Notes from the Members, January 2006 What's it like to have NOTHING, and have your 'nothing' destroyed? How sad ... S
Vandals strike migrant encampents
Possessions slashed; police investigating
By Kristina Davis Excerpt:
"The State of the Union speech was boilerplate at a time when much of the country, with good reason, is boiling mad. The United States, the most powerful nation in the history of the world, seems paralyzed. It can’t extricate itself from the war in Iraq, can’t rebuild the lost city of New Orleans, can’t provide health care for all of its citizens, can’t come up with a sane energy policy in the era of global warming, can’t even develop a thriving public school system."
January 25, 2007
Long on Rhetoric, Short on Sorrow
By BOB HERBERT Excerpt:
"... the nastiness of modern American politics isn’t the result of a random outbreak of bad manners. It’s a symptom of deeper factors — mainly the growing polarization of our economy. And history says that we’ll see a return to bipartisanship only if and when that economic polarization is reversed."
On Being Partisan
By PAUL KRUGMAN A Berkeley lawyer who has fought electronic voting in California and a half-dozen other states has been tapped by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen as her deputy in charge of voting machinery.
Lowell Finley, co-founder and co-director of the election-integrity group Voter Action, has pulled out of lawsuits against elections officials in California, Florida, Ohio and other states in order to accept a post of deputy secretary of state.
California: E-voting Critic Tapped as Deputy Secretary of State Excerpts:
"But something has changed since a Democratic Congress was sworn in. Maybe they aren’t going as far as many of us would like in bringing the troops home, but they have, in lacerating words, finally made the Iraq War a debate between sanity and accountability on the one hand -- and mismanaged, failed sociopathology on the other."
"... Throughout the privileged, elitist affirmative action life of George W. Bush, he has had a history of making big messes -- and then having Daddy’ s friends come in and clean them up for Junior. This time, Junior summarily dismissed Daddy’s help in the form of the Iraq Study Group,which was so tame and conservative in its recommendations it even included a strategy for ensuring the Iraqi oil concessions for American and British companies."
Bush’s State of the Moron Address: He is Killing Us Softly With His Wrong, Killing Us Softly. Excerpts:
"... The real intent is a form of looting. I’m not talking mainly about old-fashioned war profiteering, although there is no question that profiteering is taking place on an epic scale. No, I’m saying that the hawks want to keep this war going because it’s to their personal and political benefit."
"Meanwhile, the nation pays the price. The heaviest burden — in death, shattered bodies, broken families and ruined careers — falls on those who serve..."
The Texas Strategy
By PAUL KRUGMAN Excerpt:
"King's was one of the main voices to which Johnson was responding when he sought to lead the nation out of war. 1968 is recalled as a year of hated turmoil, but first it was a year of rare illumination: Racial justice and economic justice depended on peace. King was the first American to speak that triple truth to power, and for a moment, power seemed to hear."
An Unrealized Dream of Justice
By James Carroll
The Boston Globe Excerpt:
"What’s driving all this is the theory, popular in conservative circles but utterly at odds with the evidence, that the big problem with U.S. health care is that people have too much insurance — that there would be large cost savings if people were forced to pay more of their medical expenses out of pocket."
January 22, 2007
Gold-Plated Indifference
By PAUL KRUGMAN Excerpt:
"Unfortunately, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Ahmadinejad benefit from confrontation. Both are unpopular domestically but can use a crisis to distract from their policy failures."
January 21, 2007
Hang Up! Tehran Is Calling
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Excerpt: "Barack Obama is a black man with a Muslim name who would be seeking the presidency in a historically racist nation currently at war against Muslim extremists. One wonders if there is enough handsomeness, intelligence and charisma in the world to overcome all that."
LEONARD PITTS JR.
THE MIAMI HERALD
Obama starts race with 2 strikes against him EXCERPT:
" ... We destroyed a nation under the false pretense of weapons of mass destruction. Between our invasion and the ensuing civil war, at least 53,000 Iraqi civilians and over 3,000 American soldiers have been killed. Nearly 23,000 US soldiers have been wounded. Tyrants are being hanged, and tyranny is still in the streets."
" ... And the Iraqi people owe us a debt of gratitude?"
Amid Bloodshed, Bush Wants a 'Thank You'
by Derrick Z. Jackson Excerpts:
"In the Vietnam speech, Dr. King said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
"Dr. King held the unfashionable view that we had an obligation to help those who are in trouble, and to speak out against unfair treatment and social injustice. “Our lives begin to end,” he said, “the day we become silent about things that matter.”
"New Orleans matters. And the long dark night of the war in Iraq must surely matter. But not enough voices of protest are being raised in either case. The anger quotient is much too low."
The Lost Voice of Protest
By BOB HERBERT Here's a comment following this article On Line: "Um, let's see if I understand this correctly. Chuck Hagel, who voted FOR the war resolution in 2002 but now sees the error of his ways (just recently, it would seem), is supposedly a top-notch candidate for Prez even though he is: 1) against reproductive choice, 2) supports defiling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with oil drilling, 3) has taken no progressive stand against global warming, which is THE major threat to America and the world, 4) hasn't tried to do a frickin' thing about boosting the minimum wage, 5)etc., etc. etc."
"Geez, Robert, is the smog a little thick today out there in L.A.???" Wilbur By: Wilbur on January 17, 2007 at 12:11pm
ROBERT SCHEER
Chuck Hagel for President! EXCERPTS:
"In many ways, George W. Bush is the perfect man for the job, if one understands what his real work entails as an emissary of the ruling class. He possesses all of the qualifications the vocation requires: callousness and indifference to the needs of others, the absence of conscience, truncated mental capacity; the inability to reason and to analyze; the incapacity to admit wrong doing; a penchant for cruelty that includes the enjoyment of inflicting pain and torture on others, as well as a powerful sense of nobility and entitlement that stems from being born into wealth and privilege. He is also a pathological liar."
"Corporate America placed George W. Bush in the White House to wage endless war; to bankrupt the federal treasury to the extent that few social programs will survive, and virtually all of our tax dollars will go into supporting the military industrial complex. The people who put him in office intend to end public ownership of the commons, as well as all government programs that do not directly benefit the wealthy."
George W. Bush: A Symptom of Disease
By Charles Sullivan
Created Jan 12 2007 Excerpts:
"In the end, the Vietnam War was a terrible tragedy for the both the U.S. and the Vietnamese — but it was a great success for the Republican Party. Nixon and Kissinger's "decent interval" created the myth of the Democratic Party as weak and anti-military and helped keep the White House in Republican hands for all but 12 of the last 30 years."
"Bush's "surge" is the "decent interval" redux. It's too little, too late, and it relies on the Iraqis to do what we know full well they can't do. There is no realistic likelihood that it will lead to an enduring solution in Iraq. But it may well provide the decent interval the GOP needs if it is to survive beyond the 2008 elections."
How Republicans win if we lose in Iraq
Bush and the GOP are shifting tactics just like Nixon did with Vietnam -- to win the next election, not the war.
Rosa Brooks Excerpt: "What the Ford obsequies were most about was the Beltway establishment’s grim verdict on George W. Bush and his war in Iraq. Every Ford attribute, big and small, was trotted out by Washington eulogists with a wink, as an implicit rebuke of the White House’s current occupant. Mr. Ford was a healer, not a partisan divider."
The Timely Death of Gerald Ford
By FRANK RICH
January 7, 2007 "George W. Bush believes that he can buy another couple of years of violent stalemate so he can hand off the disaster to whoever succeeds him in the White House on Jan. 20, 2009. How many more Americans and Iraqis must die to ensure that Bush's parting words as he retreats to Crawford, Texas, will be: I never cut and ran. I stood tall. I kept America safe."
Another Flight From Reality by President Bush
By Joseph L. Galloway
January 5, 2007 Excerpt: "Rep. David Dreier had stirred the rage of Democrats while they suffered in the minority. Wielding the chairman's gavel of the House Rules Committee, the 14-term congressman from San Dimas seemed to revel in his power as legislative gatekeeper — the man who could stop any bill from getting to the floor." "But there was Dreier this week, lecturing Democrats on the virtue of openness and professing disappointment about being left out of the legislative process."
Dreier shifts gears in a hurry
The Republican was a ruthless rules panel chief. Now he cries foul. Democrats are amazed.
By Noam N. Levey EX: "... But for the Bush administration and its Congressional allies, privatization isn’t a way to deliver better government services — it’s an end in itself. So the 2003 legislation increased payments to Medicare-supported H.M.O.’ s, which were renamed Medicare Advantage plans. These plans are now heavily subsidized."
First, Do Less Harm
By PAUL KRUGMAN Excerpts:
"And who is paying the price for this insanity — apart from ordinary Iraqis, who are paying the most grievous price of all? The burden of the war in the U.S. is being shouldered overwhelmingly by a contingent of Americans whom no one would categorize as economically privileged."
"There must be a leader somewhere who can shake the U.S. out of this tragic hypnotic state, who can see that it is beyond crazy to continue our involvement in this war indefinitely, to sacrifice another 1,000 young lives, and then another thousand after that."
Another Thousand Lives
By BOB HERBERT We're SO much more together than I thought, by golly! Susan
Excerpt:
"Gerald Ford’s funeral was a snapshot of a country united — political supporters and opponents alike paying tribute to a president, who was surrounded by an honor guard representing every color of the American rainbow and whose place in history was secured by an act of pardon and national healing."
"How fortunate to live in a country where this is the political norm, built up over generations."
A Hanging and a Funeral
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Excerpts: "One of the weapons which Bush employed successfully for years was the manipulation of language and imagery. Along with the debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush's legacy will be the prominent use of the "Politics of Fear" and the murder of the English language - the solidity of pure wind as Orwell stated. The amazing aspect of Bush's success in this endeavor is the reality that here was a leader who couldn't speak his way out of a paper bag, yet this administration had so deplorably pimped a national tragedy to such a degree that much of the electorate didn't notice." "Soon, the holiday break will be over and he will be expected to speak to Iraq and what to do and nobody will believe him. He'll speak of "victory" again and people will wonder what the hell he's talking about. Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to freefall into further chaos. More and more brave Americans will come home maimed or in boxes. An army of lawyers, already assembled, will circle the White House and all those within. Congressional hearings will start and Bush will again plead that he doesn't have to explain himself because "he's the president." He will continue to be pulled into contortions like a marionette with multiple puppeteers and, to add to his discontent, Bush will be forced to put on a smiley face in his State of the Union address in about a month."
Bush Breakdown Dead Ahead?
By W. David Jenkins III It was hard, but I picked a favorite, Susan:
"The "Why We Fight" Award goes to Republican Rep. Curt Weldon who stated: "We either fight them there, or we fight them in the supermarkets and streets here!"
(Uhh. Big clean-up on aisle five.)
The 2006 WTF? Awards!
By Ed Naha "The truth is that we can afford to cover the uninsured. What we can’t afford is to keep going without a universal health care system."
A Healthy New Year
By PAUL KRUGMAN Another national disgrace...
The Not Wanted Signs
By BOB HERBERT Excerpt:
"Can he [Bush] get up and walk away from the table? [Iraq] No."
"His only choice is to stubbornly stay at the table, ignore the voices telling him that he's broke, and chase his loses. Maybe a miracle will happen..."
"Maybe he won't hit the jackpot, but he has to hope he can at least break even. Cut his loses. Something. At this point, he, personally, has nothing more to lose. He's playing with other people's lives and money."
"Even if the war remains a quagmire, death and destruction with no end in sight, Bush - personally - is better off. American service men and women, Americans who are paying the bills, Iraqis, and the rest of the world, may not be. But he's better off. Because that will force someone else to pull the plug."
2007 - Year of Madness
By Larry Beinhart
Dec 31 2006 $chwarzenegger, who is so rich that he doesn't need any contributions, certain raises questions with the extent to which he is taking corporate contributions and the questions about how those contributions affect what he proposes for California. Read more: Will Insurance Contributions Dictate California's Health Care Coverage Legislation in 2007? and Compare Hiram Johnson's Inaugural speech of 1911 to the sorry spectacle we have of the intermingling of our state government and private interests with Governor Schwarzenegger using business contributions to pay for his inauguration and staff salaries. Midi | 
