispatched her husband on the mission to Niger to find out if Iraq was buying uranium. This is the big lie. Didn't happen and here's why:
First, here is what Joe Wilson said in the July 6, 2003 NY Times Op-Ed:
In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligencereport. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.
Please note that he didn't say, as Republican National Committee operatives repeatedly insist, he was sent by the Vice President.
Second, the Senate Intelligence report on the matter states on pages 38-39:
After reading the report, the Vice President asked his morning briefer for the CIA ’s analysis of the issue. In response, the Director of Central Intelligence’s (DCI) Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control (WINPAC) published a Senior Publish When Ready (SPWR021402-OS),an intelligence assessment with limited distribution, which said, “information on the alleged uranium contract between Iraq and Niger comes exclusively from a foreign government service report that lacks crucial details, and we are working to clarify the information and to determine whether it can be corroborated. The piece discussed the details of the DO intelligence report and indicated that “some of the information in the report contradicts reporting from the U.S. Embassy in Niamey. US diplomats say the French Government-led consortium that operates Niger ’s two uranium mines maintains complete control over uranium mining and yellowcake production.” The CIA sent a separate version of the assessment to the Vice President which differed only in that it named the foreign government service-.
Officials from the CIA ’s DO Counter Proliferation Division (CPD) told Committee staff that in response to questions from the Vice President’s Office and the Departments of State and Defense on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal, CPD officials discussed ways to obtain additional information. Who could make immediate inquiries into the reporting, CPD decided to contact a former ambassador to Gabon who had a posting early in his career in Niger.
The Senate Intelligence report provides an incomplete and disingenous account of who hired Joe Wilson to go to Niger:
Some CPD officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former Ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife “offered up his name” and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002 , from the former ambassador’s wife says, “my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.
I say disingenuous for the following reasons. First, the normal procedure when a PDB briefer comes back to headquarters with a request for additional information from the President or Vice President is to inform the Office Chief who in turn informs the Division Chief who then informs the Branch Chief. The Office Chief, the Division Chief, and the Branch Chief are the only decision makers at the CIA outside of the DCI himself who can make a decision to send someone on a trip overseas. Valerie Plame was a member of a branch in the Counter Proliferation Division. She was not and is not the Branch Chief nor the Division Chief nor the Office Chief. She simply was an undercover operative in an operations job that required her to travel under non-official cover overseas.
The memo referenced dishonestly in the Senate Intelligence Committee report neglects to mention that it was written in response to a request from one of Valerie's managers (i.e., the Division Chief or Branch Chief). But the most important aspect of this is that Valerie had no authority to make the decision to send her husband, Joe Wilson, to Niger.
What is really laughable and sad about the White House smear of Valerie Plame is that it is insinuating that the bad news Joe Wilson brought back regarding the absence of any evidence that Iraq was trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger was part of a devious plot hatched by Ms. Plame a full year before President Bush made the mistaken speech claiming that such evidence did exist. Val was a great case officer but not even she could pull off such a sly plan. Moreover, even if she had the authority to send her husband Joe to, she could not guarantee he would return with confirmation that such a plot existed.
I point the reader to one final piece of evidence in the Senate's own flawed report. The U.S. Ambassador to Niger at the time and the Deputy CINC of the European Command (General Fulford) both reached the same conclusion that Joe Wilson did--THERE WAS NO SUBSTANCE TO THE CLAIM THAT IRAQ WAS TRYING TO BUY YELLOW CAKE FROM NIGER.
Every American who cares about our national security and the health of our intelligence services should be outraged over the current campaign being directed by the Republican National Committee to continue to smear the reputation and motives of Valerie Plame, an active employee of the CIA, who is not permitted to answer her critics and must sit quietly by while a group of bullies and cowards like Congressman Peter King, RNC Chairman Mehlman, Cliff May, and Victoria Toensing, among others, spread falsehoods about her status and actions. This is wrong and should not stand.
posted by niteskolar @ 3:19 PM
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A SUICIDE bomber brought carnage to the small town of Musayyib south of Baghdad last night when he triggered a huge explosion in a fuel tanker, killing at least 58 people and injuring 86, writes Imre Karacs.
According to witnesses and police, a fuel tanker was moving slowly towards the pumps at a petrol station outside a Shi’ite mosque when the attacker ran up to it and detonated the explosives strapped to his body.
Some residents who rushed to the scene made gruesome discoveries in the blazing wreckage. “After the bomb I went over there and found my son’s head. I could not find his body,” said Mohsen Jassim, whose son was 18.
posted by niteskolar @ 3:03 PM
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posted by niteskolar @ 1:19 PM
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Larry Johnson, a former C.I.A. and U.S. State Dept. intelligence analyst -- this morning at his blog No Quarter -- "In light of the latest White House sanctioned assault on Valerie Plame and her character, our testimony remains relevant and accurate.Writes
This White House doesn't settle for managing the news--what used to be called 'feeding the beast'--because there is a larger aim: to roll back the press as a player within the executive branch, to make it less important in running the White House and governing the country.
Well, I've found a couple of live ones, average people, not pundits, writing about why they've moved over to the dark side. While you may not agree with them, their views provide an interesting look at why the GOP is siphoning off black votes, as well as why the Democratic establishment is asleep at the wheel. Bear with me for the lengthy ride, but it's well worth it if you're really committed to fixing what's broken about the Democratic Party.
posted by niteskolar @ 7:43 PM
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RNC Chair Ken Mehlman addressed the NAACP in lieu of the president who was unable to attend recause of scheduling conflicts.
Concerning the political parties and African Americans, Mehlman said:
"But if my party benefited from racial polarization in the past, it is the Democratic Party that benefits from it today."
Paul Waldman at the Gadflyer says "Close But No Cigar"
http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200528#1991
""Racial polarization?" No, Ken, "racial polarization" is when the races aren't getting along. What the GOP worked so hard to stir up and benefit from was not "racial polarization," it was racism. And it wasn't just "in the past." It continues to this day. It's not just Nixon who pursued the Southern strategy, it was Reagan and his mythical "welfare queens," it was George H.W. Bush and Willie Horton, it was George W. Bush and the Confederate flag, it was Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond and the Republicans who try to suppress the black vote in each and every election.
You want to apologize? Great. But don't piss down the NAACP's leg and tell them it's raining."
Waldman is dead on the money. Knowledgable and politically astute African Americans know that the Republican party has paid only lip service to our community. It is insulting for the administration to claim a scheduling conflict when Bush has dodged the NAACP since he was elected.
posted by niteskolar @ 2:46 PM
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In a New York Times/CBS News poll among 1,111 adults, Bush's approval rating dropped to 42 percent while 59 percent disapproved of his handling of Iraq.
I don't give a *&%^. 51% of America told the rest of the world that Americans were squarely behind President Bush. They told the Democrats in Congress that they were to be bullied and the filibuster option was partisan whining and that in Britney Spears fashion "we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that. "
America told the world that international cooperation is not necessary, that whether or not there was weapons of mass destruction , we did what we did now shut up and send some troops over here to help us out because these insurgents just will not go away. We told the world that greenhouse gas emissions was 'pie in the sky' theory and that we ain't gotta cooperate. We told the world that we don't have to be accountable to anyone and we refuse to participate in some Kangaroo World Court because what if somebody accused us of something we didn't do (like WMD, aluminum tubes for enriching, uranium from Niger, drones that disseminate biological and chemical weapons, mobile laboratories, the 9/11 tragedy).
America told America that it was okay to change the bankruptcy laws in favor of creditors and against blue collar America. America told America that giving up liberties to fight terrorism was okay even if you have to put Japanese in internment camps (my fault, that was just the Ann Coulters). America told America that it was okay to pass prescription drug legislation favoring drug manufacturers and not allowing the government to collectively bargain for the lowest price. I mean after all, it's just sick and old people. They don't really need a break.
I don't give a *&%^ about Bush's approval numbers because numbers mean nothing. We didn't see pictures of flag draped coffins back from Iraq because that means something. All we get is the number dead. And... that doesn't mean anything any more either. Ask any ten Americans how many Americans are dead from the Iraq war. The economy is slowly looking up say the unemployment numbers. Ask somebody from Dayton, Ohio or Flint, Michigan whether those numbers mean anything. The Army announced that its numbers for June recruiting exceeded its goals. Does anybody believe that fantasy? Shouldn't the government join forces with the tree-hugging, lesbian-loving Hollywood set so that they can wag the dog better?
I don't give a *&%^ about Bush's approval numbers because if you voted for him and now you disapprove of his job performance, you oughta but horsewhipped and confined in that wooden thingy with holes for your hands and head in the town square. That vote said that it was okay to not participate in decelerating nuclear weapon proliferation. That vote said that it was okay for the president to hang out in Crawford while the worst natural disaster in recent history, the tsunami in South Asia, that left 180,000 dead and 50,000 missing in 11 countries but that he should rush back to Washington to sign legislation for 1 person, Terri Schiavo. That vote said that it was okay for the president to cut taxes for the affluent and reneg on promises of economic stimulation and promises of job growth.
I don't give a *&%^ about Bush's approval numbers because his re-election said that it was okay for Osama bin Laden to still be at large and that countries that are still complicit in terrorist activity get a hall pass because they are thumbs up on the war in Iraq and send maybe 500 troops to help our 130,000. My bad, they didn't send any troops. But hey, they're on board and the rest... it's just numbers.
posted by niteskolar @ 3:51 PM
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posted by niteskolar @ 4:05 PM
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From NY Times via Truthout:
" Bernard J. Ebbers, the founder and former chief executive of WorldCom, was sentenced to 25 years in prison today for his role in an $11 billion accounting fraud that brought down the telecommunications company in 2002.
As WorldCom's chairman and chief executive, Mr. Ebbers was accused for orchestrating the largest corporate fraud in United States history, an accounting scheme that inflated the company's profits by $11 billion over several years.
With the money it raised from investors who bought its high-flying stock, WorldCom acquired dozens of other businesses, and competitors like AT&T overhauled their own operations to try to keep pace with its phantom earnings."
It was excellent to see that Mr. Ebbers received such a stiff penalty and even more refreshing that the prosecution sought life in prison for this crime. As WorldCom acquired dozens of businesses, competitors were overhauled and people were fired because they couldn't keep up with WorldCom only WorldCom was on super steroids and there was no ethical, legal, commercial, capitalistic way to compete. As a result, companies merged, folded, divisions and parts of companies were purged, assets sold and every day Americans pink slipped. Then, when the company was found to be fraudulent, WorldCom stockholders suffered mightily.
posted by niteskolar @ 7:59 PM
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posted by niteskolar @ 8:20 AM
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"Yes, I have been trying since January 05 to get the word out regarding my own 2 loved ones and the soldiers in their division. Both served in Iraq, and their division, 1st Armored, was the first to be 'extended' so they served 15 months in Iraq, April 03-July 04. They came back to their bases in August 04. A mere 5 months later, Jan 05, their division was told they were under orders to redeploy to Iraq and Stop Lossed and would redeploy in Fall 05. And I have been trying to call attention to the 'Retention' practices ever since.
March 05, it was time for both to make decision to re-enlist. As already under orders to redeploy; as already under Stop Loss; their choices = 1) don't re-enlist but you will wind up in Iraq anyway under Stop Loss or 2) re-enlist and while you'll still wind up in Iraq under Stop Loss, at least you'll have the attractive bonus being offered.
The point is that the 'Retention' rate that is being touted as demonstrative of soldier's fervor and good faith in the war is another deception being foisted on the media and public. Closer to the truth of the situation is that one they are in, they cannot get out and it is entrapment from the front end with deceptive recruitment practices, again at re-enlistment time with the threat of deployment to Iraq under Stop Loss, again when contract ends and they are kept in and deployed via Stop Loss. What continues to be called an 'all voluntary military' has become an 'involuntary' military through the use strategies of deception and legal maneuvering for which there seems to be no remedy in the Stop Loss."
posted by niteskolar @ 8:48 PM
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Specifically, here's what Santorum wrote about the church pedophile scandal on a religious website called Catholic Online. ''When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."
posted by niteskolar @ 2:12 PM
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And this is a reminder that, above all else, independence is an essential characteristic of any judge and a Supreme Court justice in particular. The torture memos are bad in themselves, but they are also evidence that when Gonzalez had an opportunity to exercise some independence, by saying that there are values more important than giving the executive branch a shaky legal rationale to do what it wants to do, he did not exercise it.
There should be three concerns with a Supreme Court nomination: Ideology (is the nominee, who will be a conservative, within the conservative mainstream or beyond it); qualifications; and independence. That means independence from the president certainly, but it also means independence from some of the other political forces that will try to shape these nominations to their liking. Let's not forget about the third.
posted by niteskolar @ 1:41 PM
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Fox News host, John Gibson, said before the blasts that the International Olympic Committee "missed a golden opportunity" by not awarding the 2012 games to France. "If they had picked France instead of London to hold the Olympics, it would have been the one time we could look forward to where we didn't worry about terrorism. They'd blow up Paris, and who cares?" He added: "This is why I thought the Brits should let the French have the Olympics - let somebody else be worried about guys with backpack bombs for a while."
posted by niteskolar @ 1:08 PM
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Liberals, Democrats and others on the Left frequently state that they "support the troops." For most of them, whether they realize it or not, this is not true. They feel they must say this because the majority of Americans would find any other position unacceptable. Indeed, for most liberals, the thought that they really do not support the troops is unacceptable even to them.
Lest this argument be dismissed as an attack on leftist Americans' patriotism, let it be clear that leftists' patriotism is not the issue here. Their honesty is.
In order to understand this, we need to first have a working definition of the term "support the troops." Presumably it means that one supports what the troops are doing and rooting for them to succeed. What else could "support the troops" mean? If you say, for example, that you support the Yankees or the Dodgers, we assume it means you want them to win.
In categorizing most liberals monolithically, Prager fails to take in to account one group of us 'troop hating libruls,' those of us who have RELATIVES over there. Us poor libruls come from small towns like Piedmont, AL (where my mother was born) and Bell Buckle, TN (where my father was born).
My family is a military family because most African Americans from my parents' generation were the first to attend college, weren't land owners and knew that a commitment to the military could help attain a college education. I was in military, my father was military, my uncles were military, my mother-in-law was in the military, my cousin just returned from Iraq, his brother completed a twenty plus year Naval career by being held over two years beyond retirement.
So, do we 'troop hating libruls' want our family members dead or do we want them to come home safe and their buddies around them to die? Do we want our family members to see their friends dismembered and killed in front of them? Do we want our family members to come home without a limb?
posted by niteskolar @ 12:28 PM
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On these matters, Bush's district judgeships were rated 28 percent liberal in Carp's study. That put them well to the right of jurists appointed by Presidents Nixon, at 38 percent, and Ford, at 40 percent, and slightly to the right of Reagan and the first President Bush, both of whom were rated 32 percent liberal.
By the end of his second term, Bush could eclipse Presidents Clinton and Reagan in the number of judges selected — and leave an ideological imprint on the courts for generations to come.
Since 1968, when Nixon was elected, Republican presidents have appointed 1,040 judges; Democrats have named 625. While many of the Bush appointees are replacing jurists named by previous Republican presidents, toward the end of his term Bush could have more opportunities to replace some of the Clinton judges, which would have even greater impact.
The cumulative effect, said political scientist Donald Songer of the University of South Carolina, is that "the last three Republican presidents' nominees control virtually the whole judiciary."
posted by niteskolar @ 12:10 AM
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Hurricane Dennis dealt a glancing blow to the Florida Keys on Saturday, knocking out power and leaving streets flooded with seaweed as it roared toward the storm-weary Gulf Coast, where nearly 1.4 million people were under evacuation orders.
The hurricane, blamed for at least 20 deaths in Haiti and Cuba, carried a threat of more than a half-foot of rain plus waves and storm surge that could be more than a story high when it makes landfall Sunday somewhere along the coast of the Florida Panhandle, Alabama or Mississippi.
posted by niteskolar @ 11:53 PM
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Gov. Jeb Bush has declared an end to the state's inquiry into Terri Schiavo's collapse 15 years ago, after Florida's state attorney said there was no evidence that criminal activity was involved.
Bush had asked State Attorney Bernie McCabe to investigate Schiavo's case after her autopsy last month. He said he now considers the state's involvement with the matter finished.
"Based on your conclusions, I will follow your recommendation that the inquiry by the state be closed," Bush said in a two-sentence letter.
posted by niteskolar @ 11:08 PM
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Not only was this flypaper theory empirically disproved by the London carnage, it directly contradicts the president’s other most often used justification for the war -- that we invaded to liberate the Iraqi people. So let me get this straight: we invaded them to liberate them... and to use them as bait to attract terrorists who we could fight on the streets of Baghdad rather than the streets of London and New York?
Of course, it didn't take the London bombings to reveal this premise as a sham. The presence of American forces in Iraq didn’t keep the enemies of western culture from attacking Madrid. And it didn’t keep them from planting explosives in London’s tubes. And it won’t, in and of itself, keep them from striking here. Indeed, it’s helping terrorists recruit new followers -- and hone their deadly skills.
How pathetic is it to keep arguing that fighting Baathist Sunni insurgents in Iraq is keeping us safe from Al Qaeda terrorists and their offshoots on our soil?
posted by niteskolar @ 9:09 PM
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Terror struck in the heart of London on Thursday as explosions ripped through three subway trains and blasted the roof off a crowded red double-decker bus. At least 37 people were killed and more than 700 wounded in the deadliest attack on the city since the blitz in World War II.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair blamed Islamic extremists and said the bombings were designed to coincide with the opening in Scotland of a G-8 summit of the world's most powerful leaders.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the bombings — which came the day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics — have the "hallmarks of an al-Qaida-related attack." Trapped passengers in the Underground railway threw themselves on the floor, some sobbing. As subway cars quickly filled with smoke, people used their umbrellas to try to break the windows so that they could get air. Passengers emerged from the Underground covered with blood and soot. On the street, in a light rain, buses ferried the wounded, and medics used a hotel as a hospital.
posted by niteskolar @ 10:02 AM
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The following statements are worthless:
"We will not bow to the terrorists."
"We will not be defeated."
"Our resolve is firm."
"The terrorists will not win."
If we are going to stop the present terrorism, we are going to have to do something very different. A war on terror is worthless. We are defenseless and powerless in the way in which we are defending ourselves globally.
posted by niteskolar @ 9:41 AM
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posted by niteskolar @ 5:00 AM
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Sen. Rick Santorum compares abortion to slavery in his new book "It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good," which is being promoted as an alternative to the views of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"The African proverb says, 'It takes a village to raise a child,"' Santorum writes. "The American version is 'It takes a village to raise a child -- if the village wants that child."'
In the book, Santorum makes the case that abortion puts the liberty rights of the mother before those of her child, just as the rights of slave owners were put before those of slaves."This was tried once before in America," Santorum writes. "But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave."
posted by niteskolar @ 6:36 PM
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"I don't like it when a friend gets criticized. I'm loyal to my friends," Bush told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark. "All of a sudden this fellow, who is a good public servant and a really fine person, is under fire. And so, do I like it? No, I don't like it, at all."
posted by niteskolar @ 5:44 PM
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A federal judge on Wednesday jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to divulge her source to a grand jury investigating who in the Bush administration leaked an undercover CIA operative's name.
"I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions" for not testifying, Cooper said. But he told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance, he had received"in somewhat dramatic fashion" a direct personal communication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep the source's identity secret.
posted by niteskolar @ 5:20 PM
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posted by niteskolar @ 2:31 PM
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posted by niteskolar @ 2:53 PM
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States are openly resisting a provision of the Medicare law that requires them to pay billions of dollars a year to the federal government to help finance the cost of the new Medicare drug benefit.
Texas is leading the charge against the requirement, which states see as more onerous than the mandates imposed on them by the 2002 education law, the No Child Left Behind Act.
The Bush administration says states should save money under the 2003 law because the federal government will pay almost all drug costs for Medicaid recipients and most drug costs for retired state employees.
"Texas is going to come out ahead by many millions of dollars," said Gary R. Karr, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "That's the intent of the law, to save states money as Medicare picks up the cost of prescription drugs for those on Medicare and Medicaid.
posted by niteskolar @ 3:21 AM
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Defenders of the Patriot Act insist that patriotism entails giving up some individual privacy to guard against the possibility of a terrorist attack from within or without. But patriotism also concerns a love of privacy and free speech and, not least important, a spirited willingness to defend those ideals.
Patriotism consists of multiple, positive actions on behalf of the United States — registering voters, working in an AIDS hospice, volunteering at a disadvantaged school or raising questions about the Bush administration's full-throttle militarism. Almost no one today discusses the idea of national service that would require young people of different ethnicities and economic backgrounds to come together for community projects, not military ones. The most disturbing aspect of the New Patriotism is its suggestion that dissent about the war in Iraq — or even a simple questioning of progress there — is unpatriotic.
Patriotism was not always so jingoistically defined. As the Princeton political scientist Maurizio Viroli argues in "For Love of Country," it was once a positive public virtue. According to the civic republican tradition (a tradition that includes thinkers as diverse as Machiavelli and Rousseau), patriotism was love not so much of country but of its republican forms and their traditions.
In Viroli's account, the good patriot makes sacrifices, works hard to preserve republican values and participates in civic life. This version of patriotism emphasizes positive freedom — our ability to act on our own behalf for the sake of the freedom of the republic — as opposed to negative liberty — passively allowing the state to protect us and in the process rob us of our liberties. The patriot works aggressively to defend the freedoms that make a people a republic.
The specter of a passive citizenry surrendering its rights is sadly pertinent — as is the danger of not distinguishing between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism, in the tradition outlined by Viroli, is an activist, participatory ideal. By contrast, nationalism is largely symbolic, and at its worst mere spectacle. (Witness the attempt by Congress to draft a constitutional amendment criminalizing flag burning.)
posted by niteskolar @ 3:08 AM
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"In a nationwide speech, President Bush again links Saddam Hussein to 9/11. By the end of his term, he'll be claiming Saddam was the "20th hijacker.""
posted by niteskolar @ 5:14 PM
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From The Register:
An extraordinary statement by the US government has sent shockwaves around the Internet world and thrown the future of the network into doubt.
In a worrying U-turn, the US Department of Commerce (DoC) has made it clear it intends to retain control of the Internet's root servers indefinitely. It was due to relinquish that control in September 2006, when its contract with overseeing body ICANN ended.
The decision - something that people have long feared may happen - will not only make large parts of the world furious but also puts ICANN in a very difficult position. The organisation has slowly been expanding out of its California base in an effort to become an international body with overall responsibility for the Internet.
posted by niteskolar @ 11:38 AM
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Travis Jr., the next great jazz man of our time.
posted by niteskolar @ 11:10 AM
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At two in the morning, me clicking and reading:
Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence 'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, ccording to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.
The task of Democrats is to devise a compelling narrative for the country's future. This will require for the donkey to shift from Bush bashing to offering a policy agenda that demonstrates that the party can truly govern in a manner that protects the country, promotes economic growth and advances American values.
All of this seems self-evident, but it will require a major attitudinal shift for the party. Beyond the development of ideas, Democrats must actually be optimistic again. That might be the hardest task after two terms of W. But again, the donkey must wean itself from its Bush obsession.
To bed with me.
posted by niteskolar @ 1:42 AM
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posted by niteskolar @ 5:00 PM
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From Editor and Publisher:
USA Today founder Al Neuharth, who caused a stir last year when -- a bit ahead of the curve -- he told E&P that he favored a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, re-iterated his position Friday, with even more force.
“I'm convinced the best way to support our troops in Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later,” Neuharth, a Bronze Star winner in World War II, declared. He also compared President Bush to President Lyndon B. Johnson, saying that both presidents “lied to us in wartime.”
Every voice helps.
posted by niteskolar @ 4:20 PM
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Political analysis and commentary, a portal to the analysis of major political bloggers and writers.
Joyously married, originally from Nashville, TN, I reside in Baltimore, MD.
