Our Quote of the Day is from Hermann Goering who said, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. That's easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
Some observations on the news...
Michael Mukasey should be arrested. Our Attorney General, installed by Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein for reasons that had nothing to do with justice, has announced that there will be no prosecutions of the Gonzales, Goodling and others who illegally used political criteria to determine hiring at the Justice Department. Said Mukasey, "not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws." Disgraceful doesn't being to describe this man's tenure.
Valerie Plame's legal efforts to hold Dick Cheney and others fiscally responsible for ruining her career by outing her to punish her husband for revealing the administration's fraudulent implication that Niger was shipping "yellowcake" to Saddam for nuclear weapons took another hit when a federal appeals court upheld a judge's ruling dismissing her lawsuit against the government officials. The court said the administration miscreants were acting in their official capacity when they leaked Plame's name to reporters. Their reading of the law is that government employees cannot be held liable for what otherwise might be considered crimes if they were acting in an official capacity. Said the court, "The conduct, then, was in the defendants' scope of employment regardless of whether it was unlawful or contrary to the national security of the United States." So, um, like what was Nuremberg all about then?
The merchants of death must be giggling into their sleeves at all the wars being waged around the world. As people fight, they use up their ammunition and need more guns and bombs and missiles. The hawkers of ordnance must be pressing their production limits to capacity what with all the fighting that's going on. One wonders if they promised advertising to those newspapers – especially the liberal media – who are promoting war with Russia. And they must be salivating over the new promise in the Middle East, where the Israelis are talking about building new permanent settlements on the West Bank. It is reported that Israel would take down some temporary sites not sanctioned by the government and expand existing settlements, but both the Palestinians whose land has been occupied and Israel's allies will be more than distressed by the move.
More mind-boggling by an administration which seems committed to destroying every vestige of environmental protection it can. The Interior Secretary has proposed to overhaul the Endangered Species act to enable federal agencies to decide for themselves if their projects might be destructive of the flora and fauna. The current law requires that the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service make such determinations. Environmentalists are incensed and Congressional Democrats will hold their obligatory hearings. Said the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, "I am deeply troubled by this proposed rule, which gives federal agencies an unacceptable degree of discretion to decide whether or not to comply with the Endangered Species Act. Eleventh-hour rulemakings rarely, if ever, lead to good government -- this is not the type of legacy this Interior Department should be leaving for future generations."
Is it pandering or fiscal foolishness? Barack Obama is suggesting that seniors making under $50,000 a year shouldn't have to pay federal taxes. The explanation by his campaign is that the program would give an average of $1,400 in tax relief to some seven million seniors, as well as lift the burden from their shoulders of having to file complicated returns. Pshaw. While one can appreciate that many seniors are on fixed incomes and facing higher food and fuel prices, these problems should not be dealt with on the basis of age but of need. And besides, it was the seniors who have over the past half-century voted into office the politicians who have gotten us into such deep trouble.
The Department of Homeland Security has stepped in it again. They were looking for a new site for a biolab to replace one on an island off the Long Island coast. They had fifteen potential sites. One in Mississippi ranked well down the list but it was chosen anyway. Perhaps because there is Mississippi Congressman who heads the committee that oversees the DHS budget and a Mississippi Senator who is the ranking member of the committee overseeing their budget on that side of the Capitol. The Congressman claims never to have talked about the new biolab site to anyone at DHS, although he seems to have met with the site decider at least twice. The staff at DHS thought at least eight other sites would be preferable but were overruled by a Bush political appointee. Congress may investigate the decision-making process. Of course, suggested one wag, Mississippi would be the best place to put the biolab if they were to be an accident.I never could abide William Kristol’s thinking. A silver-tongued neo-con, he somehow got a slot on The New York Times OpEd page. Considering his antediluvian positions, he should never have been given such a platform. Journalism isn’t about tit-for-tat, right-and-left, it’s about facts-‘n-truth. Alas. So while I don’t read Kristol, I invariably do see his name and the title of his column every Monday, and yesterday’s typifies why I feel the antipathy I do. The title was "Will Russia Get Away With It?" and the tease line was "We owe Georgia, which has stood with U.S. soldiers in Iraq, a serious effort to defend its sovereignty." Um, well, in answer to his polemical query, get away with what? Georgia started this conflict by invading South Ossetia. And as regards our owing them for sending troops to occupy Iraq, that invasion was scandalously wrong and no reward is due them since they participated so that we would support their NATO bid and provide military training for their own troops. The U.S. has already been hugely generous to Georgia, and defending their aggression is antithetical to our own principles.
While we shake our heads and wring our hands over the increasing slaughter in Mexico related to the drug cartels, our responsibility in the thousands of killings is becoming ever more clear. As reported in an article in the Los Angeles Times, much of the armament for the murders is flowing south across our border, just as the drugs are flowing north. By some estimates, as much as 90% of the guns discovered after raids in Mexico were sold in the U.S. "More than 6,700 licensed gun dealers have set up shop within a short drive of the 2,000-mile border, from the Gulf Coast of Texas to San Diego – which amounts to more than three dealers for every mile of border territory. Law enforcement has come to call the region an ‘iron river of guns.’"Cindy Sheehan managed to get herself on the ballot in the race for the Eighth Congressional seat here in California. The mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who became a national anti-war figure, she created more smoke than fire and was effectively marginalized by the media, supporters of the war, and her own actions. She will be running as an independent against a Republican, a Libertarian, and incumbent Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representative and second in line behind Dick Cheney for the presidency. Pelosi has severely disappointed many people, especially by refusing to pursue impeachment proceedings against the worst president in history. There was also the unremitting funding of the Iraq War, the disgraceful FISA capitulation, the $300 billion Ag Bill, the continuing power of special interests, and earmarks. But the chance of making a serious dent on her typical 85% of the vote is slim. Sheehan is remarkably disorganized, having neglected required filings, and only managing to get enough signatures to be on the ballot at the last minute; she'd earlier collected thousands of names from people who weren't in the district and not realized that wasn't allowed. Indeed, from a practical progressive political perspective – if that's not too much of an alliterative oxymoron – it is a tragic waste of time and money and effort. If she and the people behind her wanted to make a difference they would have gone after marginal GOP seats.
You can almost count on the fact that any measure passed by the California legislature will wind up putting too much money in the wrong pockets. I’m not talking about corrupt politicians. There are plenty of other miscreants stuffing wads of filthy lucre under their mattresses. Consider a 2006 measure called Jessica’s Law which requires all sex offenders to undergo mental health evaluations. Some might think that’s like closing the barn door after the horse is long gone, but it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Only it wasn’t a brilliantly written measure, so it has allowed some psychologists to take advantage. One of the 79 contract psychs pocketed $1.5 million from the program last year, which as the Los Angeles Times reported, "That's equivalent to working 100 hours per week for 52 weeks at nearly $300 per hour -- top-scale in the private sector." Second place went to someone who took in $1.1 million, including $17,500 for a single day. A part-timer billed the state for $900,000 last year. To put these numbers in perspective, a state employee of the same ilk is paid $110,000 for the year.You might have seen the story of the woman who spent $53,000 for South Korean scientists to clone her dead dog, Booger, into five puppies. That warne’t the end of the story. Apparently she was recognized by a whole bunch of folks who had, um, legal issues with her. As the AP lead put it, "She may be the same woman who 31 years earlier was accused of abducting a Mormon missionary in England, handcuffing him to a bed and making him her sex slave." And that’s just part of a very bizarre story. If the implications are right - and the woman now admits she is the same person – the former Miss Wyoming is a person of interest for law enforcement in a number of venues on matters such as stalking the missionary, passing bad checks, an assault on a public officials, communicating a threat against another woman. One wonders how she got the money for the cloning. * * * * * * *
