August 2011 – Politics Plus

Wilkerson Would Testify in a War Crimes Trial

Posted by TomCat at 12:02 am Politics

Aug 312011

One Republican member of the Bush Regime, in my opinion, is Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State, Colin Powell. He has been up front about his own role and willing to take responsibility for his own offenses. He has repeatedly told the truth, and usually been ignored, about what transpired. Now he says that if Dick Cheney were to face trial for his crimes against humanity, he would testify, even if that testimony resulted in his own conviction.

The former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged Tuesday to testify against former Vice President Dick Cheney if he is ever tried for war crimes.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman that he would participate in a trial even if it meant personal repercussions.

"I, unfortunately — and I’ve admitted to this a number of times, publicly and privately — was the person who put together Colin Powell’s presentation at the United Nations Security Council on 5 February, 2003," Wilkerson said. "It was probably the biggest mistake of my life. I regret it to this day. I regret not having resigned over it."

In an interview that aired on NBC Monday, Cheney told Jamie Gangel that unlike President George W. Bush, he did not have a "sickening feeling" when they discovered there were no weapons of mass destruction after the invasion of Iraq.

"I think we did the right thing," Cheney said.

Joining Wilkerson and Goodman to discuss Cheney’s new book "In My Time," Salon’s Glenn Greenwald said that it was disturbing to see the former vice president treated simply as an "elder statesman."

"The evidence is overwhelming… that Dick Cheney is not just a political figure with controversial views, but is an actual criminal, that he was centrally involved in a whole variety not just of war crimes in Iraq, but of domestic crimes, as well, including the authorization of warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens in violation of FISA, which says that you go to jail for five years for each offense, as well as the authorization and implementation of a worldwide torture regime that, according to General Barry McCaffrey, resulted in the murder — his word — of dozens of detainees, far beyond just the three or four cases of waterboarding that media figures typically ask Cheney about," Greenwald explained… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

Here’s the video.

Lawrence Wilkerson also joined Lawrence O’Donnell to counter Cheney’s lies.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wilkerson is a perfect example that people are not beyond redemption, and I praise Wilkerson for coming out from among them and doing the right thing.

Ron Paul Puts Ideology Before History

Posted by TomCat at 12:02 am Politics

Aug 312011

While the Republican response to Hurricane Irene has been inhumanely draconian, holding people in need of relief hostage to taking more from those who can least afford it to offset the relief. The worst of all in this regard is Ron Paul (R-TX), because he proposes to disband FEMA and says the federal government has no business dealing with relief. He suggests that in 1900, the residents of Galveston needed no federal relief, so lets look back at the history to which Paul would return us.

As Hurricane Irene pummeled the East Coast this weekend, flooding homes and businesses, knocking out power, and killing at least ten people, Texas Congressman and Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul asserted that the federal government should not help with disaster recovery. Americans, Paul said, need to "transition out of the dependency on the federal government." He implied that federal disaster assistance was something new. "We should be like 1900," he said. "We should be like 1940, 1950, 1960." Without a doubt, the role of the federal government grew tremendously over the course of the twentieth century. But Paul’s imagination of a mythic American past of individual self-reliance is bad history. A brief review of major storms shows that these events have long involved federal help and, in fact, have been catalysts for a more active government.

Let’s use Congressman Paul’s timeline, which starts in 1900. That was the year a major storm decimated Galveston, in Paul’s home state. Because of the failure of existing structures to deal adequately with rebuilding, the hurricane prompted citizens to centralize power in the hands of municipal managers and experts. They wanted to make government more active and useful in times of crisis. The so-called "commission form" of government was a key innovation of the Progressive Era, a period conservatives today look back to as the beginning of the end for local self-sufficiency. Texans at the time, though, celebrated their new sea wall and other improvements they achieved through their newly empowered government… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

I urge you to click through to learn the history of federal involvement in disaster relief.

Now more important is what actually happened in Galveston in 1900, since Paul uses it as an example.

On September 8, 1900, the greatest natural disaster to ever strike the United States occurred at Galveston, Texas. In the early evening hours of September 8, a hurricane came ashore at Galveston bringing with it a great storm surge that inundated most of Galveston Island and the city of Galveston. As a result, much of the city was destroyed and at least 6,000 people were killed in a few hours time. The following is the account of Isaac M. Cline, the senior Weather Bureau employee present at Galveston, of the events leading up to the storm, his personal experiences in the storm, and the aftermath. The horror of Galveston is only partly described in this work. He was probably somewhat still in shock when he wrote this report as he lost his wife when his house collapsed during the storm and virtually all of his possessions. In a later biographical work, he referred to the shooting of hundreds of looters by vigilantes in the aftermath of the storm and the cremation of hundreds of unknown storm victims who otherwise would have decomposed where they lay. This particular report is excerpted from the Monthly Weather Review for September, 1900… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NOAA>

Again, I urge you to click through and read this man’s story, and ask yourself, is this what you want for America today?

I have heard Paul explain his rationale. He said that it makes no sense to spend federal money to keep rebuilding in places where nature will just knock it down again. That appears to make sense, but it’s just a sophism. The gulf coast and the eastern seaboard are vulnerable to hurricanes, so we’d need to evacuate those areas. The Mississippi river and its tributaries are vulnerable to floods, so we’d have to evacuate those areas. The plains have tornados, so evacuate them. California is vulnerable to earthquakes, so evacuate that state too. Even here in Portland OR, we have an active volcano right in the middle of town. If we moved all Americans to places safe from natural disasters, if there are any, we’d be stacked many layers deep.

We cannot avoid natural disasters, but we can be there for each other when disasters happen. The federal government is empowered to “provide for the common good”. Federal disaster relief is the most efficient and cost effective way to do this, as long as Republicans do not have the opportunity to put a “Brownie” in charge of the relief efforts, or curtail the agency’s funding.

CBO:The Stimulus Saved Jobs

Posted by TomCat at 12:01 am Politics

Aug 312011

With all the criticism of Obama’s performance on the economy, and reaffirming my own dissatisfaction with several facets of it, I have to admit that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aka the stimulus, even grossly watered down by concessions to Republicans trying to prevent recovery, kept us from being far worse off than we would be, had it not been done. The bikini graph does not lie, and neither does the CBO.

BikiniGraph

According to a new report from the nonpartisan CBO, the stimulus saved up to 2.9 million jobs:

A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report estimates that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) increased the number of people employed by between 1.0 million and 2.9 million jobs as of June.

Naturally, Rick Perry is therefore against any new stimulus:

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry said Monday that no new economic stimulus package is needed to "get America working again," but he declined to give specifics about how his still-unannounced plan to jumpstart the nation’s economy would create jobs. […] "You won’t have stimulus programs under a Perry presidency. You won’t spend all the money."

…

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

How ironic it is that Governor Perry has been wallowing in the very stimulus money he condemns, but I do not doubt for a moment that a President Perry would create millions of jobs too… in whatever third world countries are willing to have their people exploited.

America needs to spend on infrastructure, education, R&D, and green energy to stimulate the economy and increase revenue by ending welfare for millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals.

Open Thread–8/31/2011

Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 312011

Yesterday was another comfortable day with no AC needed. I went out to run a few errands, and upgraded the theme here, which requires specifying several custom features over again. I am current on replies. Tomorrow I’m a volunteer working with a therapy group of former prisoners.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:53 (average 4:47). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From TPM: If you’re trying to institute a new paradigm in the field of federal disaster relief, you could use a better ally than former FEMA Director Michael Brown, better known to most of you as "Heckuva Job" Brownie.

He’s the former International Arabian Horse Association Commissioner and the guy many blame for bungling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He’s also the first high-profile person in with experience in the field of disaster management to back the new GOP requirement that federal disaster aid be offset with federal spending cuts.

On Fox News Tuesday, Brown gave the policy his seal of approval.

Cantor is just as competent as Brownie.

From Reuters: Two top Federal Reserve officials diverged on Tuesday on the need for further action by the U.S. central bank to stimulate the flagging U.S. economic recovery, underscoring the dilemma faced by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank and a noted policy dove, said he favored strong central bank accommodation "for a substantial period of time," since the economy now looks to be moving "sideways."

But Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, speaking separately on Tuesday, stopped well short of signaling support for further easing, showing he remains firmly on the hawkish wing of the Fed’s policy-setting panel.

In short, the Fed is clueless about what to do.

From Politicususa: According to a recent Federal Appeals court ruling, Republican members of Congress who confiscate citizens’ cell phones or cameras and do not allow filming at town halls are violating their constituents First Amendment rights.

One of the ways that unpopular House Republicans have been trying to dodge the wrath of their angry constituents during the August recess is to not allow filming at their town halls. Last week, Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio directed on duty police officers to confiscate the cameras of citizens who tried to film his responses at a recent town hall. Chabot justified this behavior as necessary for the protection of his constituents, but a Federal Court ruling on Friday makes it clear that the Republicans who engaging in this behavior are violating the First Amendment rights of their constituents.

I suspect the five Injustices of SCROTUS will overrule the four Justices of SCOTUS to overturn this excellent decision.

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Revolting Republican Revisionists

Posted by TomCat at 1:29 am Politics

Aug 302011

Between the GW Bush special and Cheney’s new book, America has been treated to more raw fertilizer, to be mild, than one might find in the nation’s largest stockyards. Their lies are co transparent that disproving them is child’s play. What they have to offer rarely intersects with the actual history that took place, as we can easily demonstrate, but the main stream media is failing to cover it accurately as the following reveals.

…It [TV coverage of 9/11] starts now, Sunday night, with National Geographic’s exclusive, detailed, but not terribly illuminating “George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview” — promoted by the channel as the only in-depth sit-down the former president is giving this time around. (It was taped months ago.)

Here Bush meticulously recounts his actions, his anger, his thoughts. The Florida classroom with its cheerfully regimented reading drills, the president’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card whispering in Bush’s ear; Air Force One’s frantic leap frog from one military base to the next as events dramatically unfolded in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania; the emotional speech the president delivered atop the World Trade Center’s rubble three days later, via bullhorn.

It’s the president’s opportunity to adjust a slightly askew picture frame. He sat through the classroom reading of the pet goat story because he didn’t want to alarm the children. He was madder than spit that the Secret Service wouldn’t let Air Force One return immediately to Washington. He never wanted to be a wartime president. He thinks that over time, Sept. 11 will eventually return to its former status as just another day. He is as helpful and lucid as an ex-president can be, but he seems to have little else to say. He doesn’t seem ready to go back — not yet, not fully…

Inserted from <Washington Post>

The Post completely ignores the many falsehoods Potomac Pinocchio perpetrates in his quest to rewrite history. To document them, Keith Olbermann discuss lies from both Bush and Cheney on Countdown, first with John Dean…

…and then with Markos Moulitsas.

The only thing they missed is that National Geographic Channel is a joint venture between the National Geographic Society and Newscorp, so Rupert Murdoch’s fingerprints are all over the Bush special.

Lawrence O’Donnell interviews Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, about Cheney’s lies concerning them in two segments.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And they continue.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There can be no doubt, not only that Bush and Cheney are lying, but also that they are criminals. Yesterday one of our readers (TWM) made the point that, if Colin Powell truly wants to rehabilitate himself, he should go public with all he knows about Bush, Cheney and their regime. He is absolutely correct.

Republican Religious Bigotry

Posted by TomCat at 1:28 am Politics, Religion

Aug 302011

For people who claim to support the Constitution, Republicans surely have a way of ignoring it whenever it is inconvenient to do so. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the the United States protects the free exercise of religion, but Republican Bryan Fischer of the AFA insists only the religions he chooses should be protected.

Unsurprisingly, Bryan Fischer is not happy that religious leaders won’t be addressing a ceremony marking the ten year anniversary of the September 11th attacks in New York. A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that they wanted to keep the focus “on the families of the thousands who died on Sept. 11,” and the Wall Street Journal noted [Murdoch delinked] that previous events marking the anniversary similarly did not include religious speakers and that there “will be an interfaith event recognizing first responders on Sept. 6.”

But Fischer believes that Bloomberg is up to something more sinister. By failing to include religious speakers, Fischer insists that Bloomberg is “playing favorites, and his favoritism is heavily stacked toward Muslims.”

According to Fischer [Supply-side pseudo-Christian delinked], such public prayers should “be reserved for Christians and Jews,” (although he goes on to leave out the latter when he calls for prayer to be restricted to “the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.”) Fischer explains that the Founding Fathers would have wanted it that way because Muslims “pray to a different god.” Of course, as we pointed out on Friday, the AFA made clear that Christians and Jews “do not worship the same God” and that Christians should build friendships with their Jewish neighbors to convert them… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch>

Fischer’s bigotry anti-American as well as anti-Christian. Republican hatred toward Muslims directly opposes both Jesus’ teaching and his practice, as he honored people with faiths different from his own. Fisher is just another Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian. His views do not represent authentic Christianity.

New Head for the Council of Economic Advisors

Posted by TomCat at 1:27 am Politics

Aug 302011

Barack Obama has appointed a replacement for Austan Goolsby to head the Council of Economic Advisers. While I would prefer someone more activist than Alan Krueger, I think I understand why Obama appointed him, and in that light, the appointment makes sense.

President Obama is moving to install labor specialist Alan Krueger as chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers in an effort to bolster the depleted White House economic team as it girds for a political campaign expected to focus on jobs and growth.

In nominating Krueger, a Princeton University professor, Obama picked a highly respected specialist in employment and the workforce who served as chief economist at the Treasury Department in the first two years of the Obama administration.

During that time, Krueger, 50, worked on tax incentives to encourage employment and programs that sparked auto purchases (“Cash for Clunkers”) and municipal building projects — the kinds of plans Obama is expected to unveil soon to spur job creation.

While Krueger would clearly add weight to an economic team hit by a raft of departures, he is relatively unknown and his appointment signals a continuation of the White House middle-of-the-road course on economic policymaking, despite some Democrats’ call for more aggressive action, including additional government stimulus, to boost the flagging economy… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Seattle Times>

In his defense, Krueger does favor stimulus through infrastructure spending, but I think the reason Obama appointed him is simple. He has already weathered the Senate confirmation process, and Republicans who approved him before cannot oppose him now without appearing to he the hypocrites they are. A true progressive would never survive the confirmation process.

Open Thread–8/30/2011

Posted by TomCat at 1:26 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 302011

Yesterday the weather man was wrong. It never got hot, my little AC sat in the corner all day, and I enjoyed the comfort. I actually cooked supper in my pressure cooker, something I would never do on a hot day. I’m current on replies, and tomorrow I have errands to run.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:59 (4:53 average). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Think Progress: More Republican racism from Rush.

Am I the only one thinks he was excessively drugged in this clip?

From Christian Science Monitor: Hurricane Irene and last week’s East Coast earthquake are God’s way of telling Washington that the US government needs to cut spending, Michele Bachmann said Sunday.

Now the Queen of Crazy says she was just kidding. Why is death and destruction so amusing to Republicans?

From Think Progress: During a press conference today, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) claimed that anti-gay rhetoric and opposition to marriage equality didn’t lead to the death of Waterloo, Iowa resident Marcellus Andrews, who was called a “faggot” and other anti-gay names as he was attacked by a group of yet-to-be identified assailants.

Right! Gasoline and the matches have nothing to do with arson fires either. This is another example of “Who us?”

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