The Political Junkies
archived: 25 - 31 Mar, 2007 Back Next
UPDATED: March 29, 2007
BALDERDASH
Read the excerpt from Jonathan Chait’s article immediately below that appears in the Los Angeles Times to test whether you can spot the malignant misdirection in the article:
LAST YEAR, the National Journal asked a group of Republican senators and
House members: "Do you think it's been proven beyond a reasonable
doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made problems?" Of
the respondents, 23% said yes, 77% said no. In the year since that
poll, of course, global warming has seized a massive amount of
public attention. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change released a study, with input from 2,000 scientists worldwide,
finding that the certainty on man-made global warming had risen to
90%.
So, the magazine asked the question again last month. The results?
Only 13% of Republicans agreed that global warming has been proved.
As the evidence for global warming gets stronger, Republicans are
actually getting more skeptical. Al Gore's recent
congressional testimony on the subject, and the chilly reception he
received from GOP members, suggest the discouraging conclusion that
skepticism on global warming is hardening into party dogma. Like the
notion that tax cuts are always good or that President Bush is a
brave war leader, it's something you almost have to believe if
you're an elected Republican.
How did it get this way? The easy answer is that Republicans are just tools of the energy industry. It's certainly true that many of them are. Leading global warming skeptic Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas), for instance, was the subject of a fascinating story in the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago. The bottom line is that his relationship to the energy industry is as puppet relates to hand.
But the financial relationship doesn't quite explain the entirety of GOP skepticism on global warming. For one thing, the energy industry has dramatically softened its opposition to global warming over the last year, even as Republicans have stiffened theirs.
The truth is more complicated — and more depressing: A small number of hard-core ideologues (some, but not all, industry shills) have led the thinking for the whole conservative movement.
Your typical conservative has little interest in the issue. Of course, neither does the average nonconservative. But we nonconservatives tend to defer to mainstream scientific wisdom. Conservatives defer to a tiny handful of renegade scientists who reject the overwhelming professional consensus.
The truthful answer is that Republicans blindly adhere to their ancient economic icon – trickledown economics. Republican philosophy and legislative agenda as exemplified over the years is to reduce any economic “burden” on American businesses. Typically, this is most clearly reflected in tax policy.
Republican policy goes so much further. Effective environmental controls to fight global warming and pollution will necessarily involve imposition of regulations on American businesses. There will be a cost. That cost is in direct derogation of Republican dogma; ergo, the Republican Party, in the face of overwhelming scientific proof as noted in the article above, will never relent.
The Republican effort is intellectually malignant. It is not a matter of simply debating on the merits, Republicans have used the power of government to intentionally conceal and obfuscate the truth and to destroy those who attempt to tell the truth. Even as the vast majority of scientists are warning Bush that global warming is a serious threat to mankind, Bush’s minions are “scrubbing” the truth from government reports:
Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has ‘lost the environmental communications battle’ and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases. ‘The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science,’ Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organization. ‘Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate. The phrase ‘global warming’ should be abandoned in favor of ‘climate change’, Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as ‘conservationist’ instead of ‘environmentalist’, because ‘most people’ think environmentalists are ‘extremists’ who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behavior... that turns off many voters’.” -- Guardian Unlimited
According to the Luntz’ “game plan,” Bush administration officials have ordered sections of EPA reports “scrubbed” of references to global warming – even conclusions in scientific reports sponsored by the Bush administration. Public reports in June 2003 document the White House’s involvement: -- TPJ, “A Blind Eye – Deadly Ignorance” The New York Times has editorially admonished Bush for repeatedly censoring official government reports. – TPJ, “Missing The Point.”
The range of censorship is not just limited to science; but history and public records. While scrubbing scientific research, Bush administration officials substitute their political fringe theories. Over the past eight years hundreds of examples have been reported. The example below demonstrates the scope of their effort:
“Ignoring recommendations by its own senior scientist to withdraw approval for a creationist book now being sold in park facilities, the National Park Service appears to be supporting religious doctrine over sound science, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).” – Bush Greenwatch (citations omitted).
The views that the Bush administration cannot control or for which it cannot substitute its views, the administration advances stratagems to chill dissenting views. Bush is removing scientists and intellectuals from government service in favor of neoconservatives.
“President Bush yesterday dismissed two members of his handpicked Council on Bioethics -- a scientist and a moral philosopher who had been among the more outspoken advocates for research on human embryo cell - In their places he appointed three new members, including a doctor who has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members supported, and another who has written about the immorality of abortion and the "threats of biotechnology." - The turnover immediately renewed a recent string of accusations by scientists and others that Bush is increasingly allowing politics to trump science as he seeks advice on ethically contentious issues.” —Washington Post
The scientific community has been ringing the fire bell in the night. In just one of many wide-ranging and damning reports, sixty scientists, including twenty Nobel laureates, from the prestigious Union of Concerned Scientists charged the Bush administration with manipulating "the process through which science enters into its decisions." Among the offenses they cite:
1. Placing people who are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in official posts and on scientific advisory committees,
2. Disbanding existing advisory committees,
3. Censoring and suppressing reports by the government’s own scientists, and
4. Simply not seeking independent scientific advice. – Union of Concerned Scientists
This is nothing less than the Republican Party assault on intellectual freedom and the search for truth. More importantly, it is an assault on the American public’s right to know and is designed to subvert meaningful public discourse, including dissent to public policy, which is the polestar of our republic.
In an even broader sense, Bush’s record exemplifies an open hostility to “intellectualism.” Truth and the principles of civic debate and dissent are meaningless to the neoconservative agenda. It is one of the most important issues facing America today and perhaps the second greatest threat to the future of the American civil politic behind the Republican assault on the US Constitution.
Former Sen. Frank Lautenberg, made the point based upon a report from Nature, a respected scientific journal, reporting that Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) blocked the release of a report that linked hurricane strength and frequency to global warming.
"[I]nvestigations are critical because the Republicans in Congress have ignored this serious problem," Lautenberg said. . . .
He said the investigations "will uncover internal documents and agency correspondence that may expose widespread misconduct." He added, "Taxpayers do not fund scientific research so the Bush White House can alter it."
Jonathan Chait’s assertion that Republican Party policy on global warming has been hijacked by a small clique of Republican political operatives who follow a small band of “renegade scientists,” is a cruel misdirection. The “renegade scientists,” are simply the pawns of an assault on the fundamental principles of the Enlightenment, upon which our founding fathers created a democratic republic.
Simple question for Americans, “Had enough?”
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UPDATED: March 25, 2007
A REASONABLE PROPOSAL
Bush is defending the Congressional investigation of the firing of eight Federal prosecutors with a “reasonable alternative.” Bush will permit Rove and Miers to; a) talk privately with a limited number of Senators and staff; b) the discussions will not be recorded or transcribed; c) testimony will not be given under oath; d) the White House will control the agenda; e) no subsequent subpoenas would be issued and f) for good measure, the Senate can talk with Rove and Miers only once.
Why would Sen. Leahy be “unreasonable” and insist on sworn testimony. One good reason is that Bush administration officials keep lying. On March 13, Attorney General Gonzales spoke of his limited involvement in the firings:
"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," Gonzales said last week. "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."
Later, he added: "I accept responsibility for everything that happens here within this department. But when you have 110,000 people working in the department, obviously there are going to be decisions that I'm not aware of in real time. Many decisions are delegated."
The Associated Press finds the evidence that Attorney General Gonzales was far more involved than he publicly admitted on March 13th:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting, according to documents released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals.
The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials said late Friday.
There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was crafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week amid a political firestorm surrounding the firings.
The five-step plan involved notifying Republican home-state senators of the impending dismissals, preparing for potential political upheaval and naming replacements and submitted them to the Senate for confirmation.
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.
Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said it was not immediately clear whether Gonzales gave his final approval to begin the firings at that meeting. Scolinos also said Gonzales was not involved in the process of selecting which prosecutors would be asked to resign.
One of the best editorials to summarize the issues at stake is the Denver Post:
President Bush is waging enough wars without battling Congress over whether Karl Rove and Harriet Miers will be allowed to testify on Capitol Hill about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
The president says he'll invoke executive privilege to limit Rove and Miers' testimony. We urge him to change his mind and make them available to give sworn testimony in public.
The House Judiciary Committee is examining the White House role in the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, and it makes perfect sense for the panel to press for sworn testimony. After all, the administration has given conflicting and inaccurate explanations for the firings and has glossed over troubling evidence of political interference in prosecutors' work.
It's possible some prosecutors were told to resign after they refused to use their office to carry out partisan hits, or to clear the way for White House cronies. Congress should act aggressively in this matter, in a way that is consistent with the division of powers under the Constitution.
There is a proper time and a place for executive privilege, but in this case the administration seems to be concocting a constitutional crisis out of whole cloth by threatening to defy House subpoenas.
In a twist of irony, the man who is now White House spokesman argued against executive privilege when then-President Clinton sought to invoke it in an effort to keep internal White House deliberations about the Monica Lewinsky scandal from Congress. In 1998, Tony Snow wrote: "Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold - the rule of law."
Indeed. The rule of law. The credibility of the federal prosecutorial system is at stake, and the fate of beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may hang in the balance, partly because his testimony before Congress proved to be false.
Each point in the Denver Post is the talking points for Democrats engaging the public on the issue.
VEXING THE VETS
[Authored by Mickey Walker]
In November 2003 the Post Office wrongfully delivered a parcel to my house in Humble, Texas. It was Elliot Reiddel’s, and when I delivered it to him the next day, his eyes lit up. It was his supply of rubber bladders to catch the waste from his defunct digestive system. He said three years ago, M D Anderson Hospital discovered cancer and removed his lower intestines, his bladder, and his prostate. Diagnosis: Agent Orange caused the cancer from his Army duty in Viet Nam. He made sergeant, Army Infantry, received the Purple Heart, but guess what? Due to recent budget cuts backed by George W. Bush and mandated by Congress, Elliot Reiddel was unable to get a colonoscopy at the Houston VA Hospital.
“Call me Ike,” he told me. He was a little guy, maybe 120 pounds, at most, and he had brown piercing eyes.
M.D. Anderson Hospital, Houston, deemed Ike to be 100% disabled for the rest of his life. At first, he got a VA Disability check for $1,103.00 a month and a Social Security disability check for $900.00 a month. Ike’s $900.00 per month got cut because the system told him he could not draw both. It’s a good thing Veterans with Agent Orange cancers or Purple Heart recipients are classified as top priority categories for VA medical benefits, though, right? Well, not exactly.
Something dreadful happened in January of 2003. In deep stealth, the House of Representatives, by a slim margin of 215 to 212, voted to cut veterans’ benefits by 25 billion dollars over the next 10 years! The Bush Budget demanded it and the House voted it through. Perhaps they had bigger fish to fry: funding massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and throwing endless billions at Pentagon war corporations to make weapons we do not need so that we can use them to search for WMD that do not exist. So, in November 2003 Ike Reiddel was still waiting for a colonoscopy, for over a year. He had an appointment in July 2003, took the prep enemas, but the VA Hospital called early the morning before and told Ike not to come in. There was no more money for him, he said. And M.D. Anderson had advised Ike to have a checkup and preventative chemo treatments at least twice a year. Ironically that same year, over 400,000 Category 7 and 8 veterans had the door slammed on them. And since Bloody January, 2003, no Category 7 or 8 Veterans need apply to the VA for services. Period. No benefits. But Ike was different. He contracted cancer and had suffered, tragically. I asked him then what Category he was. He did not know.
A large bipartisan majority in Congress vowed to sponsor a bill to help Veterans out of the traumatic crater caused by the stingy Bush Budget cuts. In the September 26, 2003 “Texas Observer,” “MR. TOP GUN VETOES THE VETS,” Jim Hightower wrote, “Bush himself promised in the 2000 campaign to rectify the unfairness, and he pledged just before being sworn in that ‘promises made to our veterans will be promises kept.’ He lied. The White House now promises to veto the bill.”
In 2007, outrages splatter the Internet about the plight of veterans awaiting medical services due to Bush Budget funding cuts. The Walter Reed Hospital Scandal was a growing cancer all along, without the benefit of chemo dollars. How unfair is it when a veteran like Ike Reiddel who did check the ‘Volunteer Overseas’ box is refused critical medical attention while Bush and his Lap Dog Congress spent Billions on the Iraq war and Iraqi reconstruction, funneled into Halliburton’s deep pockets on exclusive no-bid contracts? C’mon, people. Why not forget about the fat cat cleanup corporations and help our veterans first? It’s pathetic that Ike Reiddel cannot get critical medical treatment especially when Ike fought in the Viet Nam war and paid dearly, and the president, who promises to veto a bill that would help veterans, did neither. To add insult to injury, articles in the “Boston Globe” and numerous major news services report that Bush was assigned to the Texas Air Guard during the Viet Nam War, and suggest he just “disappeared” and did not report for duty, in neither Texas, Alabama nor Anywhere. And then he got out early to go to Harvard Graduate School. Some Veteran.
Today was Friday, March 23, 2007. I walked up the block in Humble to see Ike Reiddel again, to see how he was doing, and I almost cried. He was there in his modest rent house, old pickup in front and a sweet red dog by his side that looked like a rough copy of one of Queen Elizabeth’s Corgis. I asked him about his life since we last talked. He still got the VA Disability of $1,103.00 per month, but nothing more. His landlord gave him some odd jobs that helped, and only charged him 550 rent. Ike smiled and did not complain. His decorum told you that he would take the hand dealt him and might even write a song or a poem or two before he died. He had his dog and a fine landlord who gave him some odd jobs, and to Ike, life was good.
I asked him if he could get into the VA Hospital for care, and he told me it was still a problem. His primary care physician had left, and the bureaucratic stalemate had put Ike in limbo. He was assigned no doctor and hence, had no appointment for checking on the cancer. For over a year Ike had been trying to get his six-month checkup without success. He just got back from a sit-down hassle with them. They told him his primary physician had been transferred and that he had no doctor. So tack on a few more months of beauracratic floundering and red tape. He said that finally, they told him to come in on May 3, 2007. I told him that Veterans with service related illnesses like his cancer and disability ranked at the top in terms of VA priority and that he should not have to wait around for appointments or doctors.
“I filled out the papers about my years service in Viet Nam where they had dropped Agent Orange most every day.” he said. “They asked me what cities was I stationed near, but I could not remember them all during those years 1971, 1972, and 1978 that I served in the Infantry.”
“I served in the Navy in DaNang in 1964 and 1965.” I told him. I remembered that many years later there were some of my shipmates who got cancer and who emailed everybody later as to which website we all should go to and fill out the Agent Orange exposure forms just in case. Apparently, the military has ways and means to help Veterans who have been harmed by exposure to the Agent Orange in Viet Nam, but Ike has not found the right advisor in the VA to help him get the benefits he is due. On the other hand, it is difficult to believe that the VA were not suspicious of Ike’s cancer and missing stomach, intestines, and bladder.
“M.D. Anderson said my cancer was due to Agent Orange in Viet Nam exposure, and gave me a total disability of 100%.” Ike said. “But the VA says my cancer was not service related.”
“What do they think it was, then?”
“Don’t know.” He said. “But I was only in my late 40s. I think it was related, but they did not agree with M.D. Anderson Hospital, I guess.”
Because the VA did not correlate Ike’s cancer to Agent Orange exposure in Viet Nam, Ike cannot get dental coverage, either. He told me that he had been undergoing harsh chemotherapy treatments for the last 4 years so that the cancer would not come back. He said that the chemo had made his teeth brittle and loose. Some in front had worn down and had chipped off, and you could tell when he smiled.
“I used to like to eat a steak, but I can’t now.” Ike said, mournfully. “But I don’t really have to eat steak, I’m all right. I would just like to get some work done so my teeth would quit hurting.”
Ike said he tried to supplement his $1,103 per month with odd jobs he could find here and there. Many neighbors, he said, were good to him and would give him work and that he would fix cars and mow grass for only 1/3 the normal fee. I looked at him and thought about how little he needed. He only wanted a few simple things like getting his teeth fixed and a job here and there. The bags that hung down from underneath his T shirt were tough to look at. He still got them from the VA in the mail. He was proud to get things like body waste bags from the VA to help him get through life.
You know, year after year the Bush Budget continues to under fund Veterans benefits and the VA. Check it out. Firing a few generals and rolling some scapegoat heads at Walter Reed only puts a Band Aid on the cancer. Our government is funding Veterans care on the cheap. And it’s time we Veterans and Congressmen and Citizens all stood up and raised hell. We can do better. Earth to Dubya: Forget the smooth talk and carrier landing photo ops; think about doing something real. Help our Veterans like Ike Reiddel now. Give Veterans like Ike real care and hope for having served his country in combat. And stop talking about how emotionally you feel about the pain and suffering of others and their families. Just do something. Insist that Congress spend some real money by funding Veterans programs now, even if it means rescinding your Trillion dollar tax cuts for America’s millionaires and billionaires. For openers, just have Congress double your Budget figures from last year. You’re in bad need of some brownie points, so do it. And tell Karl Rove that he should have thought of it so your presidency would have some legacies to smile about.
A SURPRISING POLL
Even as Bush has lost public support for the war in Iraq, Americans have consistently viewed Republicans more favorably on the issue of protecting America’s national security. A Rasmussen poll just published had some surprising results:
On the broader question of National Security, the GOP fares better but not nearly as well as in years gone by. Forty-six percent (46%) of voters trust the Democrats more on National Security while 44% prefer Republicans. Men, on balance, prefer Republicans by three percentage points while women prefer Democrats by eight points. Still, a toss-up with voters on National Security is quite an improvement for Democrats. Ever since the Vietnam War era, National Security has been one of the Republican’s most potent issues.
Last Update: 03/31/2007