NCLB Act and the Bush Profiteers ( Part 1 )

    One of the things that I have been interested in is that scam of a bill called the No Child Left Behind ( NCLB ) Act and who is getting the best deal out if this, children or the companies with ties to this administration.

    We all know that Bush's younger brother ( Neil ) is making out like a bandit with his Ignite! Learning software as are a few other educational software companies.

  Anyway, it seems as if a diarist over at the Daily Kos has gotten very interested in the dealing of the companies who are profiting off of the NCLB Act so I am going to post their look at the NCLB profiteers, which is a six- part story, as of this date.  It must be nice to have a staff which can look at all of these things non- stop.

Original Daily Kos Article

Bush Profiteers collect billions from NCLB, Part 1

by Mandevilla  Wed Mar 14, 2007

Much was said about George W. Bush’s fundraising prowess in 2000 and 2004, when he created labels like "Bush Pioneers" to identify those who shook down donors and bundled the lucre for his campaigns. But hard on the heels of his inauguration, he might’ve just as appropriately created a new label, "Bush Profiteers," to identify those who first turned his decayed ideologies into law – inventing new spigots through which Bush’s businessmen-backers could suck federal funds – and who then vacated public service to collect their own lucre as lobbyists for those businessmen and their companies.

If you needed a perfect example of this model of lawmaking-turned-moneymaking, you might consider Bush’s vaunted No Child Left Behind. And if you needed a perfect example of the Bush Profiteer, you might consider the first "senior education advisor" he imported from Texas, the architect of NCLB himself.

I offer a simple thesis: Several large corporations and their lobbyists have profited from Bush’s NCLB by tapping billions of dollars in standardized testing and in "supplemental education services" funds since its passage in 2001. They’re lining up now to expand their profit margins for the next six years as NCLB is being re-authorized. And the one man who stands to personally profit the most this year isn’t Bush himself, but advisor-turned-lobbyist Sandy Kress, the architect of Bush’s old high-stakes testing model in Texas and the overhaul of ESEA in 2001.

As Bush himself might put it, "Heck of a job, Sandy." Ahem: http://www.whitehouse.gov/...

KATHY EMERY KNOWS something about educating kids. Her resume, found here http://www.educationanddemocracy.org... , documents a 30-year career as a history teacher-turned-education researcher. Credentials impeccable. She’s published and presented and given workshops and been interviewed on testing and assessment and good education practices, so she’s got skills. And she writes, "When Ted Kennedy and George Bush agree on something, one needs to worry about who the man behind the curtain is.  After doing research for my dissertation (which is now a book) it became clear to me that the men behind the curtain are the members of the Business Roundtable."

In a speech given in January 2005 to the San Francisco State University faculty retreat in Asilomar, California, she detailed the convergence of two heretofore unconjoined worlds: the world of big business, and the world of educating kids. The convergence was given birth in the passage of NCLB, she says, but the pregnancy was more than a decade long. Its unsuspecting mother was the Education and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), first adopted under Lyndon Johnson’s administration in 1965 in partial fulfillment of John Kennedy’s domestic agenda. Its father? "...a bipartisan bandwagon of standards based advocates – a bandwagon built in the summer of 1989 by the top 300 CEOs in our country."

Emery's speech is here http://www.educationanddemocracy.org...

At this meeting, the Business Roundtable CEOs agreed that each state legislature needed to adopt legislation that would impose "outcome-based education," "high expectations for all children," "rewards and penalties for individual schools," "greater school-based decision making" and align staff development with these action items.  By 1995, the Business Roundtable had refined their agenda to "nine essential components," the first four being state standards, state tests, sanctions and the transformation of teacher education programs.  By 2000, our leading CEOs had managed to create an interlocking network of business associations, corporate foundations, governor’s associations, non-profits and educational institutions that had successfully persuaded 16 state legislatures to adopt the first three components of their high stakes testing agenda.  This network includes the Education Trust, Annenberg Center, Harvard Graduate School, Public Agenda, Achieve, Inc., Education Commission of the States, the Broad Foundation, Institute for Educational Leadership, federally funded regionally laboratories and most newspaper editorial boards.

By 2000, many states legislatures, however, were balking at the sheer size and scope of what corporate America was demanding.  The Business Roundtable took note of this resistance when publishing, in the spring of 2001, a booklet entitled Assessing and Addressing the "Testing Backlash": Practical Advice and Current Public Opinion Research for Business Coalitions and Standards Advocates.   My guess is that the timing of this renewed effort to "turn up the heat" involved getting federal government into the act by aligning the federal educational policy with the Business Roundtable’s state-by-state strategy.

Emery quotes Gene Hickock, the under-secretary of education assigned to implement NCLB, speaking to CEOs at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in 2003: "One of the virtues of NCLB is leverage, leverage at the state. . . at the local level . . . We don’t mind being the bad guys... I am very concerned that we will . . . underestimate the potential that we have to redefine everything."

And Emery pays special attention to Hickock’s desire to "redefine everything." She sketches briefly the intent of the "corporate business class" to control public education systems beginning the 1890s and continuing through "modern comprehensive schools, an important part of which was the introduction of standardized, norm-reference tests."

Why the interest of the "corporate business class" in standardized tests? Emery tells us: "Since the 1890s, these tests, along with the factory like conditions of public high schools, have been central to fulfilling one of the major purposes of our public schools.  In an industrial economy, working class students need to be tracked into vocational education and middle class students into college prep courses. This is one reason why we find standardized tests to be more strongly correlated to socio-economic status than to any other variable."

Emery suggests that the corporate climate in the 1980s – pressure from the emergence of Japan, for example – lit a fire beneath America’s corporate interests to accelerate the education process, she surmises; hence, the Business Roundtable’s meeting in 1989 and its development of a "high-stakes testing" model for schools.

It’s clear to me that the fact that its system fails millions of American kids doesn’t deter the leaders of the Business Roundtable: Its goal of marrying the world of big business with the world of educating children has yielded its primary objective, the profit margin. How so?

Education itself isn’t a profit-making venture; no teacher, lunch lady, janitor, principal or bus driver is getting "rich" from "the system." Any dividends on public investment aren’t realized until a child graduates, matures, and becomes a contributing member of society. But a small cottage industry of education support programs has always existed in the private sector, and it included everything from single-subject tutors to after-school or summertime programs for remedial readers. NCLB, the shotgun marriage of Lyndon Johnson’s ESEA with the Business Roundtable’s "high stakes testing" agenda, created a brand-new spigot through which that cottage industry in the private sector could siphon federal education funds. The result: Instant profit – and instant profiteers. What once was just a cottage industry has become a corporate giant.

Says Emery:

Not only do working class and poor students, especially those of color, not learn to read and write, they don’t learn the kinds of skills that would allow them to challenge the direction the Business Roundtable CEO’s are taking this country. Throughout American educational history, there have been educators and activists who have argued against education as merely legitimizing the sorting of students into job categories. Some have created schools based on the joy of learning, or the need for students to be life-long learners. Others have created schools that taught students how to be active agents of social change, or to be skilled citizens in a democratic society. One effect of high stakes testing, one that I am sure the CEO’s are pleased with, is that the historic public debate over what the goals of education should be, a debate going back 2500 years, has been eliminated. Instead,  raising tests scores has become an end in itself...

PRESIDING OVER THE SHOTGUN wedding that Emery describes – the forced marriage of ESEA to the Business Roundtable’s agenda – was none other than Sandy Kress. "Pressure" from not-yet-Secretary Margaret Spellings – then still known as Margaret La Montagne – and Kress, "former head of the Dallas school board, seems to be paying off. Already, the Business Roundtable has pledged to air TV ads promoting testing," wrote Richard Dunham in the March 19, 2001, edition of Business Week magazine here http://www.businessweek.com/...

Dunham’s puff-piece on La Montagne/Spellings said the duo was "counting on business leaders such as Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, AT&T CEO C. Michael Armstrong, and Texas Instruments CEO Thomas J. Engibous to lobby Congress on behalf of Bush's cherished annual performance tests..."

Mere weeks later, columnist Robert Novak credited Kress as half of Bush’s Texan education brain trust, and Bush’s emissary to Congress at a time when the legislative branch was still evaluating its untested executive. "...Who convinced the president to build this bridge for the enemy? Republican House members finger two White House aides brought from Texas: Margaret LaMontagne and Sandy Kress."

"Kress, who was a Democratic activist in Dallas backing Michael Dukakis for president when I first met him, told me Tuesday the White House did not support even Kennedy's version of Straight A's because ‘to have a bloodbath on the House floor is not worth it’," wrote Novak on May 23, 2001, here http://www.texaseagle.org/...

But by July, Kress had left La Montagne/Spellings behind and earned a high-profile spread of his own in New Yorker magazine, thanks to writer Nicholas Lemann. In addition to sketching Kress’s history, Lemann cast Kress as Bush’s brain on education. Inscribed in "a flimsy little drugstore notebook, green, maybe four by six inches" was a text by Kress dated 1999 and called ‘A Draft Position for George W. Bush on K-12 Education’." It was this draft, apparently, that led to Kress’s "temporary assignment as the White House's chief lobbyist on education."

Here’s a sample of the guru’s amazing composition: "Unhappily, after spending billions and billions of dollars on education, the federal government has made virtually no meaningful difference in helping educate our children. As a result of this cynical, shameful, and wasteful behavior, other politicians have decided that there should be no federal role in education at all. Our citizenry, which regularly says that education is the nation's most important cause, needs to understand the sharp contrast between Governor Bush's vigor and the utter sloppiness of the keepers of the status quo."

If anyone could lead Bush’s crusade into education, it would be Kress, who, in addition to being "former president of the Dallas School Board and one of the architects of the Texas education reforms, is a Democrat, but he and Bush had been working together successfully for years."

"Sandy Kress's notebook lays out the essentials of the Texas education reform," Lemann writes. It’s not rocket science: State-adopted standards feed into state-adopted tests, with scores "used to rate the performance of schools." The magic, Lemann understates, was in the marketing: "the promise to ‘leave no child behind’ and to eschew ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’." And Kress was the perfect marketer for the purpose, as Lemann describes here:

In the early stages of the Presidential campaign, I watched Gore, in Dallas, make a speech on education to a group of African-American mayors, in which he tried, without much evident conviction, to cast Bush's record on education in a bad light. Sandy Kress was there to run an after-the-speech spin room for the Bush campaign, which entailed publicly opposing the Presidential candidate of his own party. The intense loyalty of Bush's close aides can be startling -- is there something there that they see and we don't, or do we see Bush more clearly from a distance than they do up close? In one of my conversations with Kress, when he was talking about an early Bush maneuver on behalf of the bill -- nothing terribly unusual, just chatting up some members of Congress -- a wave of emotion came over him and, with a murmured apology, he started to cry.

Kress won his victory, sure enough. Without ever convening a hearing on the bill, the House passed it 384 to 45. "The last thing the White House wanted was a long, slow period of national debate in which the many interest groups involved in education could marshal lobbying campaigns," Lemann explains. In the Senate, progress was slower, getting snagged on the consequences to schools whose scores didn’t measure up. Kress’s solution reflected Kress’s power in Bush’s world: "One Saturday afternoon, word spread instantaneously within this group (while the world slumbered on): Sandy Kress had just rewritten the A.Y.P. formula," Lemann says.

Just like that.

WHEN JOHN DiIULIO DITCHED the White House’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, Time magazine’s James Carney wrote that Washington watchers wondered why Kress hadn’t done the same already. But Kress was a different animal altogether, Carney observed here http://www.time.com/... "Not only is Sandy Kress a Democrat, but he's also the lead negotiator and chief policymaker for Bush's education-reform plan. Together with his faith-based initiative, education reform undergirded Bush's claim to be a compassionate conservative. Like DiIulio, Kress was chosen because Bush hoped his Democratic credentials would attract bipartisan support. In Kress's case, it worked. But after the education-reform bill clears Congress, expected next month, Kress will pack his bags. Kress will at least be able to claim victory when he leaves."

And it came to pass, as reporter Diana Jean Schemo wrote here http://listserv.arizona.edu/... on December 18: "The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill today that would dramatically extend the federal role in public education, mandating annual testing of children in Grades 3 to 8, providing tutoring for children in persistently failing schools and setting a 12-year timetable for closing chronic gaps in student achievement. The 87-to-10 vote capped a tumultuous year for the bill that began with President Bush's postinaugural unveiling of his education plan, [and] continued through a springtime of wrangling over issues like how student progress would be measured..."

Kress himself, Schemo writes, "watched the vote from the Senate gallery, as did Education Secretary Rod Paige."

(Stay tuned for Part 2.)

 

Technorati tags: No Child Left Behind, Sandy Kress, Business Roundtable, Educational Testing Service

What Are The Presidential Contenders Worth ?

   I thought that you might like to know this so I am going to send you off to do your reading.  The estimate of the candidates newt worth covers not only themselves but their spouses also

    WaPo

Sen.John McCain(R-Ariz.)

Net worth: $25-$38 million

Details: McCain and his wife Cindy have substantial real estate holdings in Arizona -- including a home worth more than $1 million and land worth between $1.5 million and $3 million. Most of the wealth comes from Cindy, who has more than $1 million in beer distributor Hensley & Co., which her father founded. McCain has written three books.

Sen.Hillary Rodham Clinton(D-N.Y.)

Net worth: $10-$50 million

Details: Clinton continues to receive royalties for her autobiography, "Living History," for which she received an $8 million advance from Simon & Schuster. Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, left office in debt, but both have written bestselling biographies. Former president Clinton has collected nearly $40 million in speaking fees since leaving office

    Washington Post for the remainder. I will note that all of the top 3 leaders on either side, with the exception of Sen. Barack Obama, are worth tens of millions. But go to the article as it is interesting reading.

 

Technorati tags: presidential contenders, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, net worth

Don't Expect The Truth From Karl Rove

Crossposted from Common Dreams

Published on Friday, March 23, 2007 by The Los Angeles Times

by James C. Moore

CONGRESS WANTS TO hear from Karl Rove, and members want him sworn in. Rather than accept a politically expedient deal from the White House — a no-oath interview — Senate and House committees have approved subpoenas for Rove and others. Lawmakers hope to figure out whether Rove hatched the plan to fire U.S. attorneys who were not hewing to the Republican Party’s political playbook.

Whether Rove chats or testifies, Congress will surely be frustrated. Asking Rove questions is simply not an effective method of ascertaining facts. Reporters who, like me, have dogged the presidential advisor from Texas to Washington quickly learn how skilled he is at dancing around the periphery of issues. Any answers he does deliver can survive a thousand interpretations. Few intellects are as adept at framing, positioning and spinning ideas. That’s a great talent for politics. But it’s dangerous when dealing with the law.

Rove has testified under oath before investigative bodies twice, and in neither case was the truth well served. In 1991, he was sworn in before the Texas state Senate as a nominee to East Texas State University’s board of regents. The state Senate’s nominations committee, chaired by Democrat Bob Glasgow, was eager to have Rove explain his relationship with FBI agent Greg Rampton.

Rampton was a controversial figure in Texas, and Democrats suspected that he’d been consorting with Rove for years. During the 1986 gubernatorial race, when a listening device was discovered in Rove’s office, it was Rampton who investigated. No one was ever charged — and Democrats suspected that Rove planted the bug himself to distract reporters from the faltering campaign of his client, Bill Clements (who won the election).

Then, in 1989, Rampton launched a series of devastating investigations into every statewide Democratic officeholder in Texas, including Agricultural Commissioner Jim Hightower. Rove (at the time running Republican Rick Perry’s campaign for that job) often leaked things to reporters, such as whose names were on subpoenas before they were issued.

So when the Texas state Senate committee found nominee Rove before it in 1991, members thought they had the power to get at the truth.

“How long have you known an FBI agent by the name of Greg Rampton?” Glasgow asked.

Rove paused for a breath. “Ah, senator, it depends — would you define ‘know’ for me?”

Rove, who later vilified President Clinton’s request for a definition of “is,” clearly had his own linguistic issues.

But Glasgow pressed on: “What is your relationship with him?”

Rove said: “Ah, I know, I would not recognize Greg Rampton if he walked in the door. We have talked on the phone a var- — a number of times. Ah, and he has visited in my office once or twice, but we do not have a social or personal relationship whatsoever….”

Rove’s famous memory, which recalls precinct results from 100-year-old presidential elections, often seems trained only to serve his political ends. In an interview with me after the 2000 presidential election, Rove said he did not remember meeting with Rampton at all. But in fact, Rove had met with Rampton — and he even disclosed it on a questionnaire after George H.W. Bush nominated him to the Board for International Broadcasting. In sworn documents, Rove stated that he met with Rampton in 1990 during the investigation of Hightower — an encounter that surely fits the definition of “know.”

Rove’s memory also made some creative leaps during a pretrial hearing in 1993. Travis County Dist. Atty. Ronnie Earle was preparing to prosecute Rove client Kay Bailey Hutchison, who was the Texas state treasurer. A grand jury had indicted her for allegedly using government phones and computers to raise campaign money. When law enforcement officers raided the treasurer’s building to confiscate evidence, reporters documented the whole thing.

Hutchison’s attorneys filed for a change of venue because of a perceived political and media imbalance, which they insisted made a fair trial impossible in Austin. Rove, called to the stand to offer evidence of bias against Republicans, told the court that two reporters had informed him that they were tipped off to the raid by D.A. investigators.

Under oath, Rove named David Elliot of the Austin American-Statesman and Wayne Slater from the Dallas Morning News as the reporters. Both men later told me they hadn’t spoken with Rove, nor had they told anyone they had received a tip from the D.A.’s office. They had gotten a call from staffers at the treasurer’s office, which is precisely how all of the other journalists, including myself, learned about the raid.

If Rove winds up under oath before Congress, members will get a command performance by a man with masterful communications skills. They can expect to hear artful impressions, bits of information and a few stipulated facts.

But they should not expect the truth.
James C. Moore co-wrote “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential” with Wayne Slater.

Copyright ©2007 The Los Angeles Times

 

Technorati tags: Karl Rove, testimony

Gitmo To Stay Open Past Bush's Term?

    Let's change the subject here for a second so we can look at Gitmo.

    It is reported that the Bush Crime Family has finally broke down and admitted that the Gitmo detention Centre would more than likely not be shut down during Bush's reign of terror even though he has said that he would like to see it closed.

    This would be because of the trials under way of the detainees who have no legal rights under the Bush rule of lawlessness.

    Tony Snow:

    "It's highly unlikely that you can dispense with all those cases between now and the end of the administration."

    "We have tried as best we can to move those who are in Guantanamo either to their home nations, or nations where they are wanted for other trial or justice dispensation," he said.

    "But we also have laid down the benchmark that you also have to be able to assure that they're going to be treated humanely.

    "Very few countries want these people back, and, therefore, what you have to do is to work through a procedure where you do, in fact, bring them to justice."

   I say that we send the detainees back to their native countries and then we put Bush, Cheney, Rice and Snow in their places so that the American citizens can dispense some real justice!

 

Technorati tags: Gitmo, Bush, detainees, Condi Rice

 

Gonzales Should Be Fired For Lying

   It seems as if  A. G. Alberto Gonzales is keeping up with the Bush Crime Family's practice of lying when asked about anything of importance.

     I am speaking of course about the prosecutors who were fired because of politics and I am referring to Gonzales previous statement saying that he was not involved in the firings. We now know that statement is a lie according to some documents which were released on Friday that say Gonzales did approve of the plans to fire the U.S. attorneys at a meeting back in November.    Source

The documents indicated that the hour-long morning discussion, held in the attorney general's conference room, was the only time Gonzales met with top aides who decided which prosecutors to fire and how to do it.

      Last week Gonzales said "I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers — where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew. But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the attorney general."

Gonzales this week directed the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the circumstances of the firings, officials said. The department's inspector general also will participate in that investigation.

  That is like the mob investigating the mob! This is another case where someone from the outside needs to do all of the investigating of these liars and thieves.

    I hope that the House is keeping real good track of all of this mess so that the impeachment proceedings, which will come, goes very smoothly.

   I've contacted Halliburton and instructed them to add a Republican wing to their next prison project and to make it large!

"If the facts bear out that Attorney General Gonzales knew much more about the plan than he has previously admitted, then he can no longer serve as Attorney General," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who is heading the Senate's investigation into the firings.

 

Technorati tags: Alberto Gonzales, U.S. attorny's, Justice Department

 

The Words Of The Wise Before the House Vote On Friday

   More comments before the debate in the House on Friday.

Majority Leader Hoyer:
“Others assert that inclusion of a timeline for responsible deployment is tantamount to capitulation. Mr. Hobson spoke on this floor just a few minutes ago. He voted to set a timeline in Bosnia. Mr. Lewis sits as the ranking member of this committee, he voted on June 24, 1997, to set a timeline. Mr. Hastert, Speaker of the House, set a timeline. Mr. Delay voted for a timeline. Mr. Blunt, voted for a timeline. Mr. Boehner, voted for a timeline. Every one of them voted for a timeline. What were the circumstances? We hadn’t lost a single troop. Not one.”

Rep. Van Hollen (MD-08):
“The American people know well that when you ignore failure and bad decisions you simply get more of them. Today we are demanding accountability for a change - accountability for a change, accountability to be sure that our troops get the equipment and training they need. Accountability to be sure that the wounded soldiers returning home are treated with the dignity they deserve.”

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (IL-05):
“Let us review the cost America has beared in four years. Beared in four years. 3,000 lives have been lost. 25,000 of our citizens have been injured, and nearly half a trillion dollars have been spent, and America’s reputation around the world has been sullied. And under the President’s leadership, his Iraqi policy comes down to something very simple. More troops, more money, more time, more the same.”

Chairman Obey on Checks & Balances:
“For the last four years, we have had a Congress that did whatever George Bush wanted it to do, rubber stamp, lock-step all the way — today is different. Today, we have a congress that is responding to what the public asked for in the last election. What you’re seeing today is the new world of checks and balances. Get used to it, it’s what the public asked for and it’s what they’re going to get out of this Congress.”

Rep. Murtha:
“Let me say to the Members what hurts our troops. I found our troops, 44,000, without body armor. I found our troops with a shortage of jammers. I found our troops with a shortage of up-armored humvees. I find our troops now, because of the policy, having to go back to Iraq before they have a year at home. I find our troops now because of the policy of this White House having to extend troops that have been there 13 months. And I find our troops having to go into combat untrained or not as trained as well as they should, not going to the desert, where we have this tremendous training area, going right into Iraq. That’s what hurts our troops.”         Source

 

Technorati tags: The House, Iraq, troop withdrawal

The Congress Strikes Back With The U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act

   A few remarks by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Murtha, and Rep. Patrick Murphy before the vote on Friday

 Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

“Rather than sending more troops into the chaos that is the Iraqi civil war, we must be focused on bringing the war to an end. We can do that by passing this bill that transforms the performance benchmarks that have already been endorsed by President Bush and the Iraqi government, into requirements…Benchmarks without deadlines are just words. Four years of this war, words are not enough.”

Rep. John Murtha:

“My grandmother lived to be 96. I was 6 years old when she died. She said you’re on this earth to make a difference. We’re gonna make a difference with this bill, we’re gonna bring those troops home, and we’re gonna start changing the direction of this great country.”

Rep. Patrick Murphy

“To those on the other side of the aisle who are opposed, I want to ask you the same questions that my gunner asked me when I was leading a convoy up and down Ambush Alley one day. He said, ‘Sir, what are we doing over here? What’s our mission? When are these Iraqis going to come off the sidelines and fight for their own country?’ So to my colleagues across the aisle - - - your taunts about supporting our troops ring hollow if you are still unable to answer those questions now four years later.”       The Gave

  You can click here to watch them make these statements along with the comments of more House members.

 

Technorati tags: Congress, troop readiness, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Bush Administration, troop withdrawal

 

 

Warlord Bush Using The Troop Support Propaganda Again

  So a pissed off Bush responded to the House passing a bill that calls for a troop withdrawal by 2008 saying that if the spending is not signed into law by the 15 of April that troops and their families "will face significant disruptions."     Source

    What a load of shit! I cannot wait to hear the Fox News clowns jump on this one. This will be my Friday night comedy entertainment.

  Of course the Idiot in Chief had some veterans and service family members at the White House while he was putting in his two cents worth. I wonder how much he paid them to be there?

  Bush said

"A narrow majority in the House of Representatives abdicated its responsibility by passing a war spending bill that has no chance of becoming law and brings us no closer to getting the troops the resources they need to do their job.

"These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen."

   "The American public expects, the Congress of the United States, to do something," said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer ( voting record), D-Md. "Not simply to say 'yes' to failed policies, but to on their behalf, speak out and try to take us in a new direction."

"What we're trying to do in this legislation is force the Iraqis to fight their own war," said Rep. John Murtha (voting record), D-Pa., who had helped write the bill.

   Since When has Bush worried about whether the troops have had the resources that they need to get the job done? Once again I point out that many of the service men's own families have pitched in to buy some of the equipment needed by them! 

      This jackass and the rest of his criminals need to be locked out of the White House and then locked up in a prison. Their ignorant supporters can go with them.

                         No man is above the law!

                        IMPEACH! INDICT! IMPRISON!

 

Technorati tags: Congress, Democrats, Bush, John Murtha, war spending legislation

 

The House Passes War Funds Bill

   A divided Democratic House voted to order Dictator Bush to bring the United States troops home from Iraq next year.

  Of course we all know that the Bush Crime Family will veto this measure which was voted on pretty much along the party lines at 218-212. One good thing about this is that it is finally something binding which the Democrats have been unable to do up until now.

Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.

"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ( voting record), D-Calif. "The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not."    AP

The bill marks the first time Congress has used its budget power to try to end the war, now in its fifth year, by attaching the withdrawal requirements to a bill providing $124 billion to finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year.

Excluding the funds in the House-passed bill, Congress has so far provided more than $500 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including about $350 billion for Iraq alone, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. More than 3,200 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since war began in March 2003.       AP

   A reader at another news website suggested on Thursday that if the Democrats really want to get the White House's attention, then why not cut other funding instead of the war funds? They suggested that Congress cut the budget for Vice President Cheney's office for starters, $1 budget, and then work their way down the list.

   That may not be such a bad idea when it comes to certain branches of the government and maybe the blogger's and readers should suggest this to their representatives.

   Cheney would then have to spend some of that hard earned kickback money from Halliburton if he wanted his crime office to be functional and maybe the cost would bankrupt his sorry ass.

   While we are at it, we might suggest to our representatives that they begin gathering evidence against these clowns for future impeachment. I kind of sense that they may be doing this already.

 

Technorati tags: The House, Iraq war funding, Democrats, Republicans

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Dave Obey Slams The Washington Post

Dave Obey Attack The Washington Post

   The paper this morning had another one of it's propaganda, lie filled editorials in it and it seems that the falsehoods pissed Dave Obey off enough to say something about it on the House floor today. Mr. Obey was not pleasant, to say the least, but the man spoke the truth.

 

   Here is a partial transcript provided by TPM

Let me submit to you the problem we have today is not that we didn't listen enough to people like The Washington Post. It's that we listened too much. They endorsed going to war in the first place. They helped drive the drumbeat that drove almost two-thirds of the people in this chamber to vote for that misbegotten, stupid, ill-advised war that has destroyed our influence over a third of the world. So I make no apology if the moral sensibilities of some people on this floor, or the editorial writers of The Washington Post, are offended because they don't like the specific language contained in our benchmarks or in our timelines.

What matters in the end is not what the specific language is. What matters is whether or not we produce a product today that puts pressure on this Administration and sends a message to Iraq, to the Iraqi politicians that we're going to end the permanent long-term dead end babysitting service. That's what we're trying to do. And if The Washington Post is offended about the way we do it, that's just too bad.

 

Technorati tags: Dave Obey, Washington Post, Iraq

White House Running From The Truth

   Tony Snow's press briefing from Thursday.

    Once again discussing the Karl rove and company testimony.

Q So then, your concern is about a public spectacle.

MR. SNOW: Yes.

Q So if there's no oath, what's the problem?

MR. SNOW: What do you mean? There's -- you still have the public spectacle.

Q If it's behind closed doors, what's the problem?

MR. SNOW: The thing that we have said all along is, we think that you ought to have the ability for members of Congress to get information in a way that also does not create precedence, and is going to have a chilling effect for presidential advisors to be able to give their full and fair advice to the President of the United States. We think that the compromise we shaped enables us to fulfill that obligation to the President, and to the public in terms of first-rate advice from the White House and the people working in the White House, and at the same time, allows Congress to do what it has to do, which is conduct oversight. There is nothing that says Congress has to have television; it says that Congress does have oversight responsibilities and needs to get at the facts.

Furthermore, the people who are first and foremost in the decision loop here, the folks at the Department of Justice, they aren't going to be out. I mean, they're going to be out, they're going to be testifying, they're offering all their documentation, as well.

Q They get to be in public, but you want your guys behind closed doors.

MR. SNOW: There are -- in this particular case, the Department of Justice -- the Congress does have legitimate oversight responsibility for the Department of Justice. It created the Department of Justice. It does not have constitutional oversight responsibility over the White House, which is why by our reaching out, we're doing something that we're not compelled to do by the Constitution, but we think common sense suggests that we ought to get the whole story out, which is what we're doing.

 

Q Why haven't you moved on the transcript issue, though, then? This morning you were saying off-camera that you don't need an oath because if someone says something that's not true, they still could be prosecuted if they lie to Congress, essentially.

MR. SNOW: Right. Well, again --

Q If there's no transcript, what U.S. attorney can actually go through and see what they said, if there's no record?

MR. SNOW: I will let you -- you're asking a legal question that I would refer you either to the Department of Justice or to prosecutors, because they know the law. As you know, Ed, anybody who testifies before Congress, anybody that talks before Congress, is under an obligation to tell the truth, and if they don't, they're liable to legal punishment.

Q If they don't have a record of it, how would a U.S. attorney know how to prosecute it --

MR. SNOW: U.S. attorneys have been able --

Q -- you trust people's word.

MR. SNOW: I'm not a prosecutor, but I think you'll find that plenty of prosecutors out there will tell you how to get a conviction without a transcript.

 

Q Tony, will this President --

Q -- dodging the oath because of the legal consequences?

MR. SNOW: We're dodging the oath because -- well, I'm not going to say we're dodging the oath, because that -- (laughter.) Yes, I know, kaboom, steel trap closes. No, it's -- this is not a notion of dodging. It's simply, we don't think it's appropriate.

Q Appropriate doesn't set the scene.

MR. SNOW: The scene?

Q People are seeking the truth.

MR. SNOW: That's right, and we're making the truth available. And that's why we're kind of confused, because it seems that people are more interested in sort of seeing White House officials with their hands up being hectored, and I don't think members of Congress --

 

Q So Tony, this President for years has used the Constitution as his backdrop. He said, look, this is my right under the Constitution.

MR. SNOW: Right.

Q This government was founded on a series of checks and balances. Why not, if you're going to say you're using the Constitution, just apply what she's using there to what this government was founded upon: checks and balances --

MR. SNOW: What actually --

Q -- and one legislative body checking another legislative body, and having a top White House official testify under oath.

MR. SNOW: Well, we are an executive body, not a legislative body. And secondly, we have, in fact, said, what we're going to do is bend the rules in favor of Congress on this part, because we are going to give the --

 

Technorati tags: White House, Tony Snow, Congress

 

You Did It!

   To the entire blogging community comes this from Daily Kos and I could not agree more.

You Did It

by Devilstower    Fri Mar 23, 2007

You're the one.  You're the malcontent who made waves, the one who broke up the chummy atmosphere between the White House and reporters.  You're the one who forced them to drag out their pens and actually write a story about the perversion and politicization of the Justice Department.  

If you have ever doubted for a moment that what we do here as a community is important -- in fact, of growing importance -- listening to a discussion held this morning with NPR's Washington editors should smash those doubts.  

I don't think anyone picked this ground for the fight.  I don't think either the White House or the Democrats in congress would have chosen  this issue first, but it kept bringing itself back up.  It was kept alive largely by bloggers, people on the Internet, people who cared more than the traditional media did, and that's really been driving this story.

If it hadn't been for you, the White House would still be rating attorneys by their Bushie level and growing ever more secure behind a wall of sycophants.  If it hadn't been for you, congress would still be keeping its powder dry, looking for an issue with an iron-clad guarantee of success and no possible downside.  If it hadn't been for you, the traditional media would have kept its focus on the issues it cares deeply about -- like whether or not Lindsay and Paris wore underwear to the club last night.

Absolutely, it makes a critical difference that there are now Democrats in Congress who can hold the White House to standards in the same Zip Code as legality.  For the first time, Bush is having to face people in the House and Senate who aren't happy to receive just a lie, a wink, and a knowing smirk as a response to every question.  That's vitally important.  You had a hand in that, too.

But it wouldn't be enough, it won't be enough, without the force of this community, and the broader blogger community, relentlessly digging up facts, bringing them to light, and pressing for action.  Both Congress and the media will take the easy thing over the right thing if no one is forcing their hands.  So give yourself a pat on the back, but make it quick, and get back to work.  In fact, don't take this as congratulations, take it as a spur to work harder.  

 

Technorati tags: bloggers, Alberto Gonzales, Congress, White House

 

News and Views for Friday: Breast Implants and Evil Teddy Bears

   Daniel Abrahamson    over at Alternet has an interesting look at the Supreme Court and the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" free speech case that the court just heard this past Monday.

   I mentioned this case earlier because it has what could be a profound effect on student's right to speak their views on things of importance and the drug scene is one view that we should be allowed to hear.

The Article

The case has the potential to impact a wide swath of student expression. The Court, however, could walk a narrower path and carve out as undeserving of constitutional protection just one type of speech: drug speech. Based on the justices' questioning at oral argument, it appears that a majority of the Court may be inclined to refashion the Nancy Reagan's mantra "Just Say No" into "Don't Even Say It," when it comes to student speech that references drugs.  

* * * *

UPI    March 22, 2007

Breasts implants up self esteem, sexuality

GAINESVILLE, Fla., March 23 (UPI) -- Most women who have their breasts surgically enlarged experience increased self-esteem and sexuality, too, a University of Florida study found.

"This study shows that there are genuine psychological improvements that follow plastic surgery and these issues must be understood and respected," Cynthia Figueroa-Haas, an assistant professor at the university's College of Nursing said in the Gainesville (Fla.) Sun.

The study results appear in the current issue of Plastic Surgical Nursing.

Most of the 84 women in Figueroa-Haas's study had an increase in self-esteem and sexuality, the Sun reported. Participants were between the ages of 21 and 57.

Following their breast augmentation surgery, self-esteem rose an average of 24.9 percent, while sexual desire increased 78.6 percent and sexual satisfaction increased 57 percent.

* * * *

UPI

Expelled students get $69,000

INDIANAPOLIS, March 23 (UPI) -- An Indiana school district will pay $69,000 to three of four high school students it expelled for their film in which evil teddy bears threaten a teacher.

The three Knightstown High School sophomores, who were readmitted to school in January under a federal judge's order, will split the money, the Indianapolis Star reported.

The school district on Tuesday approved the $69,000 settlement and agreed to remove the boys' expulsion from their records, ending a federal First Amendment lawsuit brought by the teenagers when they were expelled in January, the Star reported.

A fourth boy didn't take part in the lawsuit, although he, too, was readmitted to school.

The boys were expelled over the film they called "The Teddy Bear Master," which they described as a parody of a horror movie which they made off school grounds.

District officials said it made threats against a teacher character who had the same name as a middle school teacher in the district.

Before she ruled in their favor in December, U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker described "The Teddy Bear Master" as "humiliating" and "obscene," the Star reported.

 

Technorati tags: Supreme Court, student speech, breast implants, teddy bears

 

 

How It Looks From the Outside

From  kos at Daily Kos   Thu Mar 22, 2007

With all the hand-wringing over the details of the Iraq supplemental, one of the arguments many are making is that the bill "doesn't go far enough" and that it'll make the Democrats look "weak" for caving the to Blue Dogs and "watering it down".

I'm actually quite proud of the progressive caucus -- it's time House progressives start flexing their muscles a little. And the concessions they've won are important ones. Is the supplemental perfect? Nope. But ultimately, it matters little. Bush will veto it, just like he'd veto a "tougher" bill. The would-be-emperor from the unaccountable administration has no interest in agreeing to even the most mildest of oversight requests.

At the end of the day, this is a message battle. It's a chance for Democrats to show that they are interested in ending the war and getting our troops safely home, while the other side wants to escalate the war and get our troops killed.

To that end, look at the headlines the Supplemental is generating:

US Democrats press deadline for Iraq pullout
Iraq pullout measures moves with war bill
US House opens debate on US withdrawal from Iraq
House Democrats seek votes for Iraq exit timetable
Dems labor for sure majority on pullout
Iraq pullout measure moves ahead
After 3 decades, Congress again tries to end a war
Dems seek votes to order pullout from Iraq

You get the point. Few care about the details. The message being sent is that Democrats want out, Republicans want more Americans to die in Iraq.

That is the clear distinction we need heading into 2008. Voters will then decide which they prefer -- pullout or escalation. And when we win that battle and hold the White House and Congress, this war is history.

So the particular of the bills matter little. Whatever we pass, no matter how weak or strong, will be vetoed and we won't have the votes for an override. The war will go on until we get some sane people in charge of the joint.

So we use this as part of the message war.

If we can't end the war right now (and we can't, thanks to King George), then we lay the foundation that will ultimately accomplish that goal.

 

Technorati tags: Iraq, Bush

 

Justice Department Intervenes In Tobacco Company Investigation

From American Progress

ETHICS -- BUSH LOYALISTS INTERFERED IN GOVERNMENT'S TOBACCO COMPANY INVESTIGATION: "The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case." Sharon Y. Eubanks, who served for 22 years as a Justice Department lawyer, was in the middle of a government investigation claiming that the tobacco industry had conspired to lie to smokers when "Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial. ... She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty." Eubanks said top Justice officials largely ignored the case until it became clear that the government might win against the tobacco companies, recalling that she received an "angry phone call" about the case from Kevin McCallum, the then-Associate Attorney General. Eubanks's supervisors instructed her to tell key witnesses to alter testimony and "read verbatim a closing argument [the Attorney General's office] had written for her." Eubanks said she is revealing the interference now because of the recent revelations about the administration's prosecutor purge. "Political interference is happening at Justice across the department," she said. "When decisions are made now in the Bush attorney general's office, politics is the primary consideration...The rule of law goes out the window."

 

Technorati tags: Justice Department, tobacco companies, Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration

 

The ACLU, Hazleton, PA. and Illegal Aliens

   Let us now take another look at illegal aliens. I do not call them immigrants because they have not migrated here in the legal fashion and they are therefore illegal aliens.

   In a small town in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, the ACLU is trying to get the towns new  rules that target landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and businesses that employ them overturned claiming that the federal government has the exclusive power over immigration policy.

    ACLU lawyer Witold "Vic" Walczak said at the defense closing arguments today that the city of Hazleton has tried to "scapegoat and demonize illegal immigrants. To lay the problems at the feet of undocumented immigrants is unfair," in response to city Mayor Lou Barletta who has said many times that illegal aliens are to blame for the rise in the cities  crime rate, overwhelmed schools and other problems. Source

* * * *      Walczak acknowledged that Hazleton, a city of about 30,000, has endured an increase in violent crime, but he said illegal immigrants were responsible for only a few of the 428 rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults and homicides committed in the city from 2001 to 2006.

He also pointed out that Hazleton's overall crime rate declined at the same time its Hispanic population was growing.

Most illegal immigrants, Walczak said, "come here to the land of hope and dreams to make a better life."   AP

   Maybe Mr. Walczak should tell his clients that things would go alot smoother if they applied to gain entry into the United States by legal means. Then they would not become immediate criminals when they crossed over the border.

    What part of illegal does the ACLU and the rest of the bleeding hearts in the United States not understand? It is a crime for these people to be in the states when they are undocumented and just wondering around, ripping off citizens when they buy stolen identification to go to work at some factory which is hiring them and breaking the law in doing so.

   Get in line behind the other millions who did things the right way to get into the United States to have their hopes and dreams come to pass. I did!

 

Technorati tags: ACLU, illegal aliens, immigration, United States, federal court

  

According To Snow, Congress Has No Oversight Authority

  Here's a comment from that brilliant constitutional expert Tony Snow while he was on on ABC this morning:

The executive branch is under no compulsion to testify to Congress, because Congress in fact doesn't have oversight ability. So what we’ve said is we’re going to reach out to you – we’ll give you every communication between the White House, the Justice Department, the Congress, anybody on the outside, any kind of communication that would indicate any kind of activity outside, and at the same time, we’ll make available to you any of the officiels you want to talk to …knowing full well that anything they said is still subject to legal scrutiny, and the members of Congress know that.   Source

   So I would guess that the Bush Crime Family doesn't think that Congress has any oversight authority? This clan of clowns gets more ignorant by the minute!

Technorati tags: Tony Snow, Congressi, oversight authority, White House

 

Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi Says Coalition Withdrawal Would Lead To Chaos

   It would seem that George Bush has now gotten the White house talking points to spread to the leaders in Iraq as Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi has stated that Iraq would be tossed into chaos if the U.S. - led coalition forces withdrew from the country before his national troops are ready to deal with security on their own.  Source

     "We need the coalition forces to stay in Iraq until our national troops are qualified enough to look after security," Hashemi told a think tank seminar in Tokyo, where he is on a four-day official visit.
   "They are, at the time being, not."

His comments come as U.S. Democratic leaders predicted that the House of Representatives would pass a war-funding bill that sets a strict timetable for withdrawing American combat troops from Iraq.

"If we say that we need one year, one and a half years or even two years to go into a detailed, comprehensive reform for MOD (Ministry of Defense) and MOI (Ministry of Interior) units, we need the coalition forces to stay until this job has been fulfilled," he said.

"If the American troops pull out, withdraw, before we complete this plan, there is a possibility that the country might slide into chaos and the chaos could lead to a civil war," he said, adding that it could also lead to regional unrest.

   To Mr. Hashemi I say, your national troops have had more than enough time to get their act together. If they haven't been able to learn anything with the help of the United States and other by now, then I would say that going it alone is a better option for the Iraqis because they will damned sure learn something on the job if they are the ones responsible for their well being.

    The U.S. troops are being sent into Iraq without the proper training and equipment and they are learning the ropes with on the job training so the Iraqi forces can also do the same.

  The United States has spilled enough of its blood for Iraq and this sorry excuse for a president that we have so quit the crying and deal with the problem on your own! It is bad enough that the U.S. will be giving Iraq tons of cash for their reconstruction for decades to come. Iraq does not need any more of the United States troops blood on their soil!

 

Technorati tags: Tareq al-Hashemi, Iraq, American troops, civil war, United States

 

Not Good News From John Edwards

  From Daily Kos on John Edwards wife, Elizabeth.

MSNBC: Not good news from Edwards

by kos Thu Mar 22, 2007 at 09:00:05 AM PDT

MSNBC says Edwards campaign has been calling supporters saying the news won't be good, and that Edwards will likely suspend campaign. Elizabeth's cancer has apparently returned.

Press conference should start shortly.

Update: Edwards confirms cancer has returned. Edwards: "We are optimistic about this".

"It is no longer curable, it is completely treatable."

"Many patients in similar circumstances have lived many years undergoing treatment."

Update:

  John Edwards news conference is now going on and he has said that his campaign for the Democratic presidential nominee will go on, strongly.

  Edwards: Both of us are committed to changing this country that we love.

 Edwards: Biopsy of Elizabeth's rib showed cancer has returned.

CNN

Elizabeth Edwards said she was "incredibly optimistic" and said her expectations about the future were unchanged.

"You can go cower in the corner and hide or you can go out there and stand up for what you believe in," John Edwards said. "We have no intentions of cowering in the corner."

A blog posting on Edwards' presidential campaign Web site Wednesday evening was entitled, "We love you, Elizabeth."

    Read More HERE

    Best wishes for the both of you, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards!

Technorati tags: John Edwards, president, elections

Tony Snow On Testimony Transcripts

  Here comes another Tony Snow press briefing from Wednesday, March 21. This one deals with the White house refusing to let transcripts be taken from testimony to Congress over the " purge " of prosecutors by Gonzales and company.

   I now know why the White house hired Tony Snow. It was to make George Bush look smart.  Click the link below for the entire briefing.

The White House

Q But, Tony, in the interest of getting at the truth, in the interest of accuracy, why not have an official, indisputable record of what was said -- a transcript?

MR. SNOW: Well, first, Jonathan, you're jumping way ahead and I think -- but let's lay out some of the things that go on. This is a decision that was made at the U.S. Department of Justice. What we have said is, all the key officials are available; sworn testimony, whole bit. Furthermore, the email traffic is available. You will also have available an exhaustive rendering of email from the White House on the outside. And you've got the fact basis there. The question you need to ask is what do you gain from the transcript? And the answer is, not much, because --

Q You gain accuracy.

MR. SNOW: No, no --

Q -- what was said, not a characterization of what was said, but you know exactly what was said.

MR. SNOW: Well, no, what you're trying to do is create a presumption of a hearing or a trial. And what we're saying is --

Q What we're saying is --

MR. SNOW: No, this is an attempt to get fact. These are, in fact, interviews. They will have specific fact questions. I don't know how you make this --

Q Tony, the Senator --

MR. SNOW: Let me finish the answer, Ed, and then I'll get to you.

You start with a decision made at the U.S. Department of Justice. This is where you've got the deliberations, the analysis, all these things taking place; you have full access to everything there. The question is, okay, do you have any further questions that may involve the White House? If so, then you also have external communications from the White House elsewhere. That ought to -- and if there are other specific questions of fact that have to deal with anything that's unresolved, you can ask. And, frankly, when it comes to a fact answer, people there are going to be able to get it right, just as I think you get it right when you take notes based on a conversation with me for your reporting, without a transcript.

Q But I'm pressing on a point that these are not actually interviews -- that's your word. The senators, like Senator Leahy, say they want testimony. Testimony, there is a transcript. This is not an interview. You want it to be an interview, but it's up to the Congress. They're the ones investigating, and they say they want testimony, not interviews.

MR. SNOW: Ed, what we're doing is we're trying to be accommodating to Congress by offering them extraordinary insight into a deliberative process. You also know that everybody who goes -- the President expects everybody who talks to Congress to tell the truth, and so does the law. And they know that it would be illegal not to tell them truth.

So the question you've got to ask yourself is, is this pressure on transcripts and everything, is this really something where somebody thinks that there's going to be a fact that they're not going to receive? The answer is, no. The question is whether you are trying to create a political spectacle, rather than simply the basis of getting at the truth. This, I think, is an important and crucial distinction, because, again, I'm not sure -- well, I think we can say with confidence that they're going to get every fact they need to find out what's going on.

Q Are you afraid that they'll be able to go through and find inconsistencies in testimony if there's a transcript?

Q Tony, how would a transcript make it a political spectacle? And what about a transcript would be not in keeping with amicable and --

MR. SNOW: Well, again, I think you've always got a temptation, somebody sort of waving a piece of paper -- let me reverse the question: Why would not an interview be conducive to getting at the facts?

Q Well, because if, then, the facts were then discussed, then it would be one person's word against another and facts might get muddled.

MR. SNOW: No, I don't think so. I mean, I think somebody asks a straight, factual question, you're going to have witnesses from both parties and from both chambers -- House and Senate, your going to have Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate. And you're going to have people who are responsive. And you know, if they don't think they've got it right they can ask over and over and over until they get it precisely right. So I don't think that's --

Q Why not have a record of these facts?

MR. SNOW: Well, again, the facts -- my guess is that there will be, that people are certainly going to be open to discussing the facts that they hear.

Q I'm just asking. Again, hearings have gone on for a long time, they've been televised on issues great and small. What makes this one more of a spectacle than the other times?

MR. SNOW: No, I don't think this makes it more of a spectacle. But I do think that this is a different kind -- what we've made is an extremely generous offer to make available for interviews key White House officials, documents from the White House to the Justice Department, to members of Congress, to interested outsiders, and at the same time -- you know, keep in mind that this is a decision and a decision process that was conducted out of the Department of Justice, and members are going to have a full opportunity to go through that.

Everybody seems to want to jump to a White House piece that may not even be necessary, because -- because, in point of fact, there are going to be opportunities, on the record and in front of cameras and everything else, to be talking -- well, I don't know about cameras, I don't know what they've negotiated -- but the fact is you're going to have the ability to have key officials from the Justice Department up there answering all the questions and providing all the documents. So I think if you take a look at some of the statements that have been made where there are attempts to single out people in the White House, it appears that there is more an effort to try to single out individuals, rather than to isolate the truth.

Q Well, the Congress wants testimony in public, and the Congress feels that it has been misled by the administration. How do you avoid the appearance of stonewalling if you don't send people up there to speak publicly?

MR. SNOW: I think -- well, that may be their argument; I hope it's not yours, because you have done reporting on this, and other people, in the sense of seeing thousands of pages of email responsive to a request produced, also the White House making available communications with the Department of Justice. Again, it is a peculiar form of stonewalling when anybody in the decision loop and any documents generated in the process of a decision will be available to members of Congress. And furthermore, members of Congress will be able to interview to their satisfaction the individuals who were involved. They're going to have access to all the facts, so I don't understand how that's stonewalling. It's just the opposite.

Q Well, the public doesn't have access to --

MR. SNOW: The public is going to have access to everything but interviews with White House officials, and there will be representations of that. They already have access to thousands of pages. They will have access to testimony from members of the Department of Justice.

What you're trying to do is to leap to conclusions about what may or may not be. I think -- again, this is an extraordinarily generous offer on our part, and I think what you need to do is turn it back and ask members of Congress, what is it exactly -- what fact would you not have access to? What piece of data would you not have access to?

Q So is it the White House's position then that the public should be satisfied with the representations of members of Congress about what administration officials testify?

MR. SNOW: Well, again, you're going to have the ability, if Congress accepts what we have offered, to get any communication -- those emails from the White House to the Justice Department and anybody on the outside. It seems to me that that satisfies pretty comprehensively.

Again, the question is, what the public wants to know is what's the truth. And we're making available every document and every individual who would allow Congress to render that judgment. And I think that's a perfectly acceptable way to do it. And furthermore, again, it not only preserves presidential prerogative, it also creates a dignified process. And what you're suggesting is that members of Congress then will run out and misrepresent things after they have had an opportunity to interview members of the White House, which would mean that you're insinuating that members of Congress are going to act in something less than good faith.

Q So, Tony, back when President Clinton was citing executive privilege to keep internal deliberations in that White House from being talked about in Congress, you wrote -- now famously --

MR. SNOW: I didn't say it was famous, Ed. I didn't get that kind of coverage at the time. (Laughter.)

Q Well, it's become more famous.

MR. SNOW: Is it making its way through the left-wing blogs?

Q It is. (Laughter.)

Q No, no. But you wrote quite eloquently about this. You said, "Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold the chief executive accountable. We would have a constitutional right to a coverup."

MR. SNOW: Right. Now let me --

Q So why were you wrong then and right now?

MR. SNOW: Because this is a not entirely analogous situation. I've just told you what we have, in fact, offered to make available to members of Congress. And what we are doing is we are holding apart confidential communications between advisors and the President. And that is pretty standard practice in White Houses. But, again --

Q It's exactly what the Clinton administration talked about.

MR. SNOW: Well, I'm not so sure. And I'll let others do the legal arguing on that. But the important point here is we're maintaining the presidential prerogatives and, at the same time, we're making available exhaustive -- we're offering basically to give them, exhaustively, communications that bear on this issue and also make the key players -- at least at the Justice Department and the people they said they wanted to hear from at the White House -- they're all going to be available. That's not a coverup. That is, in fact, a very open offer to get all the facts into the hands of the people who, presumably, want to figure out what the facts are.

 

Technorati tags: Tony Snow, press briefing, Congress, White House, Bush, DoJ

Illegal Mexican's and Identity Theft

   An interesting article in The New York Times on how the illegal aliens in the United States are now going into buying identities that have been stolen or brought from real American citizens by way of traffickers.

   What I find somewhat amusing about this story is that 148 of the illegal aliens which were rounded up in the Swift & Company meat-packing plants were using the identities of real people. Yet we still have groups crying about how wrong it was to go into the plants in six states  to arrest the criminals.

   So what is the problem with an illegal alien using someone's identity to gain work in the United States?

“I was innocent when I came from Mexico,” said Ms. Nuñez, a petite, round-faced woman who said she was devastated to find herself in a criminal lock-up. “But they don’t give you a job so easily anymore. To get honest work, you need good documents.”

While Ms. Nuñez worked at the Swift plant pushing sides of pork into a saw that sliced off the fat, Ms. Blanco was in her hometown of Bakersfield leading a life teeming with trouble. She had been in rehabilitation to shake an addiction to the drug known as PCP. She had lost custody of her children to the state child welfare authorities, and then had regained it.

As a result, Ms. Blanco said she was distracted and paid little attention to letters three years ago from the Social Security Administration ordering her to report the employment income showing up under her number. She had never been close to taking a job.

“I don’t know the person, but I’m upset,” Ms. Blanco said of Ms. Nuñez. “I think she could get more benefit from me, from my identity, than I could from her. ”

   Of the 148 Swift workers who were arrested and charged with identity-theft, it is worth noting that none of them used the stolen I.D.'s for raiding bank accounts or credit cards.  The Social Security cards and birth certificates were used to gain employment.

However, this in itself posses some problems for the real owners of the papers.

Still, Matthew C. Allen, the senior investigations official at Immigration and Custom Enforcement, said that 326 Americans had reported financial complications and tax liabilities from having their identities used at Swift. “The victims have suffered very real consequences,” Mr. Allen said.            Read More

    Many of the Mexicans that were arrested are claiming ignorance of the law by saying that they did not know that buying the identities was a crime because they buy documents all of the time.

   A lawyer who is representing Ms. Nuñez said “She’s a mother who cut my pork chops and gave Social Security a lot of money. She deserves a medal, not an indictment.”    Source

   She deserves a medal? A medal for possibly messing up someone else's Social Security benefits and causing them some probable tax liabilities.?

   Ms. Nunez deserves some time in prison and then a deportation back to Mexico since she did not pay any taxes even though money was going into the S.S. program. The remainder of the illegal aliens deserve the same.

 

Technorati tags: illegal aliens, identity theft, Swift

 

John and Elizabeth Edwards Holding News Conference On His Wife's Health

 Yahoo News

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer  March 22,2007

WASHINGTON - John Edwards disclosed that his wife, Elizabeth, had breast cancer the day after he lost the vice presidency in the 2004 election. Now his political future may hinge on her health.

The couple planned a news conference in Chapel Hill, N.C., to discuss their plans Thursday, a day after visiting doctors who are monitoring Mrs. Edwards' recovery from the cancer.

Campaign officials refused to answer any questions about what the couple learned at the doctor's appointment or how it might affect Edwards' second presidential bid. Edwards had cut short a trip to Iowa to be with his wife but still attended a barbecue fundraiser Wednesday evening in Chapel Hill, their hometown.

The campaign had said Mrs. Edwards, 57, had a follow-up appointment Wednesday to a routine test she had Monday. The campaign explained that she had similar follow-ups in the past but they always resulted in a clean bill of health.

The campaign refused to describe what happened this time.

 

Technorati tags: John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards

Bush's Bumbling Comments On U.S. Attorney Firings

   More on the White House and Congress impasse from The Raw Story.

 

NY Times slams Bush's 'nasty and bumbling comments' on US Attorney firings; Calls on Congress to subpoena Rove, others

Ron Brynaert
Published: Wednesday March 21, 2007

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According to the lead editorial in Wednesday's New York Times, Democratic leaders were right to reject an "unacceptable" offer presented by the White House on Tuesday, which would allow unsworn testimony by White House officials behind closed doors, and should press on with planned subpoenas for Karl Rove and others.

"In nasty and bumbling comments made at the White House yesterday, President Bush declared that 'people just need to hear the truth' about the firing of eight United States attorneys," the Times editorial states. "That’s right. Unfortunately, the deal Mr. Bush offered Congress to make White House officials available for 'interviews' did not come close to meeting that standard."

In his address, Bush defended his administration's disclosure of an "unprecedented" amount of documents showing how the firing of those U.S. attorneys was handled. "There is no indication that anybody did anything improper," said Bush, asserting that Democrats were more interested in "scoring political points" than constructing an honest account of the firings.

The Times editorial continues, "Mr. Bush’s proposal was a formula for hiding the truth, and for protecting the president and his staff from a legitimate inquiry by Congress. Mr. Bush’s idea of openness involved sending White House officials to Congress to answer questions in private, without taking any oath, making a transcript or allowing any follow-up appearances. The people, in other words, would be kept in the dark."

In a statement released before Bush's remarks that was sent to RAW STORY, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called on Rove to testify under oath.

"After telling a bunch of different stories about why they fired the U.S. Attorneys, the Bush Administration is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt," Reid said. "Congress and the American people deserve a straight answer. If Karl Rove plans to tell the truth, he has nothing to fear from being under oath like any other witness.”

Not very happy with the offer, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called it a "very clever proposal," and said that it will be considered by the Congressional committee leaders. Democrats have been calling for on-the-record testimony by Rove, Miers and others, and the Senate may issue its own subpoenas.

"The Democratic leaders were right to reject the offer, despite Mr. Bush’s threat to turn this dispute into a full-blown constitutional confrontation," the Times editorial states. "Congress has the right and the duty to fully investigate the firings, which may have been illegal, and Justice Department officials’ statements to Congress, which may have been untrue."

However, the Times editors find it "no great surprise that top officials of this administration believe they do not need to testify before Congress," since "this is an administration that has shown over and over that it does not believe that the laws apply to it, and that it does not respect its co-equal branches of government."

Still, the editorial adds, "Congress should subpoena Mr. Rove and the others, and question them under oath, in public. If Congress has more questions, they should be recalled."

Excerpts from Times editorial:

 

It is hard to imagine what, besides evading responsibility, the White House had in mind. Why would anyone refuse to take an oath on a matter like this, unless he were not fully committed to telling the truth? And why would Congress accept that idea, especially in an investigation that has already been marked by repeated false and misleading statements from administration officials?

The White House notes that making misrepresentations to Congress is illegal, even if no oath is taken. But that seems to be where the lack of a transcript comes in. It would be hard to prove what Mr. Rove and others said if no official record existed. The White House also put an unacceptable condition on the documents it would make available, by excluding e-mail messages within the White House. Mr. Bush’s overall strategy seems clear: to stop Congress from learning what went on within the White House, which may well be where the key decisions to fire the attorneys were made.

The White House argued that presidential advisers rarely testify before Congress, but that is simply not true. Many of President Clinton’s high-ranking advisers, including his White House counsels and deputy chief of staff, testified about Whitewater, allegations of campaign finance abuses and other matters.

 

Technorati tags: Bush, U.S. Attorney's, Congress, Senate

 

George Bush and Iraqi " Ghost soldiers "

   From American Progress

March 21,2007

ETHICS -- JUSTICE DEPARTMENT USED MATERNITY LEAVE AS EXCUSE TO APPOINT GRIFFIN: In June 2006, the Justice Department fired Bud Cummins as U.S. attorney in Arkansas and replaced him with Karl Rove-protege Tim Griffin. Traditionally, the Justice Department works with the state's senators to come up with a replacement U.S. attorney. But in a Feb. 6 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) confirmed that the Bush administration ignored his objections to Griffin. In a Dec. 26, 2006 article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse explained that they "temporarily" appointed Griffin, rather than Bud Cummins's deputy Jane Duke, because Duke was on maternity leave. On Jan. 11, Pryor wrote a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and took issue with the Justice Department's excuse: "I am astonished that the reason given by your office for the interim appointment is that the First Assistant U.S. Attorney is on maternity leave and therefore would not be able to perform the responsibilities of the appointment. ... This concerns me on several levels, but most importantly it uses pregnancy and motherhood as conditions that deny an appointment."  The Pregnancy Discrimination Act states that employers, including the federal government, cannot discriminate on the "basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions." Therefore, based on Roehrkasse's explanation, the Justice Department is either 1) guilty of sexual discrimination or 2) guilty of using sexual discrimination as an excuse for appointing a "loyal Bushie" as a federal prosecutor.
IRAQ -- IRAQI ARMY FILLED WITH NONEXISTENT 'GHOST SOLDIERS': Faced with a civil war and mounting insurgency, U.S. military and government officials have frequently described the transfer of power from U.S. forces to the Iraq army as vital to winning the counterinsurgency effort. But "more than three years and $15 billion into the U.S. effort to rebuild Iraqi forces, 'ghost soldiers' still help fill Iraq's army ranks and no one knows how many trained policemen remain on the job, the Pentagon and U.S. government investigators report." These ghost soldiers are "soldiers and policemen who exist only on paper -- a fraudulent device by which units can receive additional per capita resources, and corrupt officials can collect nonexistent recruits pay." In its latest report, the Pentagon claimed that 328,700 Iraqi security force personnel had been trained, double the number of two years ago. But it also added that "the actual number of present-for-duty soldiers is about one-half to two-thirds of the total due to scheduled leave, absence without leave, and attrition." Because of the high rate of attrition, local authorities have hastily replaced these soldiers with men who have not even gone through U.S.-overseen training. As a result of these problems, the U.S. Baghdad command estimates less than 70 percent of Interior Ministry personnel are present for duty on an average day. The House continues to debate an $124 billion appropriations bill this week which would set tighter benchmarks for handing over authority to the Iraqi army. If such benchmarks are not met, then the legislation calls for a U.S. troop withdrawal by next fall. President Bush has declared he would veto the House proposal if it passes.

 

Technorati tags: George Bush, Iraq, Karl Rove, Tim Griffin, Pregnancy Discrimination Act