DEATH THREATS
Torture in Iraq didn’t get anyone all that worked up. An unwanted war, justified by lies, costing thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in future debt, ho-hum. A full-out assault on programs that millions of elderly people depend on for daily life, eh, business as usual. But a decision to take an irrecoverably brain-damaged person off a feeding tube (the kind of decision that is made in private between families and doctors hundreds of times every single day across the country), after FIFTEEN YEARS of court hearings and review, THIS is the outrage that cannot be borne? (thanks to Atrios for the link)
http://www.oliverwillis.com/node/2194
[“Priests for Life”] "The Terri Schiavo case has demonstrated that we are being governed by un-elected judges, and that the legislative and executive branches of government lack the will to stand up to them when they authorize acts of violence. The matter, therefore, now rests with the people. When government fails to protect life, the people must do so directly. Today must mark the beginning of a new era of civil disobedience and conscientious objection, with simultaneous, determined efforts to curb the authority of the courts and restore government to the people through their elected representatives."
Or, there are other methods. . .
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2562
A man was arrested after trying to steal a weapon from a gun shop so he could ``take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo,'' authorities said. . .
Rather than blame the Republicans who cynically exploited their passions, vowed their support, and then ducked out when the poll numbers turned negative, the far right turns on the court system
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/25/gibson/index.html
[Fox News’ John Gibson is] eager to announce the low esteem in which he apparently holds all judges everywhere. Weeks after one judge was killed in his courtroom and the family of another judge was murdered in their home, you might think that Gibson would be careful about demonizing judges. You'd be wrong. After suggesting that judges don't think the way that "real people" do, Gibson asked himself whether he's saying that "judges aren't real people." His answer: "Well, judging by what happened" in the Schiavo case, "I'd say yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/25/181743/932
Over the last three days or so, however, the coverage on the Little Three news networks -- Fox, CNN, MSNBC -- has ceased to be humorous. There is a difference between bad coverage and willfully irresponsible coverage, and another line between willfully irresponsible coverage and dangerously irresponsible coverage. In the last three days, those lines have been crossed. Repeatedly. And it has been absolutely, definitively intentional.
If you have been paying attention to cable coverage of the Schiavo case, you will see two major themes repeated over and over. First, the repeated bookings of and citings of "witnesses" and "experts" that have previously been debunked, claiming that among other things Ms. Schiavo is "alert and oriented". . .
Against this background of exploitation and misinformation, the usual bevy of archconservative media pundits has in the last several days begun to increasingly endorse a premise that is, to any rational mind, remarkable: the notion that because the courts have ruled in this particular fashion, it is now time for individuals and government figures to disregard the courts, and take matters into their own hands.
And so, like clockwork. . .
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/03/religious-right-hate-speech-leads-to.html
Surprise, surprise, surprise. You heard it here first. Who said, what, 3 weeks ago that the religious right's "judicial activism" hate speech was helping create a climate in which judges' very lives could be threatened. Today it happened.
Meanwhile, FBI agents have arrested a North Carolina man on suspicion of soliciting offers over the internet to kill Michael Schiavo and Greer. Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview is accused of offering $250,000 for the killing of Schiavo and another $50,000 for the "the elimination of the judge who ruled against Terry."
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/26/0250/21629
[Steve Gilliard] That line from Red October is running through my head again: "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we will be lucky to live through it."
Why? Because the Republicans are still counting fundie votes. They think they can control this, that nothing will happen and the base will be excited. But most of the base is revolted. They are horrified at the sanctimony and the increasing rhetoric from people who should know better. Ignore judges? Kidnap a dying woman? Are they kidding?
Why is this happening? Because they thought it would be a gimmie. That the only people who would care is the radical right and their foot soldiers. They could get their way and trap the Dems in the process. But now, the Dems stepped out of the way and let the GOP take every bit of heat for this. You have the spectacle of Randall Terry, has-been, making demands on Jeb Bush, who meekly says "I can't go beyond my powers."
Bush and Bush seem to be puppets of the fringe elements, a group who would let their kids get arrested, which horrifies most people. . . If Judge Greer or Michael Schiavo is harmed in any way, that turd is going to land right on the doors of the White House and Congress. They unleashed this madness and the idea that they could escape it is unlikely.
Right wingers say liberals “want Terri Schiavo to die”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503260001
In discussing the Terri Schiavo case, several prominent media conservatives have accused liberals of wanting Schiavo to die and have imputed motives to them far beyond the belief, expressed by many liberals, that the courts were right to allow Schiavo's husband to make end-of-life decisions on behalf of his wife.
Syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh suggested that liberals "want this woman to die because Christian conservatives want her to live," calling it "payback." MSNBC host Joe Scarborough mused aloud about whether liberals "hate George Bush so much that they are cheering for Terri's death only because the president of the United States and his brother are fighting for Terri's life." Wall Street Journal contributing editor Peggy Noonan claimed that the "pull-the-tube people" -- she specifically named CNN Crossfire host James Carville and the website Democratic Underground -- are "committed" to Schiavo's death. Fox News host Bill O'Reilly singled out New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, stating, "I don't know why some of these left-wing columnists want her to die." Bay Buchanan, president of the conservative advocacy group The American Cause and frequent CNN commentator, asserted that the "only reason" that people "want" Schiavo to die is that "they've decided this woman is the property of her husband and he can do what he wants."
Yet ironically. . .
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/25/153430/606
The majority of judges ruling on this case have been Republicans. One of the only dissents has been a Clinton appointee. The American Taliban will rail against "activist judges", but their own kin on the bench exposed the extremism of their agenda.
Looks like Jeb Bush will disappoint those who want him to flout the law to save Schiavo – but he’s still being lionized over his general handling of this issue. . .
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/03/idevouti_wimp_.html
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503250007
. . . until this morning, that is
http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/03/schiavo_case_almost_led_to_state_cop_v_local_cop_showdown.html
According to today’s Miami Herald, Jeb Bush ordered state cops to grab Terri Schiavo at a point during the judicial proceedings at which, due to Florida’s automatic stay law, such a move would arguably have been if not legal at least not in direct violation of a court order. . . Local cops apparently didn’t get the word, or didn’t want to go along with the sneaky move, and were prepared to stand off the state cops.
In jest, one official said local police discussed “whether we had enough officers to hold off the National Guard.”
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005249
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005948.php
Oh, Christ. . . now NADER weighs in (thanks to Mark Kleiman for the link)
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/03/nader-crosses-over-to-dark-side.html
[NB: Feeling left out, Ralph? Hungry for a little camera time?]
EVERYBODY’S cashing in on poor Terri
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/25/81616/4730
[NYT] Videotape of Terri Schiavo blinking at her parents has inspired donations from people around the country to the foundation set up to help pay for the family's legal battle. But many other groups are soliciting donations in her name as well, some for a much broader agenda.
"Help Save Terri Schiavo's Life!" says the Web site of the Traditional Values Coalition, a Christian conservative group best known for its campaigns against gay rights. Next to a link to the Web site of her parents' foundation is a pitch to "become an active supporter of the Traditional Values Coalition by pledging a monthly gift."
"What this issue has done is it has galvanized people the way nothing could have done in an off-election year," said Rev. Lou Sheldon, the founder of the group, acknowledging that the case of Ms. Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged Florida woman, had moved many to open up their checkbooks. "That is what I see as the blessing that dear Terri's life is offering to the conservative Christian movement in America."
Dr. William Hammesfahr (nominated for the “Nobel Peace Prize for Medicine”) – can we revoke his license?
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/25/experts/index.html
“Terri is completely aware and conscious and responsive. She is like a child with cerebral palsy. We have kids in the Pinellas County school system every day that are much worse than her, that we're educating.”
Bzzzzzt – ouch!
http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/03/electroschlock.php
[James Wolcott] Two prominent neurologists who have asked to remain anonymous have examined CNN behind closed doors and determined that the network is irreversibly brain-dead, as flooded with cerebral fluid as the hull of the S.S. Poseidon. It still retains some primitive reflexes and signs of animation, but a brain-scan revealed the sort of minimal activity usually associated with punch-drunk prizefighters condemned to a flophouse cot, or a broken toaster. "CNN barely has two brain cells left to rub together," one doctor said, lacing up his tennis shoes for a quick getaway.
Well, I can't say I was surprised by this grim diagnosis. The sadistic glee expressed by CNN boss Jon Klein over anchor-lunk Rick Sanchez's Fear Factor "shock-belt" exhibition is evidence of a news operation in advanced mental decay, and the network's performance in the Terry Schiavo masque of the red state death only brings additional confirmation. . .
Well, folks, I think we’ve reached rock bottom. Fox News brings on a psychic to interpret for us what Terri Schiavo’s “soul” really wants
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503250006
As Utah goes, so goes the nation
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/25/165055/917
[Salt Lake Tribune] Tom DeLay says he wants Terri Schiavo to live. And there is no reason to doubt that. . . But it is clear that the House majority leader is not above using the suffering of a woman he has never met to promote his own, increasingly shaky, political career. . .
The Texas Republican has gone so far as to suggest that Schiavo's situation is a gift from God that he can use to defend himself against charges brought by his political enemies--enemies whom he all but calls, in an echo of a defensive Hillary Clinton some years ago, a vast left-wing conspiracy. . .
Despite the fact that he was able to steamroller through Congress a particularly ill-advised piece of legislation that subverted federalism, the separation of powers and the privacy of medical decision-making, in order to make political hay out of the Schiavo case, DeLay wants the world to see him, too, as a victim. . .
DeLay, all the while, insists that he has done nothing wrong and that those who accuse him of ethical shortcomings are simply using personal attacks on him as a weapon to undermine the conservative causes he supports. . . . If conservative Republicans really want to talk about important issues, and not about Tom DeLay, they might start looking for a different leader.
Have you noticed a conspicuous silence out of DC since the circus last weekend?
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/25/republicans/index.html
The Republicans have inserted themselves into the Schiavo case, and now they're the ones stuck in the middle. . . Maybe that's why things have gotten so quiet in Washington. As the Chicago Tribune notes, "There was no rush to the television cameras" when the Supreme Court rebuffed Congress and Schiavo's parents Thursday. "There were no Washington political maneuvers. There was, in fact, barely a word of public reaction by President Bush or the leaders of Congress who were so quick to intercede in the matter only days ago." The Schiavo case? What Schiavo case? A "senior Republican official close to congressional leaders and the administration" tells the Tribune: "There is a realization that it looks very probably like Terri Schiavo will pass away. It's been a significant debate, but this debate is over for the remainder of the year. We do have a very full agenda.". . .
[NB: great post -- read the rest]
The GOP has taken to complaining that the intent of their legislation was to require the court to issue a temporary restraining order to re-insert Schiavo’s feeding tube and to review the case "de novo" (even though they considered and explicitly chose not to include that precise wording). Since then they’ve been griping that the courts haven’t done what they wanted them to. Mark Kleiman nails this one: if they really feel that way, go back and pass a bill with that wording (hello?. . . hello?)
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2005/03/.php
Therefore -- I don't suggest this, of course, but I point it out -- if Sen. Dr. Frist, Defendant DeLay, and Puppet Hastert really want a full trial in Federal court on the merits of the Schiavo case, they can still have it.
All they have to do is call the Congress back into session and pass a new law with a "shall-issue" or All Writs Act clause, and the lower courts will salute smartly, say "Yes, sir!" and order the feeding tube reinserted. The Supreme Court, which rarely intervenes at the TRO stage, won't touch the case. Terry Schiavo's feeding tube will be reinserted. Judge Whittemore will start holding hearings on the merits, with the entire national press corps watching. All of the evidence that convinced born-again Baptist Republican Judge Greer will be brought in. And then, after several months, Judge Whittemore will make the same finding Judge Greer made, leading to the tube being removed once more. But by then the whole country will know the facts about Terri Schiavo's medical condition, her prognosis, and her marriage.
Do I hear Mr. DeLay's voice saying "Never mind"? I thought I did. . . Now that the Republicans have mobilized their base to hate the judiciary even more than it did before, (see, for example, the vicious tone of Bill Kristol's latest screed) they've gotten what they needed from Terri Schiavo, and they're going to let her die.
GOP rank and file furious with their leaders for taking them down this dark road
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1944-2005Mar25.html
Republican lawmakers and others engaged in the debate say an internal party dispute over the Schiavo case has ruptured, at least temporarily, the uneasy alliance between economic and social conservatives that twice helped President Bush get elected.
http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/03/every_congress_.html
The quote below happens to refer to the House vote on the Schiavo case, but I propose that the Class of '04 adopt it with pride as their motto:
"It definitely would have gone down differently had it actually been considered," a senior aide to a moderate Republican senator said.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005250
Grover Norquist, quoted in the Post: "Advocates of using federal power to keep this woman alive need to seriously study the polling data that's come out on this. . . I think that a lot of conservative leaders assumed there was broader support for saying that they wanted to have the federal government save this woman's life.". . . If this is really about 'sav[ing] this woman's life' why look at the polling data?
Schiavo and Roe
http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/03/schiavo_roe_and.html
[Sarah C. von der Lippe] Everytime they call for appointment of judges to the Supreme Court who will overrule or undermine Roe v. Wade, they assert that the matter should be left to the states. They assert that even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it won't eliminate abortion in the states in which the duly elected state representatives do not take steps to outlaw the practice. But the Schiavo case reveals the true priorities of the right: they are happy to abandon the principles of federalism if the issue is related to questions of "life." But if they are willing to cast aside federalism in the Schiavo case, won't they be willing to do the same in the context of abortion? And if they are, won't that inevitably lead to attempts to pass federal legislation banning abortion? The actions of conservatives in the context of the Terri Schiavo case should give us pause as Bush nominates new justices to the Supreme Court -- especially, given conservatives' admitted goal of denying women's constitutional right to privacy and reproductive choice.
Final word: Passion Play
http://billmon.org/archives/001773.html
Maybe it will all blow over once Terri Schiavo's poor brain-dead body is finally laid to rest. But the emotional intensity of the event -- and the depth of the self-righteous hatred it has stirred on the religious right -- will be hard to forget. It feels like we've passed another milestone in the descent of our deeply divided, culturally inflamed society towards . . . well, I'd rather not think about what.
HIGH-larious: Cheney goes on the road to feel the popular pulse on Social Security reform and to shill for the Bush plan-which-is-not-yet-a-plan. Strangely, no transcript of the events is posted on the WH web site. Wonder why?
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2564
Funny thing, though - Cheney did two Baboon-a-palooza events yesterday, one in Battle Creek, Michigan, and a second in Pittsburgh, but the White House as of 8AM CST has not posted transcripts from either event.
So I turned to local press coverage of the two events and soon found out why the White House is holding onto those transcripts. Big Time Dick is getting blasted by both the local press and his hand-picked audiences.
Unlike Dear Leader, when Cheney does a Social Security "town hall" meeting he allows audience members to ask him questions instead of placing "regular folks" on stage with him for well-rehearsed exchanges on the evils of Social Security. Turns out that was a huge mistake on Dick's part. . .
Bush poll numbers tanking
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/25/gallup/index.html
Remember when George W. Bush had a "mandate" and "political capital" he could spend? If it was ever true, it isn't anymore. There's a new USAToday/CNN/Gallup Poll out today, and the results aren't pretty for the president: His approval rating has dropped seven points in just a week, hitting an all time low of 45 percent.
The biggest part of the slide may be coming from Bush's base: USA Today says Bush's approval ratings dropped most sharply "among men, self-described conservatives and churchgoers." Has the right's intervention in the Terri Schiavo case finally scratched some of the Teflon off of the president? The Republican National Committee says that's not it. RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt tells USA Today that a dip in the president's approval ratings isn't surprising because he's taking on "tough issues, whether it's to reform Social Security, promoting the spread of democracy or making a renewed pitch to Congress to pass comprehensive energy reform."
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/administration/whbriefing/
Support for Social Security plans drops among young Americans, who had been its biggest supporters
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005239
Off-message: on the Social Security web site (until it gets pulled down)
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2567
Question: I think I could do better if you let me invest the Social Security I pay into an individual retirement plan (I.R.A.) or some other investment plan. What do you think?
Answer: Maybe you could, but then again, maybe your investments wouldn't work out. Remember these facts:
• Your Social Security taxes pay for potential disability and survivors benefits as well as for retirement benefits.
• Social Security incorporates social goals - such as giving more protection to families and to low-income workers - that are not part of private pension plans; and
• Social Security benefits are adjusted yearly for increases in the cost of living - a feature not present in many private plans.
On-message: Washington Post editorial page joins the beltway echo chamber for Bush spin
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005240
“[I]t's hard to take seriously the Democrats who say that Mr. Bush should switch focus from Social Security to the much bigger problem of Medicare: If they aren't willing to play a constructive role on the supposedly "minor" challenge of Social Security, why should anyone believe that they would behave constructively if the administration wanted to fix Medicare?”
More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005887
The Bush legacy (thanks to A.G. Rud for the first link, Jan Pieterse for the second)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/opinion/herbert25.1.html
[Bob Herbert] President Bush believes in an "ownership" society, which means that except for the wealthy, you're on your own. The president's budget would cut funding for Medicaid, food stamps, education, transportation, health care for veterans, law enforcement, medical research and safety inspections for food and drugs. And, of course, it contains big new tax cuts for the wealthy.
These are the new American priorities. Republicans will tell you they were ratified in the last presidential election. We may be locked in a long and costly war, and federal deficits may be spiraling toward the moon, but the era of shared sacrifices is over. This is the era of entrenched exploitation. All sacrifices will be made by working people and the poor, and the vast bulk of the benefits will accrue to the rich.
F.D.R. would have stared slack-jawed at this madness. Even his grand Social Security edifice is under assault by the vandals of the G.O.P. . . .
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7170226/site/newsweek
[Robert Samuelson] If you've been following closely, you know that the dollar has been declining steadily against many foreign currencies. From recent highs—reached in mid-2001 or early 2002—the dollar has dropped 38 percent against the euro, 23 percent against the yen and 25 percent against the Canadian dollar. And most economists expect the slide to continue. . . The significance of the dropping dollar is that it's actually a symptom of a larger and more troubling development. For 15 years the American economy has been the engine for the world economy through ever-increasing trade and current-account deficits (the current account includes other overseas payments like travel and tourism). In 2004, the U.S. current-account deficit is estimated to have reached $650 billion, a record 5.6 percent of the economy (GDP). Other countries' economies benefit from sending their goods to eager American buyers, and the United States in turn sends massive amounts of dollars abroad to pay for those goods. The trouble is that there are now more dollars than foreigners want to hold. If there's a glut of anything—apples, computer chips, Beanie Babies—prices go down. So when surplus dollars are sold for euros, yen or pounds, then the dollar drops in value against those currencies.
If you sense a contradiction, you're right; and there's the dilemma. The world economy can't get along without our massive trade deficits—and perhaps can't get along with them, either. Americans' consumption binge is propping up global trade and employment, but it's also threatening a financial upheaval that could hurt global trade and employment. . . The doomsday scenario, considered unlikely by most economists but not impossible, is that a crash of the dollar would trigger a broader panic. Foreigners would sell their U.S. stocks and bonds, driving down those markets and bringing massive losses to everyone. They would sell because a dropping dollar would make their American investments worth less in their own currencies. Consumer and business confidence would drop; a recession in the United States and abroad might follow.
So, what happens to the Treasury Dept in an administration with no interest in objective economic expertise and advice? They can’t get people to work there
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000574.html
[F]rom the start of his administration, tax policy and economic policy - the purview of the Treasury - have been handmaids to politics and ideology emanating from the White House. Without the clear-cut opportunity to drive policy-making, the best and the brightest aren't exactly clamoring for jobs at Treasury. And Snow is still in his post, reprising his first-term performance as cheerleader for Bush's tax cuts in his current role as salesperson for Bush's misbegotten plan to privatize Social Security. . . Meanwhile, vacancies are piling up.
Pentagon, despite recommendations from their own investigators, will NOT charge 17 soldiers charged with prisoner deaths
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/politics/26abuse.html
The charges included murder, conspiracy and negligent homicide. While none of the 17 will face any prosecution, one received a letter of reprimand and another was discharged after the investigations.
More: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/03/why_the_us_needs_to_join_the_international_criminal_court.html
A few bad apples? More evidence that prisoner abuse was systemic, not exceptional
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1327-2005Mar25.html
Who is forging Defense documents?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005242
"I am extremely concerned that someone familiar with Defense Department classified reporting has forged this document and given it to the press in the hope that it would be reported as genuine. Such an action raises deeply troubling questions about the integrity of the department's processes and raises the possibility of an organized effort to intimidate me as a journalist."
That's a clip from a letter military analyst Bill Arkin recently sent to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. . .
And given Arkin's role in uncovering various unpleasant facts about those in power, the motive doesn't seem particular hard to figure out. Yet Larry DiRita says an investigation into the source of the forged document is "not likely."
We still don't know who forged the bogus Niger documents, even though we now know that their circuitous path into US hands was set in motion by a member of Italian military intelligence. (Any on-going -- such as it was -- investigation into this caper was finally ended earlier this month when Sen. Roberts shut down the promised second half of the investigation into pre-war intelligence on Iraq.)
Add this to the trove of phony documents which have flowed out of Iraq in the last two years and you end up with a lot of phony documents whose origins have never been explained.
Silberman/Robb committee to report on intelligence failures next week, and guess what? Once again, they find massive failures — but it isn’t anybody’s fault
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-intel25.html
More evidence on CIA/Nazi connections
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nazi26mar26,1,1825002.story
Controversial F-16 sale to Pakistan: popular in Fort Worth, Texas at least
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1963-2005Mar25.html
John Bolton’s (very long) enemies list
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000402.html
Howard Dean and Harry Reid: the new, aggressive face of the Democratic Party. How’s it going?
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/25/101148/379
Bonus item: Man invents “Fox blocker” – a device you can buy to block Fox’s signal on your cable tv. . . and HE GETS DEATH THREATS TOO
http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/03/fox_blocker_maker_gets_death_threats.html
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Friday, March 25, 2005
SAY ANYTHING
This. . . was. . . a. . . lie
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480
"Unfortunately – unfortunately, my opponent, tonight, continued to say things he knows are not true – accusing our military of passing up a chance to get Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora. As the Commander in charge of that operation, Tommy Franks had said, it's simply not the case. It's the worst kind of Monday morning quarterbacking."
– President Bush, 10/29/04
http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/cst-nws-bin23.html
A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, helped the al-Qaida leader escape his mountain hide-out at Tora Bora in 2001, according to a U.S. government document. . . The document, provided in response to a Freedom of Information request, says the unidentified detainee ''assisted in the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora.'' It is the first definitive statement from the Pentagon that bin Laden was at Tora Bora and evaded U.S. pursuers.
[NB: and they knew it]
British Attorney General ruled that the war in Iraq was illegal, but was pressured to reverse that judgment
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=623125
The critical paragraph of her letter, published yesterday under the Freedom of Information Act, was blanked out by the Government on the grounds that it was in the public interest to protect the privacy of the advice given by the Attorney General. But last night the contents of the paragraph were leaked, and Tony Blair was facing fresh allegations of a cover-up. There has long been speculation that Lord Goldsmith was leant on to switch his view, and to sanction the war - and confirmation of that would be devastating for the Prime Minister.
Tom Friedman, over-ripe and moralistic, suddenly seems to have realized that we have an administration that has engaged in widespread torture and prisoner abuse
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/8273/78095
The fact that Congress has just shrugged this off, and no senior official or officer has been fired, is a travesty. This administration is for "ownership" of everything except responsibility. . . I have a suggestion: Just find out who were the cabinet, C.I.A. and military officers on whose watch these 26 homicides occurred and fire them.
[NB: Uh, Tom, that would be ALL of them, including Bush and Cheney]
John Bolton on the U.N. – go, watch the video, and get ready for a hell of a confirmation battle
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000397.html
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000396.html
[Richard Holbrooke] “If you read his (John Bolton's) statements it's clear if he had a choice the United Nations would not exist at all.”
Rumsfeld lectures the new leaders of Iraq
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/24/rummy/index.html
Rumsfeld superficially made mention of Iraqi sovereignty, but U.S. interests topped his democracy primer: "The United States has got too much invested and too much committed and too many lives at stake for people to be careless about that. So we are urging those Iraqis that what they do is put in who you want - it's your country and your sovereignty - but be darned careful that you don't cause undue turbulence and weakness in the security forces."
(Still no agreement on forming a new govt, and none coming any time soon)
http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/no-government-any-time-soon-in-iraq.html
Have you figured out the Bush Co. position on Iran? Neither has anyone else. Here’s why
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001781.html
Far right tries desperately to debunk polls showing how extreme and unpopular their Schiavo position is (unfortunately for them, it IS extreme and unpopular)
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/121022/524
Fox News: “rule of law” – who cares?
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111171360813802417
[John Gibson] “Just to burnish my reputation as a bomb thrower, I think Jeb Bush should give serious thought to storming the Bastille. . . By that I mean he should think about telling his cops to go over to Terri Schiavo's (search) hospice, go inside, put her on a gurney and load her into an ambulance. They could take her to a hospital, revive her, and reattach her feeding tube. It wouldn't save Terri exactly; she'd still be in the same rotten shape she was in before they disconnected the feeding tube."
Ditto: Bill Bennett (thanks to Mark Kleiman for the link)
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/comment/bennet_kennedy200503240814.asp
It is time, therefore, for Governor Bush to execute the law and protect her rights, and, in turn, he should take responsibility for his actions. Using the state police powers, Governor Bush can order the feeding tube reinserted. . . Some will argue that Governor Bush will be violating the law. We think he will not be violating the law, but if he is judged to have done so, it will be in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr. . . Governor Bush may have to face impeachment because of his decision.
In taking these extraordinary steps to save an innocent life, Governor Bush should be judged not by the opinion of the Florida supreme court, a co-equal branch of the Florida government, but by the opinions of his political superiors, the people of Florida. If they disagree with their governor, they are indeed free to act through their elected representatives and impeach him. Or they can vindicate him if they think he is right. . .
Governor Jeb Bush may find it difficult to protect Terri's rights without risking impeachment. But in the great American experiment in republican government, much is demanded of those who are charged with protecting the rights of the people. Governor Bush pledged to uphold the Florida constitution as he understands it, not as it is understood by some Florida judges. . .
Here’s a guy, Republican Congressman Dave Weldon (FL), who will say just about anything: his letter to the editor
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111167658720077029
We only have to go to the opening paragraphs of FLORIDA TODAY's Tuesday editorial "An outrageous act" about Congress's involvement in the Terri Schiavo case to see that even basic assertions of fact are at best disputable.
It states that Terri is in "a persistent vegetative state for 15 years since her heart attack" and "medical evidence showed Terri has no chance of recovery."
Did the editors interview registered nurse Carla Iyer, who personally treated Terri for a year and a half?
[NB: Ten years ago!]
She said in a sworn court affidavit that Terri "was alert and oriented. Terri spoke on a regular basis saying things like 'mommy' and 'help me" and 'hi' when I came into her room."
Iyer says Terri would sit up in the nurse's station from time to time and laugh at stories they told. She felt pain and would indicate so. Carla fed her by mouth and not by tube. Does this sound like a woman in persistent vegetative state for the past 15 years?. . .
Or are the editors aware of Dr. William Hammesfahr, Nobel Prize nominee neurologist, who examined Terri for 10 hours and said, "Terri does not require a feeding tube to be fed" and that "with proper therapy she would be able to regain some speech and mobility."
[NB: SHE HAS NO FUNCTIONING CORTEX]
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/162034/141
I was pretty dumbfounded to read this. I mean, I know that Republican mendacity knows no bounds, but this - like Tom DeLay's absurd lie that Terri Schiavo "laughs and talks" - just really has my head spinning. . . While we here in the reality-based community sadly shake our heads at Iyer's obvious fictions, fools like Weldon. . . parrot her lies. It's only the latest - but to me, most glaring - example of the right wing living in a truly alternate universe.
William Cheshire, MD, weighs in
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2558
"Although Terri did not demonstrate during our 90-minute visit compelling evidence of verbalization, conscious awareness or volitional behavior, yet the visitor has the distinct sense of the presence of a living human being who seems at some level to be aware of some things around her."
Here are the simple facts
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/realitybased_conservatism.php
The American Council on Science and Health is an industry-funded group devoted to criticizing what it calls "junk science" in environmental and health-care research, e.g. by arguing that most "carcinogens" aren't actually carcinogenic. It's a solid part of the new conservative establishment. Yet ACSH has issued a blistering statment on the Schiavo case. In addition to criticizing Sen. Dr. Frist for making a diagnosis based on home movies, the statement lays out the medical facts of the case in blunt language:
Brain scans indicate that her cerebral cortex ceased functioning -- probably just after she experienced cardiac arrest in 1990. Ms. Schiavo's CAT scan shows massive shrinking of the brain, and her EEG is flat. Physicians confirm that there is no electrical activity coming from her brain. While the family video repeatedly shown on television suggests otherwise, her non-functioning cortex precludes cognition, including any ability to interact or communicate with people or show any signs of awareness. Dozens of experts over the years who have examined Ms. Schiavo agree that there is no hope of her recovering -- even though her body, face and eyes (if she is given food and hydration) might continue to move for decades to come. . . Let's call tripe when tripe is served. All of us are entitled to our own personal views on the Schiavo case, what her fate should be, and who should make decisions for her. But all of us should be united in rejecting politically-generated junk science.
The cable media, however, keeps bending over backwards to give legitimacy to the right’s extremist views (today CNN had Pat Robertson, foaming at the mouth and calling Michael Schiavo – private citizen – a “murderer”; then for “balance" someone from the Cato Institute discussing dry issues of state’s rights and federalism)
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/11466/6814
It’s so bad that even other conservatives are calling out the awful hypocrisy of the far right on this issue. Today’s installment: John Cole
http://www.balloon-juice.com/archives/004859.html
Sick bastards - defining losing your wife as a 'gain,' but all is fair in politics, right? And that is what this is - politics and symbolism on the right to life battlefield. I have said it before - this is jihad for these folks. They don't give two hoots in hell about Terri Schiavo - this is about abortion, religion, and most of all, about power and control. Their concept of morality is king, you see - your behavior in the bedroom, your choice in sexual partner, your desires about end of life decisions, abortion, even the medication you use to ease the pain when you are dying of terminal diseases - their religious text should have authority over you, and if all these 'small-government strict constructionists states right's advocates' have to attain that through government proxy, so be it.
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_digbysblog_archive.html#111171242360531136
“The GOP meltdown”
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/24/meltdown/index.html
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/the_process_conservatives_arent_happy_either.php
Then, of course, there’s Maureen Dowd
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/opinion/24dowd.html
Oh my God, we really are in a theocracy.
Are the Republicans so obsessed with maintaining control over all branches of government, and are the Democrats so emasculated about not having any power, that they are willing to turn the nation into a wholly owned subsidiary of the church?
The more dogma-driven activists, self-perpetuating pols and ratings-crazed broadcast media prattle about "faith," the less we honor the credo that a person's relationship with God should remain a private matter. . .
“Dogma-driven activists”? Why, that’s Karl Rove’s whole strategy
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/national/24relig.html
The powerful outcry over Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose case has provoked a national debate over whether she should live or die, is a testament to the growing alliance of conservative Roman Catholics and evangelicals who have found common cause in the "culture of life" agenda articulated by Pope John Paul II.
Be careful what you ask for. Randall Terry: “hell to pay” if Schiavo dies
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/191745/931
Frist and DeLay’s “cruel hoax”
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/205228/401
Senator-Doctor Bill Frist and House Leader Tom DeLay have played a cruel hoax on the Schindler family by misleading them about the nature of the Congressional Bill which sent the Schiavo case into the Federal Court System.
Still more hypocrisy from Frist
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111169758487216228
[October 2004] Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist attacked Sen. John Edwards on Tuesday over a comment the Democratic vice presidential candidate made regarding actor Christopher Reeve. . . Edwards said Reeve, who died Sunday, "was a powerful voice for the need to do stem cell research and change the lives of people like him. . . "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again," Edwards said.
Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, called Edwards' remark "crass" and "shameful," and said it gave false hope that new treatments were imminent. . . "I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve -- I think it is shameful -- in order to mislead the American people," Frist said. . . . "It is cruel to people who have disabilities and chronic diseases, and, on top of that, it's dishonest. It's giving false hope to people, and I can tell you as a physician who's treated scores of thousands of patients that you don't give them false hope."
The Bush Co. order of trumps
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62963-2005Mar24.html
[Dan Froomkin] Here's how one reader put it in my Live Online discussion yesterday: "Now we learn that the Republicans have a trumping order of issues. The sanctity of marriage trumps the rights of gays and state's rights, but the 'culture of life' trumps the sanctity of marriage and state's rights. . . Could you or some reporter you know please ask for a flow chart or block diagram for us to follow?"
Still debating whether the Dems have blown the Schiavo issue, or whether they’re letting the GOP have enough rope to hang themselves. Was there a better way to position ourselves on this situation early on?
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/111640/411
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/03/the_left_and_te.html
[NB: excellent and thoughtful post, as always, from Lindsay Beyerstein]
By the way, THIS is why I have little sympathy for the Schindlers (Schiavo’s parents)
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/a_conspiracy_so_vast.php
[T]he Schindlers have testified that they would want their daughter's heart kept beating even if she had no cognitive function left, and even if her previously expressed wish had been to the contrary.
Bush Co. rethinking details of their Social Security plan (don’t get excited, it still stinks)
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000567.html
Why Bush Co. doesn’t want to talk about Medicare, whose solvency is a much bigger and more immediate issue than Social Security
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005932.php
On Wednesday, it turned out that the two independent trustees who oversee Social Security and Medicare were wondering the same thing:
"The financial outlook for Social Security has improved marginally since 2000," wrote [Thomas] Saving and [John] Palmer. "In sharp contrast, Medicare's financial outlook has deteriorated dramatically over the past five years and is now much worse that Social Security's."
You can guess the result: the Bush administration blackballed them from the unveiling of yesterday's trustees report. "They didn't particularly invite us," Saving said blandly.
More: http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2609
One more reason Medicare is in trouble
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005938.php
Last week, the Senate voted to repeal the 1993 law. This means that after tax benefits will be effectively increased for certain people. . . End result: rich retirees get higher benefits and Medicare gets less money.
Now THIS is a real solvency problem
http://asmatteringofignorance.typepad.com/a_smattering_of_ignorance/2005/03/more_about_bush.html
Here's a quote from the speech of the Comptroller General, of the General Accountancy Office (the "watch dog" of the Congress), talking about the need for "Transparency In The Budget Process."
"Assuming that tax cuts remain as adopted, and assuming further that discretionary spending continues at the same rate. . . there will be insufficient funds to pay the interest on the public debt by the year 2025."
Sleaze I
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005231
Bush right-hand-man and Iraq contract rainmaker Joe Allbaugh gets a new contract to lobby for Halliburton.
Sleaze II
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005230
The SEC tells Richard Perle it may sue him over financial improprieties tied to the looting and subsequent meltdown of Conrad Black's Hollinger media empire
Bush to Western states on nuclear dump sites: trust me
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/24/nuclear/index.html
Bush Co’s obsession with secrecy
http://www.slate.com/id/2114963/
On Plame: the Washington Post, trying to protect its reporters, files a court brief denying that any laws were broken (hence the investigation should be dropped and their reporters released from testifying). Problem is, as Kevin Drum points out, laws WERE broken
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005933.php
One of the reasons I continue to take this affair seriously is that I assume (a) the federal prosecutor wouldn't continue to waste resources on this case unless he was pretty sure a law had been broken, and (b) a court wouldn't issue the subpoenas in the first place unless the prosecutor had made a pretty decent prima facie case that there was a violation. The question of whether outing Plame was a violation of the law has been pretty thoroughly aired, after all, and both the prosecutor and the judge are surely aware of the issues at hand.
The Republicans’ hypocrisy on filibustering judicial nominees: even worse than you remember
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005875
[Bob Smith, R-NH: March 7, 2000] “If you disagree with us on the basis of why we are objecting, fine. But don't pontificate on the floor of the Senate and tell me that somehow I am violating the Constitution of the United States of America by blocking a judge or filibustering a judge that I don't think deserves to be on the circuit court because I am going to continue to do it at every opportunity I believe a judge should not be on that court. That is my responsibility. That is my advise and consent role, and I intend to exercise it. . . So don't tell me we haven't filibustered judges and that we don't have the right to filibuster judges on the floor of the Senate. Of course we do. That is our constitutional role.”
Did “Jeff Gannon” lie abut his military service too? (Thanks to John Aravosis for the link)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/111751/735
Good news (maybe). FEC may only adopt limited rules on political blogs
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/03/24/fec_proposes_limited_blog_regulation.html
Bonus item: Interview with the devil (thanks to Mathew Gross for the link)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/23/15501/7293
Double bonus: Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Nice Guy
http://billmon.org/archives/001772.html
Triple bonus: Changes to Your Citizenship Agreement
http://slate.msn.com/id/2115254/fr/rss/
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This. . . was. . . a. . . lie
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480
"Unfortunately – unfortunately, my opponent, tonight, continued to say things he knows are not true – accusing our military of passing up a chance to get Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora. As the Commander in charge of that operation, Tommy Franks had said, it's simply not the case. It's the worst kind of Monday morning quarterbacking."
– President Bush, 10/29/04
http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/cst-nws-bin23.html
A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, helped the al-Qaida leader escape his mountain hide-out at Tora Bora in 2001, according to a U.S. government document. . . The document, provided in response to a Freedom of Information request, says the unidentified detainee ''assisted in the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora.'' It is the first definitive statement from the Pentagon that bin Laden was at Tora Bora and evaded U.S. pursuers.
[NB: and they knew it]
British Attorney General ruled that the war in Iraq was illegal, but was pressured to reverse that judgment
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=623125
The critical paragraph of her letter, published yesterday under the Freedom of Information Act, was blanked out by the Government on the grounds that it was in the public interest to protect the privacy of the advice given by the Attorney General. But last night the contents of the paragraph were leaked, and Tony Blair was facing fresh allegations of a cover-up. There has long been speculation that Lord Goldsmith was leant on to switch his view, and to sanction the war - and confirmation of that would be devastating for the Prime Minister.
Tom Friedman, over-ripe and moralistic, suddenly seems to have realized that we have an administration that has engaged in widespread torture and prisoner abuse
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/8273/78095
The fact that Congress has just shrugged this off, and no senior official or officer has been fired, is a travesty. This administration is for "ownership" of everything except responsibility. . . I have a suggestion: Just find out who were the cabinet, C.I.A. and military officers on whose watch these 26 homicides occurred and fire them.
[NB: Uh, Tom, that would be ALL of them, including Bush and Cheney]
John Bolton on the U.N. – go, watch the video, and get ready for a hell of a confirmation battle
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000397.html
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000396.html
[Richard Holbrooke] “If you read his (John Bolton's) statements it's clear if he had a choice the United Nations would not exist at all.”
Rumsfeld lectures the new leaders of Iraq
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/24/rummy/index.html
Rumsfeld superficially made mention of Iraqi sovereignty, but U.S. interests topped his democracy primer: "The United States has got too much invested and too much committed and too many lives at stake for people to be careless about that. So we are urging those Iraqis that what they do is put in who you want - it's your country and your sovereignty - but be darned careful that you don't cause undue turbulence and weakness in the security forces."
(Still no agreement on forming a new govt, and none coming any time soon)
http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/no-government-any-time-soon-in-iraq.html
Have you figured out the Bush Co. position on Iran? Neither has anyone else. Here’s why
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001781.html
Far right tries desperately to debunk polls showing how extreme and unpopular their Schiavo position is (unfortunately for them, it IS extreme and unpopular)
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/121022/524
Fox News: “rule of law” – who cares?
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111171360813802417
[John Gibson] “Just to burnish my reputation as a bomb thrower, I think Jeb Bush should give serious thought to storming the Bastille. . . By that I mean he should think about telling his cops to go over to Terri Schiavo's (search) hospice, go inside, put her on a gurney and load her into an ambulance. They could take her to a hospital, revive her, and reattach her feeding tube. It wouldn't save Terri exactly; she'd still be in the same rotten shape she was in before they disconnected the feeding tube."
Ditto: Bill Bennett (thanks to Mark Kleiman for the link)
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/comment/bennet_kennedy200503240814.asp
It is time, therefore, for Governor Bush to execute the law and protect her rights, and, in turn, he should take responsibility for his actions. Using the state police powers, Governor Bush can order the feeding tube reinserted. . . Some will argue that Governor Bush will be violating the law. We think he will not be violating the law, but if he is judged to have done so, it will be in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr. . . Governor Bush may have to face impeachment because of his decision.
In taking these extraordinary steps to save an innocent life, Governor Bush should be judged not by the opinion of the Florida supreme court, a co-equal branch of the Florida government, but by the opinions of his political superiors, the people of Florida. If they disagree with their governor, they are indeed free to act through their elected representatives and impeach him. Or they can vindicate him if they think he is right. . .
Governor Jeb Bush may find it difficult to protect Terri's rights without risking impeachment. But in the great American experiment in republican government, much is demanded of those who are charged with protecting the rights of the people. Governor Bush pledged to uphold the Florida constitution as he understands it, not as it is understood by some Florida judges. . .
Here’s a guy, Republican Congressman Dave Weldon (FL), who will say just about anything: his letter to the editor
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111167658720077029
We only have to go to the opening paragraphs of FLORIDA TODAY's Tuesday editorial "An outrageous act" about Congress's involvement in the Terri Schiavo case to see that even basic assertions of fact are at best disputable.
It states that Terri is in "a persistent vegetative state for 15 years since her heart attack" and "medical evidence showed Terri has no chance of recovery."
Did the editors interview registered nurse Carla Iyer, who personally treated Terri for a year and a half?
[NB: Ten years ago!]
She said in a sworn court affidavit that Terri "was alert and oriented. Terri spoke on a regular basis saying things like 'mommy' and 'help me" and 'hi' when I came into her room."
Iyer says Terri would sit up in the nurse's station from time to time and laugh at stories they told. She felt pain and would indicate so. Carla fed her by mouth and not by tube. Does this sound like a woman in persistent vegetative state for the past 15 years?. . .
Or are the editors aware of Dr. William Hammesfahr, Nobel Prize nominee neurologist, who examined Terri for 10 hours and said, "Terri does not require a feeding tube to be fed" and that "with proper therapy she would be able to regain some speech and mobility."
[NB: SHE HAS NO FUNCTIONING CORTEX]
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/162034/141
I was pretty dumbfounded to read this. I mean, I know that Republican mendacity knows no bounds, but this - like Tom DeLay's absurd lie that Terri Schiavo "laughs and talks" - just really has my head spinning. . . While we here in the reality-based community sadly shake our heads at Iyer's obvious fictions, fools like Weldon. . . parrot her lies. It's only the latest - but to me, most glaring - example of the right wing living in a truly alternate universe.
William Cheshire, MD, weighs in
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2558
"Although Terri did not demonstrate during our 90-minute visit compelling evidence of verbalization, conscious awareness or volitional behavior, yet the visitor has the distinct sense of the presence of a living human being who seems at some level to be aware of some things around her."
Here are the simple facts
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/realitybased_conservatism.php
The American Council on Science and Health is an industry-funded group devoted to criticizing what it calls "junk science" in environmental and health-care research, e.g. by arguing that most "carcinogens" aren't actually carcinogenic. It's a solid part of the new conservative establishment. Yet ACSH has issued a blistering statment on the Schiavo case. In addition to criticizing Sen. Dr. Frist for making a diagnosis based on home movies, the statement lays out the medical facts of the case in blunt language:
Brain scans indicate that her cerebral cortex ceased functioning -- probably just after she experienced cardiac arrest in 1990. Ms. Schiavo's CAT scan shows massive shrinking of the brain, and her EEG is flat. Physicians confirm that there is no electrical activity coming from her brain. While the family video repeatedly shown on television suggests otherwise, her non-functioning cortex precludes cognition, including any ability to interact or communicate with people or show any signs of awareness. Dozens of experts over the years who have examined Ms. Schiavo agree that there is no hope of her recovering -- even though her body, face and eyes (if she is given food and hydration) might continue to move for decades to come. . . Let's call tripe when tripe is served. All of us are entitled to our own personal views on the Schiavo case, what her fate should be, and who should make decisions for her. But all of us should be united in rejecting politically-generated junk science.
The cable media, however, keeps bending over backwards to give legitimacy to the right’s extremist views (today CNN had Pat Robertson, foaming at the mouth and calling Michael Schiavo – private citizen – a “murderer”; then for “balance" someone from the Cato Institute discussing dry issues of state’s rights and federalism)
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/11466/6814
It’s so bad that even other conservatives are calling out the awful hypocrisy of the far right on this issue. Today’s installment: John Cole
http://www.balloon-juice.com/archives/004859.html
Sick bastards - defining losing your wife as a 'gain,' but all is fair in politics, right? And that is what this is - politics and symbolism on the right to life battlefield. I have said it before - this is jihad for these folks. They don't give two hoots in hell about Terri Schiavo - this is about abortion, religion, and most of all, about power and control. Their concept of morality is king, you see - your behavior in the bedroom, your choice in sexual partner, your desires about end of life decisions, abortion, even the medication you use to ease the pain when you are dying of terminal diseases - their religious text should have authority over you, and if all these 'small-government strict constructionists states right's advocates' have to attain that through government proxy, so be it.
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_digbysblog_archive.html#111171242360531136
“The GOP meltdown”
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/24/meltdown/index.html
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/the_process_conservatives_arent_happy_either.php
Then, of course, there’s Maureen Dowd
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/opinion/24dowd.html
Oh my God, we really are in a theocracy.
Are the Republicans so obsessed with maintaining control over all branches of government, and are the Democrats so emasculated about not having any power, that they are willing to turn the nation into a wholly owned subsidiary of the church?
The more dogma-driven activists, self-perpetuating pols and ratings-crazed broadcast media prattle about "faith," the less we honor the credo that a person's relationship with God should remain a private matter. . .
“Dogma-driven activists”? Why, that’s Karl Rove’s whole strategy
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/national/24relig.html
The powerful outcry over Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose case has provoked a national debate over whether she should live or die, is a testament to the growing alliance of conservative Roman Catholics and evangelicals who have found common cause in the "culture of life" agenda articulated by Pope John Paul II.
Be careful what you ask for. Randall Terry: “hell to pay” if Schiavo dies
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/191745/931
Frist and DeLay’s “cruel hoax”
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/205228/401
Senator-Doctor Bill Frist and House Leader Tom DeLay have played a cruel hoax on the Schindler family by misleading them about the nature of the Congressional Bill which sent the Schiavo case into the Federal Court System.
Still more hypocrisy from Frist
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111169758487216228
[October 2004] Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist attacked Sen. John Edwards on Tuesday over a comment the Democratic vice presidential candidate made regarding actor Christopher Reeve. . . Edwards said Reeve, who died Sunday, "was a powerful voice for the need to do stem cell research and change the lives of people like him. . . "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again," Edwards said.
Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, called Edwards' remark "crass" and "shameful," and said it gave false hope that new treatments were imminent. . . "I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve -- I think it is shameful -- in order to mislead the American people," Frist said. . . . "It is cruel to people who have disabilities and chronic diseases, and, on top of that, it's dishonest. It's giving false hope to people, and I can tell you as a physician who's treated scores of thousands of patients that you don't give them false hope."
The Bush Co. order of trumps
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62963-2005Mar24.html
[Dan Froomkin] Here's how one reader put it in my Live Online discussion yesterday: "Now we learn that the Republicans have a trumping order of issues. The sanctity of marriage trumps the rights of gays and state's rights, but the 'culture of life' trumps the sanctity of marriage and state's rights. . . Could you or some reporter you know please ask for a flow chart or block diagram for us to follow?"
Still debating whether the Dems have blown the Schiavo issue, or whether they’re letting the GOP have enough rope to hang themselves. Was there a better way to position ourselves on this situation early on?
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/111640/411
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/03/the_left_and_te.html
[NB: excellent and thoughtful post, as always, from Lindsay Beyerstein]
By the way, THIS is why I have little sympathy for the Schindlers (Schiavo’s parents)
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/a_conspiracy_so_vast.php
[T]he Schindlers have testified that they would want their daughter's heart kept beating even if she had no cognitive function left, and even if her previously expressed wish had been to the contrary.
Bush Co. rethinking details of their Social Security plan (don’t get excited, it still stinks)
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000567.html
Why Bush Co. doesn’t want to talk about Medicare, whose solvency is a much bigger and more immediate issue than Social Security
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005932.php
On Wednesday, it turned out that the two independent trustees who oversee Social Security and Medicare were wondering the same thing:
"The financial outlook for Social Security has improved marginally since 2000," wrote [Thomas] Saving and [John] Palmer. "In sharp contrast, Medicare's financial outlook has deteriorated dramatically over the past five years and is now much worse that Social Security's."
You can guess the result: the Bush administration blackballed them from the unveiling of yesterday's trustees report. "They didn't particularly invite us," Saving said blandly.
More: http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2609
One more reason Medicare is in trouble
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005938.php
Last week, the Senate voted to repeal the 1993 law. This means that after tax benefits will be effectively increased for certain people. . . End result: rich retirees get higher benefits and Medicare gets less money.
Now THIS is a real solvency problem
http://asmatteringofignorance.typepad.com/a_smattering_of_ignorance/2005/03/more_about_bush.html
Here's a quote from the speech of the Comptroller General, of the General Accountancy Office (the "watch dog" of the Congress), talking about the need for "Transparency In The Budget Process."
"Assuming that tax cuts remain as adopted, and assuming further that discretionary spending continues at the same rate. . . there will be insufficient funds to pay the interest on the public debt by the year 2025."
Sleaze I
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005231
Bush right-hand-man and Iraq contract rainmaker Joe Allbaugh gets a new contract to lobby for Halliburton.
Sleaze II
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005230
The SEC tells Richard Perle it may sue him over financial improprieties tied to the looting and subsequent meltdown of Conrad Black's Hollinger media empire
Bush to Western states on nuclear dump sites: trust me
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/24/nuclear/index.html
Bush Co’s obsession with secrecy
http://www.slate.com/id/2114963/
On Plame: the Washington Post, trying to protect its reporters, files a court brief denying that any laws were broken (hence the investigation should be dropped and their reporters released from testifying). Problem is, as Kevin Drum points out, laws WERE broken
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005933.php
One of the reasons I continue to take this affair seriously is that I assume (a) the federal prosecutor wouldn't continue to waste resources on this case unless he was pretty sure a law had been broken, and (b) a court wouldn't issue the subpoenas in the first place unless the prosecutor had made a pretty decent prima facie case that there was a violation. The question of whether outing Plame was a violation of the law has been pretty thoroughly aired, after all, and both the prosecutor and the judge are surely aware of the issues at hand.
The Republicans’ hypocrisy on filibustering judicial nominees: even worse than you remember
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005875
[Bob Smith, R-NH: March 7, 2000] “If you disagree with us on the basis of why we are objecting, fine. But don't pontificate on the floor of the Senate and tell me that somehow I am violating the Constitution of the United States of America by blocking a judge or filibustering a judge that I don't think deserves to be on the circuit court because I am going to continue to do it at every opportunity I believe a judge should not be on that court. That is my responsibility. That is my advise and consent role, and I intend to exercise it. . . So don't tell me we haven't filibustered judges and that we don't have the right to filibuster judges on the floor of the Senate. Of course we do. That is our constitutional role.”
Did “Jeff Gannon” lie abut his military service too? (Thanks to John Aravosis for the link)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/24/111751/735
Good news (maybe). FEC may only adopt limited rules on political blogs
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/03/24/fec_proposes_limited_blog_regulation.html
Bonus item: Interview with the devil (thanks to Mathew Gross for the link)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/23/15501/7293
Double bonus: Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Nice Guy
http://billmon.org/archives/001772.html
Triple bonus: Changes to Your Citizenship Agreement
http://slate.msn.com/id/2115254/fr/rss/
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
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Thursday, March 24, 2005
BRAIN DEAD
Well, Bush and the GOP have unleashed a whirlwind, and they’re stuck in it now. Having just days ago proclaimed their intention to move heaven and earth to preserve a “culture of life” (DeLay: “we have to do everything that is in our power to save Terri Schiavo”), they now see the polls telling them a vast majority despises them for their grandstanding. But having staked out this position, how do they backtrack from it without (a) alienating their base, which really DOES expect them to move heaven and earth to save her, and (b) looking like the biggest bunch of poseurs and hypocrites on the planet? Maybe, just maybe, the Dems were crafty enough to see this coming, and to underplay their position as the Repubs went further and further out on this limb on their own
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111162110221397221
[CBS/AP] Congressional leaders have insisted their only motivation in getting involved in the Terri Schiavo case was saving a life. But Americans aren’t buying that argument, a CBS News poll finds. . . Just 13 percent of those polled think Congress intervened in the case out of concern for Schiavo, while 74 percent think it was all about politics. Of those polled, 66 percent said the tube should not be inserted compared to 27 percent who want it restored.
Bush: what a difference a day makes. . .
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111161488744470504
President Bush suggested that he and Congress had done their best to help the parents prolong Schiavo's life, and the White House said it has no further legal options.
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2548
The Texas Air National Guard, Arbusto Oil, and now the Culture of Life - Georgie gives up easily, doesn't he?
DeLay: His full comments to the Family Research Council, excerpted yesterday. You have to read the whole thing
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111161359968003755
And so it’s bigger than any one of us, and we have to do everything that is in our power to save Terri Schiavo and anybody else that may be in this kind of position.
And let me just finish with this: This is exactly the issue that’s going on in America. That attacks against the conservative movement, against me, and against many others. The point is, it’s, the other side has figured out how to win and defeat the conservative movement. And that is to go after people, personally charge them with frivolous charges, and link that up with all these do-gooder organizations funded by George Soros, and then, and then get the national media on their side. That whole syndicate that they have going on right now is for one purpose and one purpose only and that’s to destroy the conservative movement. It’s to destroy conservative leaders and it’s, uh, not just in elected office but leading. I mean Ed Feulner, today at the Heritage Foundation, was under attack in the National Journal. I mean they, they, this is a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in, and, and you need to look at this and what’s going on and participate in fighting back.
Don’t, you know, the one way they stopped churches from getting into politics was Lyndon Johnson, who passed a law that said you couldn’t get in politics or you’re going to lose your tax exempt status because they were all opposed to him when he was running for president. That law we’re trying to repeal; it’s very difficult to do that. But the point is, is when they can knock out a leader then no other leader will step forward for awhile because they don’t want to go through the same thing. When, if they go after and get a pastor then other pastors shrink from what they should be doing. It forces Christians back into the church and that’s what’s going on in America: “The world is too bad. I’m going to go get inside this building and I’m not going to play in the world.” Uh, that’s not what Christ asked us to do. And, and so this, they understand that it is a political maneuver, and, and they are, uh, going to try to destroy the conservative movement and we have to fight back.
So, please, this afternoon, each and every one of you, if you know a senator give him a call. Tell him, they’ll say, “Our bill can pass in the House.” Tell him, “That’s fine. Your bill’s okay but the House bill is better and, uh, I want the House bill.” Particularly if you know Democrats, uh, don’t let them get off the hook, um, by hiding behind one House and the other is adjourned. We can do anything we need to do to pass any bill that we need to pass. So I appreciate what you’re doing. God bless you and thank you for the Family Research Council.
[NB: Hope you caught that line about repealing the law preventing tax-exempt religious organizations from political activity. They’ve been flouting this rule anyway, but now their intention is clear.]
Frist: “poseur and hypocrite” aren’t strong enough words
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111160342761631336
Frist wrote a book in 1989 called Transplant where he advocated changing the definition of "brain dead" to include anencephalic babies. Anencephalic babies are in the same state as Terri Schiavo except that she suffered a physical trauma that put her into a vegetative state while the anencephalic babies are born that way.
This remarkable discovery buttresses the argument that Frist's advocacy for Schiavo is wholly political. How does he explain this remarkable inconsistency? Here is the relevant passage on Frist as quoted by the New Republic in 2003:
"And, although Frist writes frequently about the ethical issues surrounding transplants--for example, the question of when death begins--he approaches these issues in starkly scientific terms, with little patience for religious objections.
"Near the end of the book, for example, Frist suggests changing the legal definition of 'brain death' to include anencephalic babies, who are born with a fatal neurological disorder but show just the slightest hint of brain-stem activity. Such a change would make it possible to harvest their organs for transplant--something the Catholic Church and pro-life groups oppose. 'Three thousand anencephalic babies were born a year, enough to solve our demand many times over--but we never used them.'"
Jeb: Discovers a “Nobel Prize-nominated” neurologist to offer an ad hoc rediagnosis of Schiavo. Who is he?
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111160973030486325
Sadly, the "renowned neurologist" wasn't the one who has been making all of the Fox News rounds and making a bunch of fools look even more foolish than usual. The guy has been going around telling people he's a "Nobel Prize Nominee" for medicine, because a very silly congressman nominated him. But, it gets funnier. . . The congressman actually wrote to nominate him for a "Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine," which doesn't, you know, exist. . . And, [Congressman Michael Bilirakis] isn't eligible to nominate anyone for the Medicine prize.
Sorry, two different neurologists. The one Jeb consulted is FAR more credible
http://slate.msn.com/id/2115250/fr/rss/
The New York Times, and to a lesser degree the Washington Post, do background checks on that neurologist [William Cheshire]. He's a member of a foundation for "Christian bioethicists," and his clinic said that while he "observed" Schiavo for an hour he "did not conduct an examination." One neurologist who did, said, "He has to be bogus, a pro-life fanatic. You'll not find any credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and say she's not vegetative."
Good run-downs of the legal options remaining
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/running_out_of_running_room.php
http://billmon.org/archives/001770.html
Outside the courtrooms: who are these protestors?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_digbysblog_archive.html#111163989813106023
Good point: what about the GOP’s famous dedication to the “sanctity of marriage”?
http://slate.msn.com/id/2115218/fr/rss/
Is it possible that the Repubs have set up the court system to reject their bill, only to come back later saying that this is why we need even more right-wing judges?
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/the_schiavo_bill_and_the_nuclear_option.php
[NB: It’s a clever analysis, and they may try to work it this way after they lose, but I don’t think that was the plan. Given their outrageous interference and opportunism in this case, it is just as likely that people will say, “this is why we need courts that will say no to the President and Congress”]
The Dems (crafty, or just dumb luck?)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005219
[From TPM reader PJ] “Everything you say about the Schiavo fiasco is true except your conclusion. The Democrats, for once, did exactly the right thing. By letting the Republicans do what they wanted, they have give the American public, at a very crucial time, the opportunity to see the Republicans in all their sleazy glory. The unspoken backdrop of political debate in the country will now be "Look what you get when the Republicans get to do what they want." No one will point to the Democrats to say they were in it too, but if they'd have kept the vote from taking place, some would have pointed to them as against life and none would have seen the courts' utter rejection of Republican over-reaching. Republican pronouncements from authority will be crippled by the obviously manipulative and mistaken pronouncements by Republican doctors in congress on Schiavo's condition. Even conservative Republicans are upset with DeLay now.”
On the other hand: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/03/what-he-said.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opdol234186935mar23,0,2798444.column
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/03/another-kick-in-pants-for-dems-on.html
CNN: how low can they go?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503230007
Anchor Kyra Phillips wrongly claimed on the March 23 edition of CNN's Live From... that Carla Sauer Iyer, a former nurse for Terri Schiavo, came forward for "the first time" the previous day with allegations that Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, was a "threat" to her caregivers. In addition, CNN national correspondent Bob Franken incorrectly stated that no one had responded to Iyer's charges, then repeated other rumors of abuse without offering support for his allegations.
In fact, as Media Matters for America documented following an interview Phillips conducted with Iyer on the March 22 edition of Live From..., Iyer's charges are at least as old as her 2003 affidavit, and several news sources have discussed them since then (examples here and here).
Contrary to Franken's claim that Iyer's charges have not been answered, Florida circuit court judge George W. Greer considered Iyer's claims and, in a September 2003 order, rejected them as "incredible."
Fox: the winner and still champion. . .
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503230005
GIBSON: Is there -- before I run out of time and gotta run, because it's coming soon -- do we now have the following political divide: Republicans stand for parents' right and life, and Democrats have sided for questionable husband and dying?
BENNETT: In a lot of peoples' minds, that's it.
GIBSON: Despite the fact that some Democrats were with Republicans. [NB: and some Republicans were against it]
BENNETT: Yes, yes, some were. It really is tradition, common sense, belief in moral, spiritual things, and some kind of abstract notions of right -- which, of course, all the real notions of right we have, all the constitutional rights we have are derived from that religious tradition. What ironies, what a day, what a time, what times we live in.
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005859
[Sam Rosenfeld] The cable news coverage of the Terri Schiavo story in the last week has got to have marked some kind of nadir for what was already a bottom-feeding and disreputable corner of the news industry. I’ve been watching this stuff for days now and the disregard for basic factuality and credible sourcing on display has simply been stunning -- and I've watched tons of crappy cable news for years. In the past few days, I saw the hackish Nobel-nominated doctor, I saw the fraudulent nurse -- twice! on two different networks! -- peddling outlandish stories of Mike Schiavo’s attempts to murder his wife. Cable networks’ obvious lack of concern for vetting the people who appear on their shows to utter knowingly fallacious statements is a longstanding problem that we all got to see in stark relief during last year's Swift Boat madness, but just because it isn't new doesn't make it any less of an outrage.
Moreover, the eggshells on which cable anchors have walked in discussing Schiavo’s (non)prospects for recovery and, especially, in interviewing Schiavo’s family -- who obviously have gone through a great deal and are emotionally invested in a belief that she is sentient and improvable -- have made a mockery of the notion that journalistic organizations have an obligation to discern facts and seek truth. . . Someone watching CNN or FOX News for all their information on this case in the last week would, without question, be left with an impression of this story that was on balance far more wrong than right. Run-of-the-mill mediocrity is one thing; actively and consistently misinforming viewers is quite another.
Social Security Trustees, showing due diligence in protection of their program, fiddle the numbers to get a projection of fund solvency even more pessimistic than Bush’s. Here's how they cooked the books:
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005852
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111159739455017183
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005916.php
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005847
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005857
More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010133.html
The lousy AP coverage of the report (which, of course, is the version picked up by countless local and small-town news sources around the country)
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503230006
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005858
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111161683945769072
MSNBC too: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005226
Why it matters
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005227
[Josh Marshall] I hope the supporters of Social Security aren't resting on their collective laurels just because the president's jihad against the program got off to such an abysmal start.
Today, in newspapers and on websites across the country, headlines used words like 'broke', 'bankrupt' and 'bust' to describe what happens to Social Security when it starts running a deficit at some time in the middle of this century. Only weeks ago, President Bush was being forced to back off such misleading and deceptive language. And many Republicans were openly criticizing him for it. Now these are the words of choice in supposedly straight news reportage.
Supporters of Social Security really don't have the luxury of letting one lie or distortion go unchallenged or unanswered.
(Interesting: several headlines revised overnight)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005926.php
Can ANYTHING be done to address this desperate shortfall?
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111160775346500852
Assuming the Trustees' intermediate assumptions are realized, the deficit of 1.92 percent of payroll indicates that financial adequacy of the program for the next 75 years could be restored if the Social Security payroll tax were immediately and permanently increased from its current level of 12.4 percent (combined employee-employer shares) to 14.32 percent.
[Atrios] As I said, I don't support doing that because a) "pre-funding" is a sucker's game as long as Zombie Greenspan and his Republican Acolytes roam the Earth and b) it makes the tax code more regressive. But, nonetheless it's pretty damn painless.
But that’s not all: the LONG-term estimates (not what was covered by the press) are actually BETTER
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000561.html
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000562.html
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005856
Graphic: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005919.php
Crisis? Which crisis?
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2547
The Social Security Trustees latest report places the insolvency date at the year 2020. . . That's the Medicare insolvency date, they place the insolvency date for Social Security at 2041.
More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/politics/24social.html
Graphic: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/graphics/trustees_032405.gif
Bush’s empty threats against those who oppose him on Social Security
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005221
[Josh Marshall] There's an interesting article today in the Post which fronts the president's new threat that Democrats "will suffer political consequences if they continue to oppose his proposal without providing one of their own."
You'll notice that the article is datelined Albuquerque, where the president just held his most recent Bamboozlepalooza event. . . What caught my attention is that while the Post piece made such prominent mention of the president's 'threat', it neglected to mention the name Heather Wilson, who has been obstinately refusing to take any position on Social Security for months. . . Wilson, the representative from Albuquerque and the clear target of the president's visit, was afraid to be seen at the president's event today. . .
Bottom-line: While President Bush is seeding the media with bogus threats, his own Republicans are afraid to appear in public with him on his Social Security tours. . .
More from Albuquerque: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1222
[NYT] Even as he travels the country selling his Social Security overhaul, President Bush is beginning to acknowledge some of the constraints of his plan for individual accounts. . . Even the slogan at the president's public events has changed. At the New Mexico event, gone were the banners that once declared the president's interest in "Strengthening Social Security.". . . Instead they had a more targeted message: "Keeping Our Promise to Seniors." His last several outings have been dedicated to reassuring older voters that their Social Security payments are not in jeopardy, rather than demanding the bold restructuring that was once the focus of his sales pitch.
He has visited centers for older Americans, interrupting residents' card games to repeat the promise. He has brought along his mother, Barbara Bush, to show he understands older people's concerns. And he has enlisted prominent Republicans including Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John McCain of Arizona to help mollify what polls show to be substantial opposition among the elderly to his approach.
. . . Unlike most other presidential appearances, the event inside the darkly lit Kiva Auditorium was sparsely attended, with hundreds of empty seats.
Why the Dems just need to hold on a little bit longer without getting tricked into offering an “alternative”
http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/03/the_gospel_acco.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005926.php
Matt is exactly right about Dems standing firm on refusing to offer an alternative plan of their own. It's not necessary, since Social Security isn't in crisis, and it would be politically moronic — as no less an expert than George Bush himself has admitted. Bottom line: Bush is stuck in the quicksand on this issue, and it's not up to the Democratic party to throw him a rope. He's the one who claims there's a crisis, so let him make the first move.
Kafka at Guantanamo
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/03/bush-meet-kafka-kafka-meet-bush.html
Kafka came to Guantanamo Bay this year, once military proceedings started to review the cases of the prisoners being held and determine whether any of them should be released. Some lovely highlights: prisoners were refused the right to hear many of the charges against them or what evidence was used to buttress those charges (it's classified; stop whining) and the lawyers and others prosecuting them covered up their name-tags. . . Among the claims: guards at Guantanamo Bay pretend to be lawyers and meet with prisoners to get info; then, when the real lawyers show up, the prisoners don't trust them and refuse to cooperate in their own defense. Other prisoners meeting with lawyers have felt the wrath of guards after those lawyers leave and then don't want to see the lawyers when they return.
More on “ghost” detainees: a far more widespread and routine (and illegal) practice than we’ve been told
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61206-2005Mar23.html
Defense Dept continues to grow its independent intelligence efforts
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-intel24mar24,0,5181139.story
GOP scrubs fundraising records
http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2005/03/cleaning-up-cookie-crumbsthey-remind.html
As attention grows on campaign fundraising and the relationship between top Republicans and a lobbyist under multiple federal investigations, the Republican National Congressional Committee has erased all online records of fundraising events for the last three years, RAW STORY has learned.
Previously, the website listed all RNCC fundraisers dating from late 2002 to the present. Now only an error message appears. . .
Bush’s conspicuous silence on the Minnesota shootings
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-life24mar24,1,6814918.story
Asked why the president had not commented on the shootings, which occurred Monday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Bush's priority was to ensure that the FBI and Department of Justice provided support to the community.
"The president's focus is on making sure the federal government is responding" effectively, McClellan said.
[NB: Because, you know, he's just too darn busy managing the government to take out a few minutes to make a public statement of condolence and concern]
But Bush's aggressive response to Schiavo and virtual silence on the shootings has led critics to accuse him of political opportunism.
Plame: could it end with only the reporters going to jail (punished for protecting others who will get off scot free)??? Please tell me I’m dreaming (thanks to Susan Madrak for the link)
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000853514
Abortion: why pro-choice activists are rethinking their strategy
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9362
Investigation into the checkpoint shooting of an Italian journalist runs into a bit of difficulty
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2545
The U.S. military command in Iraq has blocked two Italian policemen from examining the car in which an Italian intelligence agent was shot to death in Baghdad
Why the media CAN’T be “fair and balanced”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005920.php
[Dan Froomkin] No one gets in trouble for reporting what he says and calling the events whatever the White House calls them. By contrast, if you consistently point out his errors and regularly describe the events in a unflattering way — especially without a named or unnamed "critic" to attribute it to — you are in some danger of being considered a partisan, a kook, and off the reservation.
This is what Bush Co. “background briefings” have come to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59868-2005Mar23.html
"Q I guess it's -- I guess it's kind of pointless to try and get you guys to give us any specifics -- but the last caller seemed to try and get some idea of the scale of this. I mean, every time these leaders get together in a bilateral format, they announce some effort to speed the flow of people across the borders and trade goods, and at the same time, restrain the flow of terrorists and illegal products. So are you going to give us some idea of whether this is bigger than the U.S.-Canadian agreement -- the post-9/11 U.S.-Canadian agreement? And what has been done in terms of meetings between the ministers to set this up. This really, on the surface of it, doesn't look much more than an annual get-together for these guys.
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I think, obviously we're not going to scoop the leaders. They're going to have to make the announcement of what they are going to put out. But in order -- I think as you look at what happens tomorrow, I think you'll have to -- as I tried to say in answer to the previous question, there's a number of things you need to look at. One is, what have we put in -- what are we doing that's different from previous announcements that have been made between the leaders. . .
"Q Is there a name for this initiative? . . .
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It does have a name. Are we sharing the name now?
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think let's hold off on that at this point.
"Q What should we call it? Should we call it a program, an initiative, a structure, a commission?
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think initiative."
Bonus item: Quote of the day
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/23/shays/index.html
"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays, one of five Republicans to vote against the Schiavo legislation, tells the New York Times. "My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing. This couldn't be a more classic case of a state responsibility."
Bonus quotes from the defenders of “a culture of life”
http://billmon.org/archives/001769.html
The fallout from last week's vote kept coming this weekend and on Monday, with protesters filling the [Florida state] Capitol, pleading with senators to intervene [in the Schiavo case] . . .
Ugly messages were left with lawmakers. Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon, said one letter came from a self-identified Christian who "prayed" for Argenziano to die a painful death with stomach cancer.
Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua, said one caller to his office said, "I'm a Christian, and I hope you will die in your own vomit."
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Well, Bush and the GOP have unleashed a whirlwind, and they’re stuck in it now. Having just days ago proclaimed their intention to move heaven and earth to preserve a “culture of life” (DeLay: “we have to do everything that is in our power to save Terri Schiavo”), they now see the polls telling them a vast majority despises them for their grandstanding. But having staked out this position, how do they backtrack from it without (a) alienating their base, which really DOES expect them to move heaven and earth to save her, and (b) looking like the biggest bunch of poseurs and hypocrites on the planet? Maybe, just maybe, the Dems were crafty enough to see this coming, and to underplay their position as the Repubs went further and further out on this limb on their own
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111162110221397221
[CBS/AP] Congressional leaders have insisted their only motivation in getting involved in the Terri Schiavo case was saving a life. But Americans aren’t buying that argument, a CBS News poll finds. . . Just 13 percent of those polled think Congress intervened in the case out of concern for Schiavo, while 74 percent think it was all about politics. Of those polled, 66 percent said the tube should not be inserted compared to 27 percent who want it restored.
Bush: what a difference a day makes. . .
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111161488744470504
President Bush suggested that he and Congress had done their best to help the parents prolong Schiavo's life, and the White House said it has no further legal options.
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2548
The Texas Air National Guard, Arbusto Oil, and now the Culture of Life - Georgie gives up easily, doesn't he?
DeLay: His full comments to the Family Research Council, excerpted yesterday. You have to read the whole thing
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111161359968003755
And so it’s bigger than any one of us, and we have to do everything that is in our power to save Terri Schiavo and anybody else that may be in this kind of position.
And let me just finish with this: This is exactly the issue that’s going on in America. That attacks against the conservative movement, against me, and against many others. The point is, it’s, the other side has figured out how to win and defeat the conservative movement. And that is to go after people, personally charge them with frivolous charges, and link that up with all these do-gooder organizations funded by George Soros, and then, and then get the national media on their side. That whole syndicate that they have going on right now is for one purpose and one purpose only and that’s to destroy the conservative movement. It’s to destroy conservative leaders and it’s, uh, not just in elected office but leading. I mean Ed Feulner, today at the Heritage Foundation, was under attack in the National Journal. I mean they, they, this is a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in, and, and you need to look at this and what’s going on and participate in fighting back.
Don’t, you know, the one way they stopped churches from getting into politics was Lyndon Johnson, who passed a law that said you couldn’t get in politics or you’re going to lose your tax exempt status because they were all opposed to him when he was running for president. That law we’re trying to repeal; it’s very difficult to do that. But the point is, is when they can knock out a leader then no other leader will step forward for awhile because they don’t want to go through the same thing. When, if they go after and get a pastor then other pastors shrink from what they should be doing. It forces Christians back into the church and that’s what’s going on in America: “The world is too bad. I’m going to go get inside this building and I’m not going to play in the world.” Uh, that’s not what Christ asked us to do. And, and so this, they understand that it is a political maneuver, and, and they are, uh, going to try to destroy the conservative movement and we have to fight back.
So, please, this afternoon, each and every one of you, if you know a senator give him a call. Tell him, they’ll say, “Our bill can pass in the House.” Tell him, “That’s fine. Your bill’s okay but the House bill is better and, uh, I want the House bill.” Particularly if you know Democrats, uh, don’t let them get off the hook, um, by hiding behind one House and the other is adjourned. We can do anything we need to do to pass any bill that we need to pass. So I appreciate what you’re doing. God bless you and thank you for the Family Research Council.
[NB: Hope you caught that line about repealing the law preventing tax-exempt religious organizations from political activity. They’ve been flouting this rule anyway, but now their intention is clear.]
Frist: “poseur and hypocrite” aren’t strong enough words
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111160342761631336
Frist wrote a book in 1989 called Transplant where he advocated changing the definition of "brain dead" to include anencephalic babies. Anencephalic babies are in the same state as Terri Schiavo except that she suffered a physical trauma that put her into a vegetative state while the anencephalic babies are born that way.
This remarkable discovery buttresses the argument that Frist's advocacy for Schiavo is wholly political. How does he explain this remarkable inconsistency? Here is the relevant passage on Frist as quoted by the New Republic in 2003:
"And, although Frist writes frequently about the ethical issues surrounding transplants--for example, the question of when death begins--he approaches these issues in starkly scientific terms, with little patience for religious objections.
"Near the end of the book, for example, Frist suggests changing the legal definition of 'brain death' to include anencephalic babies, who are born with a fatal neurological disorder but show just the slightest hint of brain-stem activity. Such a change would make it possible to harvest their organs for transplant--something the Catholic Church and pro-life groups oppose. 'Three thousand anencephalic babies were born a year, enough to solve our demand many times over--but we never used them.'"
Jeb: Discovers a “Nobel Prize-nominated” neurologist to offer an ad hoc rediagnosis of Schiavo. Who is he?
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111160973030486325
Sadly, the "renowned neurologist" wasn't the one who has been making all of the Fox News rounds and making a bunch of fools look even more foolish than usual. The guy has been going around telling people he's a "Nobel Prize Nominee" for medicine, because a very silly congressman nominated him. But, it gets funnier. . . The congressman actually wrote to nominate him for a "Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine," which doesn't, you know, exist. . . And, [Congressman Michael Bilirakis] isn't eligible to nominate anyone for the Medicine prize.
Sorry, two different neurologists. The one Jeb consulted is FAR more credible
http://slate.msn.com/id/2115250/fr/rss/
The New York Times, and to a lesser degree the Washington Post, do background checks on that neurologist [William Cheshire]. He's a member of a foundation for "Christian bioethicists," and his clinic said that while he "observed" Schiavo for an hour he "did not conduct an examination." One neurologist who did, said, "He has to be bogus, a pro-life fanatic. You'll not find any credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and say she's not vegetative."
Good run-downs of the legal options remaining
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/running_out_of_running_room.php
http://billmon.org/archives/001770.html
Outside the courtrooms: who are these protestors?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_digbysblog_archive.html#111163989813106023
Good point: what about the GOP’s famous dedication to the “sanctity of marriage”?
http://slate.msn.com/id/2115218/fr/rss/
Is it possible that the Repubs have set up the court system to reject their bill, only to come back later saying that this is why we need even more right-wing judges?
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/schiavo_/2005/03/the_schiavo_bill_and_the_nuclear_option.php
[NB: It’s a clever analysis, and they may try to work it this way after they lose, but I don’t think that was the plan. Given their outrageous interference and opportunism in this case, it is just as likely that people will say, “this is why we need courts that will say no to the President and Congress”]
The Dems (crafty, or just dumb luck?)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005219
[From TPM reader PJ] “Everything you say about the Schiavo fiasco is true except your conclusion. The Democrats, for once, did exactly the right thing. By letting the Republicans do what they wanted, they have give the American public, at a very crucial time, the opportunity to see the Republicans in all their sleazy glory. The unspoken backdrop of political debate in the country will now be "Look what you get when the Republicans get to do what they want." No one will point to the Democrats to say they were in it too, but if they'd have kept the vote from taking place, some would have pointed to them as against life and none would have seen the courts' utter rejection of Republican over-reaching. Republican pronouncements from authority will be crippled by the obviously manipulative and mistaken pronouncements by Republican doctors in congress on Schiavo's condition. Even conservative Republicans are upset with DeLay now.”
On the other hand: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/03/what-he-said.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opdol234186935mar23,0,2798444.column
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/03/another-kick-in-pants-for-dems-on.html
CNN: how low can they go?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503230007
Anchor Kyra Phillips wrongly claimed on the March 23 edition of CNN's Live From... that Carla Sauer Iyer, a former nurse for Terri Schiavo, came forward for "the first time" the previous day with allegations that Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, was a "threat" to her caregivers. In addition, CNN national correspondent Bob Franken incorrectly stated that no one had responded to Iyer's charges, then repeated other rumors of abuse without offering support for his allegations.
In fact, as Media Matters for America documented following an interview Phillips conducted with Iyer on the March 22 edition of Live From..., Iyer's charges are at least as old as her 2003 affidavit, and several news sources have discussed them since then (examples here and here).
Contrary to Franken's claim that Iyer's charges have not been answered, Florida circuit court judge George W. Greer considered Iyer's claims and, in a September 2003 order, rejected them as "incredible."
Fox: the winner and still champion. . .
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503230005
GIBSON: Is there -- before I run out of time and gotta run, because it's coming soon -- do we now have the following political divide: Republicans stand for parents' right and life, and Democrats have sided for questionable husband and dying?
BENNETT: In a lot of peoples' minds, that's it.
GIBSON: Despite the fact that some Democrats were with Republicans. [NB: and some Republicans were against it]
BENNETT: Yes, yes, some were. It really is tradition, common sense, belief in moral, spiritual things, and some kind of abstract notions of right -- which, of course, all the real notions of right we have, all the constitutional rights we have are derived from that religious tradition. What ironies, what a day, what a time, what times we live in.
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005859
[Sam Rosenfeld] The cable news coverage of the Terri Schiavo story in the last week has got to have marked some kind of nadir for what was already a bottom-feeding and disreputable corner of the news industry. I’ve been watching this stuff for days now and the disregard for basic factuality and credible sourcing on display has simply been stunning -- and I've watched tons of crappy cable news for years. In the past few days, I saw the hackish Nobel-nominated doctor, I saw the fraudulent nurse -- twice! on two different networks! -- peddling outlandish stories of Mike Schiavo’s attempts to murder his wife. Cable networks’ obvious lack of concern for vetting the people who appear on their shows to utter knowingly fallacious statements is a longstanding problem that we all got to see in stark relief during last year's Swift Boat madness, but just because it isn't new doesn't make it any less of an outrage.
Moreover, the eggshells on which cable anchors have walked in discussing Schiavo’s (non)prospects for recovery and, especially, in interviewing Schiavo’s family -- who obviously have gone through a great deal and are emotionally invested in a belief that she is sentient and improvable -- have made a mockery of the notion that journalistic organizations have an obligation to discern facts and seek truth. . . Someone watching CNN or FOX News for all their information on this case in the last week would, without question, be left with an impression of this story that was on balance far more wrong than right. Run-of-the-mill mediocrity is one thing; actively and consistently misinforming viewers is quite another.
Social Security Trustees, showing due diligence in protection of their program, fiddle the numbers to get a projection of fund solvency even more pessimistic than Bush’s. Here's how they cooked the books:
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005852
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111159739455017183
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005916.php
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005847
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005857
More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010133.html
The lousy AP coverage of the report (which, of course, is the version picked up by countless local and small-town news sources around the country)
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503230006
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005858
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111161683945769072
MSNBC too: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005226
Why it matters
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005227
[Josh Marshall] I hope the supporters of Social Security aren't resting on their collective laurels just because the president's jihad against the program got off to such an abysmal start.
Today, in newspapers and on websites across the country, headlines used words like 'broke', 'bankrupt' and 'bust' to describe what happens to Social Security when it starts running a deficit at some time in the middle of this century. Only weeks ago, President Bush was being forced to back off such misleading and deceptive language. And many Republicans were openly criticizing him for it. Now these are the words of choice in supposedly straight news reportage.
Supporters of Social Security really don't have the luxury of letting one lie or distortion go unchallenged or unanswered.
(Interesting: several headlines revised overnight)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005926.php
Can ANYTHING be done to address this desperate shortfall?
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111160775346500852
Assuming the Trustees' intermediate assumptions are realized, the deficit of 1.92 percent of payroll indicates that financial adequacy of the program for the next 75 years could be restored if the Social Security payroll tax were immediately and permanently increased from its current level of 12.4 percent (combined employee-employer shares) to 14.32 percent.
[Atrios] As I said, I don't support doing that because a) "pre-funding" is a sucker's game as long as Zombie Greenspan and his Republican Acolytes roam the Earth and b) it makes the tax code more regressive. But, nonetheless it's pretty damn painless.
But that’s not all: the LONG-term estimates (not what was covered by the press) are actually BETTER
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000561.html
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000562.html
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005856
Graphic: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005919.php
Crisis? Which crisis?
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2547
The Social Security Trustees latest report places the insolvency date at the year 2020. . . That's the Medicare insolvency date, they place the insolvency date for Social Security at 2041.
More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/politics/24social.html
Graphic: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/graphics/trustees_032405.gif
Bush’s empty threats against those who oppose him on Social Security
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005221
[Josh Marshall] There's an interesting article today in the Post which fronts the president's new threat that Democrats "will suffer political consequences if they continue to oppose his proposal without providing one of their own."
You'll notice that the article is datelined Albuquerque, where the president just held his most recent Bamboozlepalooza event. . . What caught my attention is that while the Post piece made such prominent mention of the president's 'threat', it neglected to mention the name Heather Wilson, who has been obstinately refusing to take any position on Social Security for months. . . Wilson, the representative from Albuquerque and the clear target of the president's visit, was afraid to be seen at the president's event today. . .
Bottom-line: While President Bush is seeding the media with bogus threats, his own Republicans are afraid to appear in public with him on his Social Security tours. . .
More from Albuquerque: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1222
[NYT] Even as he travels the country selling his Social Security overhaul, President Bush is beginning to acknowledge some of the constraints of his plan for individual accounts. . . Even the slogan at the president's public events has changed. At the New Mexico event, gone were the banners that once declared the president's interest in "Strengthening Social Security.". . . Instead they had a more targeted message: "Keeping Our Promise to Seniors." His last several outings have been dedicated to reassuring older voters that their Social Security payments are not in jeopardy, rather than demanding the bold restructuring that was once the focus of his sales pitch.
He has visited centers for older Americans, interrupting residents' card games to repeat the promise. He has brought along his mother, Barbara Bush, to show he understands older people's concerns. And he has enlisted prominent Republicans including Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John McCain of Arizona to help mollify what polls show to be substantial opposition among the elderly to his approach.
. . . Unlike most other presidential appearances, the event inside the darkly lit Kiva Auditorium was sparsely attended, with hundreds of empty seats.
Why the Dems just need to hold on a little bit longer without getting tricked into offering an “alternative”
http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/03/the_gospel_acco.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005926.php
Matt is exactly right about Dems standing firm on refusing to offer an alternative plan of their own. It's not necessary, since Social Security isn't in crisis, and it would be politically moronic — as no less an expert than George Bush himself has admitted. Bottom line: Bush is stuck in the quicksand on this issue, and it's not up to the Democratic party to throw him a rope. He's the one who claims there's a crisis, so let him make the first move.
Kafka at Guantanamo
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/03/bush-meet-kafka-kafka-meet-bush.html
Kafka came to Guantanamo Bay this year, once military proceedings started to review the cases of the prisoners being held and determine whether any of them should be released. Some lovely highlights: prisoners were refused the right to hear many of the charges against them or what evidence was used to buttress those charges (it's classified; stop whining) and the lawyers and others prosecuting them covered up their name-tags. . . Among the claims: guards at Guantanamo Bay pretend to be lawyers and meet with prisoners to get info; then, when the real lawyers show up, the prisoners don't trust them and refuse to cooperate in their own defense. Other prisoners meeting with lawyers have felt the wrath of guards after those lawyers leave and then don't want to see the lawyers when they return.
More on “ghost” detainees: a far more widespread and routine (and illegal) practice than we’ve been told
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61206-2005Mar23.html
Defense Dept continues to grow its independent intelligence efforts
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-intel24mar24,0,5181139.story
GOP scrubs fundraising records
http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2005/03/cleaning-up-cookie-crumbsthey-remind.html
As attention grows on campaign fundraising and the relationship between top Republicans and a lobbyist under multiple federal investigations, the Republican National Congressional Committee has erased all online records of fundraising events for the last three years, RAW STORY has learned.
Previously, the website listed all RNCC fundraisers dating from late 2002 to the present. Now only an error message appears. . .
Bush’s conspicuous silence on the Minnesota shootings
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-life24mar24,1,6814918.story
Asked why the president had not commented on the shootings, which occurred Monday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Bush's priority was to ensure that the FBI and Department of Justice provided support to the community.
"The president's focus is on making sure the federal government is responding" effectively, McClellan said.
[NB: Because, you know, he's just too darn busy managing the government to take out a few minutes to make a public statement of condolence and concern]
But Bush's aggressive response to Schiavo and virtual silence on the shootings has led critics to accuse him of political opportunism.
Plame: could it end with only the reporters going to jail (punished for protecting others who will get off scot free)??? Please tell me I’m dreaming (thanks to Susan Madrak for the link)
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000853514
Abortion: why pro-choice activists are rethinking their strategy
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9362
Investigation into the checkpoint shooting of an Italian journalist runs into a bit of difficulty
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2545
The U.S. military command in Iraq has blocked two Italian policemen from examining the car in which an Italian intelligence agent was shot to death in Baghdad
Why the media CAN’T be “fair and balanced”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005920.php
[Dan Froomkin] No one gets in trouble for reporting what he says and calling the events whatever the White House calls them. By contrast, if you consistently point out his errors and regularly describe the events in a unflattering way — especially without a named or unnamed "critic" to attribute it to — you are in some danger of being considered a partisan, a kook, and off the reservation.
This is what Bush Co. “background briefings” have come to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59868-2005Mar23.html
"Q I guess it's -- I guess it's kind of pointless to try and get you guys to give us any specifics -- but the last caller seemed to try and get some idea of the scale of this. I mean, every time these leaders get together in a bilateral format, they announce some effort to speed the flow of people across the borders and trade goods, and at the same time, restrain the flow of terrorists and illegal products. So are you going to give us some idea of whether this is bigger than the U.S.-Canadian agreement -- the post-9/11 U.S.-Canadian agreement? And what has been done in terms of meetings between the ministers to set this up. This really, on the surface of it, doesn't look much more than an annual get-together for these guys.
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I think, obviously we're not going to scoop the leaders. They're going to have to make the announcement of what they are going to put out. But in order -- I think as you look at what happens tomorrow, I think you'll have to -- as I tried to say in answer to the previous question, there's a number of things you need to look at. One is, what have we put in -- what are we doing that's different from previous announcements that have been made between the leaders. . .
"Q Is there a name for this initiative? . . .
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It does have a name. Are we sharing the name now?
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think let's hold off on that at this point.
"Q What should we call it? Should we call it a program, an initiative, a structure, a commission?
"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think initiative."
Bonus item: Quote of the day
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/23/shays/index.html
"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays, one of five Republicans to vote against the Schiavo legislation, tells the New York Times. "My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing. This couldn't be a more classic case of a state responsibility."
Bonus quotes from the defenders of “a culture of life”
http://billmon.org/archives/001769.html
The fallout from last week's vote kept coming this weekend and on Monday, with protesters filling the [Florida state] Capitol, pleading with senators to intervene [in the Schiavo case] . . .
Ugly messages were left with lawmakers. Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon, said one letter came from a self-identified Christian who "prayed" for Argenziano to die a painful death with stomach cancer.
Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua, said one caller to his office said, "I'm a Christian, and I hope you will die in your own vomit."
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
AMERICAN TALIBAN
Courts say no: theocrats DeLay and Santorum claim that Congressional law ORDERED them to issue a temporary restraining order, not just to review the case (so much for separation of powers)
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/23/7253/87248
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111151226189193927
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/22/delay/index.html
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111150749397719003
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/23/schiavo1/index.html
Just after midnight this morning, a federal appeals court in Atlanta dealt another setback to those who want to extend the life of Terri Schiavo. In a 2-1 ruling, judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit refused to issue an order requiring doctors to re-insert the feeding tube that, until Friday, was keeping her alive.
In refusing to grant a temporary restraining order sought by Schiavo's parents, 11th Circuit judges Ed Carnes and Frank Hull -- appointees of Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, respectively -- affirmed the ruling of District Court Judge James Whittemore, who concluded less than 24 hours earlier that Schiavo's parents had not shown that they were likely to prevail on the merits of their claim that Florida courts had denied Schiavo her rights under the U.S. Constitution or other federal law.
Judge Charles Wilson, another Clinton appointee, dissented from the ruling. When Congress adopted emergency legislation, Wilson said, its intent was clear: Congress wanted the federal courts to issue a temporary restraining order requiring the re-insertion of Schiavo's feeding tube in order to keep her alive long enough for a full federal review of her case. "Denial of Plaintiffs’ petition cuts sharply against that intent, which is evident to me from the language of the statute, as well as the swift and unprecedented manner of its enactment," Wilson wrote, repeating, in many ways, the same argument House Majority Leader Tom DeLay made in the press Tuesday afternoon.
But the judges in the majority looked not to the desires of the congressional Republicans but to the text of the law that Congress passed and the president signed. On its face, the law does not require the federal courts to issue a temporary restraining order. Rather, it says that the courts "shall issue such declaratory and injunctive relief as may be necessary to protect" Schiavo's legal rights. If federal judges concluded that those rights had already been protected -- as Whittemore, Carnes and Hull all did -- then no injunction would be "necessary" to protect them further.
As Carnes and Hull explained, their reading of the words of the Schiavo law is buttressed by its legislative history in the U.S. Senate. In order to win unanimous consent for the bill from Senate Democrats, Republicans dropped a provision that would have required the issuance of a temporary restraining order -- a point Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist made perfectly clear in a discussion with Democratic Sen. Carl Levin on the Senate floor last week. Levin said he was opposed to an earlier version of the bill "because I believe Congress should not mandate" that a federal judge issue such an order. Levin then asked Frist whether he "shared" his view that the final version of the bill left the question to the discretion of the federal courts. Frist said:
"I share the understanding of the senator from Michigan, as does the junior senator from Florida who is the chief sponsor of this bill. Nothing in the current bill or its legislative history mandates a stay. I would assume, however, the federal court would grant a stay based on the facts of this case because Mrs. Schiavo would need to be alive in order for the court to make its determination. Nevertheless, this bill does not change current law under which a stay is discretionary."
It’s all about ME
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/politics/22cong.html
"One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," Mr. DeLay told a conference organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. . . "This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others," Mr. DeLay said.
More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111151565776566341
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111152055574233979
“Bonfire of the Vanities”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005214
And Tom DeLay, this is truly the last refuge for this man. The cable networks seem not quite to have caught on to the fact that almost every tentacle of the political machine this man has created is now careening toward federal or state indictments. So here he is wrapping himself in the cloth of this family tragedy, in an effort to whip up the most whippable of his supporters in his defense, and in so doing finding the hand of God working in this woman's hospice care and in his own exposure as one of the most corrupt congressional leaders in American history.
Conservatives revolting against the DeLay wing of the party. They realize that Social Security and Schiavo could bring them all down
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/22/142815/577
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/23/171/06297
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111155582080731322
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2539
The “Islamization” of the GOP
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2533
More: http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/schiavo-case-and-islamization-of.html
Who is Randal Terry?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503220001
More voices of moderation and empathy
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/22/frc/index.html
Today, the ever-tasteful Family Research Council said that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore's ruling not to reinstate Schiavo's feeding tube "errs on the side of death," and proceeded to make its case with a helpful comparison using Osama bin Laden. (No, really.) We'll let you do the math on this one.
"Imagine terrorist Osama Bin Laden being put on trial in the United States and sentenced to die a slow, painful death. Now imagine during the appeals process a presiding judge saying, 'continue with the death sentence. If Mr. Bin Laden dies or suffers while I am thinking, then so be it.' Death penalty opponents would be rightfully outraged. Any human being, no matter how despicable, has certain rights -- especially in the U.S. court system. However these same rights are being denied to the innocent Terri Schiavo?"
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/22/15234/6337
The 2000 Republican Platform: "Medical decision-making should be in the hands of physicians and their patients."
The 2004 Republican Platform: "We must attack the root causes of high health care costs by: ... putting patients and doctors in charge of medical decisions."
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/03/23/frists_history_of_pulling_the_plug.html
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), "who has championed the 'rescue' of Terri Schiavo, is a renowned heart surgeon who has pulled the plug on a 'regular basis,'" the New York Daily News reports. But Frist says he "ended life support only when the patient was ruled brain-dead, and he is convinced Schiavo is not brain-dead.". . . After all, he did see video footage of Schiavo.
[NB: A video more than two years old, produced by the Schindlers, of selected random clips edited to appear that Terri is responding to external stimuli]
Go Mark! Mark Kleiman has a brilliant series of posts dissecting the Schiavo case and all the hypocrisies. I can’t clip them all – just go to his site
http://www.markarkleiman.com/
More lies from Scotty on Bush’s 1999 Texas law
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/22/1999law/index.html
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle. . .
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005844
http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1219
Hilarious! Bush pleads for an end to criticisms against his Social Security plan (even though he hasn’t proposed any plan yet, right?)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush23mar23,1,252132.story
At the start of a potentially crucial congressional recess, in which lawmakers will hear from constituents about President Bush's plans to overhaul Social Security, Bush and his allies asked Democrats and AARP on Tuesday to stop attacking their ideas.
More signs of desperation: http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2528
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56812-2005Mar22.html
President Bush's traveling Social Security roadshow passed through Tucson and Denver yesterday, and the lead stories in the local morning papers were more about the razzledazzle and less about the message that Bush is trying to get across.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2115141/fr/rss/
The president has lost on Social Security. How will he handle it?
“StrengtheningSocialSecurity.Gov” site being pulled? (it wasn’t loading this morning)
http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/03/paging_the_gao.html
Considering the .gov url, isn't this site kinda um. . . illegal?
GOP revises its talking points on Social Security (again)
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005838
Thus it was with some pleasure that I received a copy of the House Republican Conference's latest set of talking points on the subject, useful because "you might encounter citizens with questions that are often difficult to answer in simple, understandable language." And, indeed, you might.
Meanwhile, the DC Conventional Opinion Brigade keeps granting legitimacy to the Social Security debate by refusing to acknowledge the rotting corpse in the middle of the room
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005829
(Conservatives are also rebelling against Patriot Act renewal)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23patriot.html
David Brooks (!) slams GOP for sleaze
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/opinion/22brooks.html
Back in 1995, when Republicans took over Congress, a new cadre of daring and original thinkers arose. These bold innovators had a key insight: that you no longer had to choose between being an activist and a lobbyist. You could be both. You could harness the power of K Street to promote the goals of Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich. And best of all, you could get rich while doing it!
More: http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/22/2913/00957
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005211
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005831
Bin Laden was in Tora Bora, Bush Co. knew it, he escaped, and they lied about it
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20050322/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/bin_laden_afghanistan_3
Economists: Bush deficit bigger threat to U.S. than terrorism
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2530
War crimes, cover-up
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2529
U.S. law enforcement agents working at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, concluded that controversial interrogation practices used there by the Defense Department produced intelligence information that was "suspect at best," an FBI agent told a superior in a memo in May last year.
But the Justice Department, which reviewed the memo for national security secrets before releasing it to a civil liberties group in December, redacted the FBI agent's conclusion.
The department, acting after the Defense Department expressed its own views on which portions of the letter should be redacted, also blacked out a separate assertion in the memo that military interrogation practices could undermine future military trials for terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay.
It also withheld a statement by the memo's author that Justice Department criminal division officials were so concerned about the military interrogation practices that they took their complaints to the office of the Pentagon's chief attorney, William J. Haynes II, whom President Bush has nominated to become a federal appellate judge.
http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/03/why_does_the_mi.html
The Pentagon has refused to reopen an investigation into allegations by three Iraqis working for Reuters that they were abused and mistreated by U.S. forces, saying it stood by an initial probe exonerating American troops. . . Reuters says the investigation, during which none of the three was interviewed, was inadequate and should be reopened.
More on the Bolton scandal
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005835
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000389.html
Desperate for new recruits, Guard and Reserve raise age limits (guess those young ‘uns just ain’t rushing to enlist any more, huh?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58028-2005Mar22.html
More GOP redistricting (Georgia)
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/23/05635/4286
Meanwhile, Democrats in places like Illinois, New Mexico and Louisiana pat themselves on the back for "taking the high road", even as Republicans continue their mad power grab unimpeded by any pushback.
Recapture of House in 2006 judged unlikely
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/03/22/status_quo_predicted_in_2006_house_races.html
Freedom of speech? A photo essay
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2524
More on the FEC and political blogs
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/22/155821/232
Bonus item: “I like to get home. I like to remember -- to go back to my roots, where I was from”
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2534
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Courts say no: theocrats DeLay and Santorum claim that Congressional law ORDERED them to issue a temporary restraining order, not just to review the case (so much for separation of powers)
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/23/7253/87248
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111151226189193927
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/22/delay/index.html
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111150749397719003
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/23/schiavo1/index.html
Just after midnight this morning, a federal appeals court in Atlanta dealt another setback to those who want to extend the life of Terri Schiavo. In a 2-1 ruling, judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit refused to issue an order requiring doctors to re-insert the feeding tube that, until Friday, was keeping her alive.
In refusing to grant a temporary restraining order sought by Schiavo's parents, 11th Circuit judges Ed Carnes and Frank Hull -- appointees of Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, respectively -- affirmed the ruling of District Court Judge James Whittemore, who concluded less than 24 hours earlier that Schiavo's parents had not shown that they were likely to prevail on the merits of their claim that Florida courts had denied Schiavo her rights under the U.S. Constitution or other federal law.
Judge Charles Wilson, another Clinton appointee, dissented from the ruling. When Congress adopted emergency legislation, Wilson said, its intent was clear: Congress wanted the federal courts to issue a temporary restraining order requiring the re-insertion of Schiavo's feeding tube in order to keep her alive long enough for a full federal review of her case. "Denial of Plaintiffs’ petition cuts sharply against that intent, which is evident to me from the language of the statute, as well as the swift and unprecedented manner of its enactment," Wilson wrote, repeating, in many ways, the same argument House Majority Leader Tom DeLay made in the press Tuesday afternoon.
But the judges in the majority looked not to the desires of the congressional Republicans but to the text of the law that Congress passed and the president signed. On its face, the law does not require the federal courts to issue a temporary restraining order. Rather, it says that the courts "shall issue such declaratory and injunctive relief as may be necessary to protect" Schiavo's legal rights. If federal judges concluded that those rights had already been protected -- as Whittemore, Carnes and Hull all did -- then no injunction would be "necessary" to protect them further.
As Carnes and Hull explained, their reading of the words of the Schiavo law is buttressed by its legislative history in the U.S. Senate. In order to win unanimous consent for the bill from Senate Democrats, Republicans dropped a provision that would have required the issuance of a temporary restraining order -- a point Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist made perfectly clear in a discussion with Democratic Sen. Carl Levin on the Senate floor last week. Levin said he was opposed to an earlier version of the bill "because I believe Congress should not mandate" that a federal judge issue such an order. Levin then asked Frist whether he "shared" his view that the final version of the bill left the question to the discretion of the federal courts. Frist said:
"I share the understanding of the senator from Michigan, as does the junior senator from Florida who is the chief sponsor of this bill. Nothing in the current bill or its legislative history mandates a stay. I would assume, however, the federal court would grant a stay based on the facts of this case because Mrs. Schiavo would need to be alive in order for the court to make its determination. Nevertheless, this bill does not change current law under which a stay is discretionary."
It’s all about ME
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/politics/22cong.html
"One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," Mr. DeLay told a conference organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. . . "This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others," Mr. DeLay said.
More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111151565776566341
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111152055574233979
“Bonfire of the Vanities”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005214
And Tom DeLay, this is truly the last refuge for this man. The cable networks seem not quite to have caught on to the fact that almost every tentacle of the political machine this man has created is now careening toward federal or state indictments. So here he is wrapping himself in the cloth of this family tragedy, in an effort to whip up the most whippable of his supporters in his defense, and in so doing finding the hand of God working in this woman's hospice care and in his own exposure as one of the most corrupt congressional leaders in American history.
Conservatives revolting against the DeLay wing of the party. They realize that Social Security and Schiavo could bring them all down
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/22/142815/577
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/23/171/06297
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111155582080731322
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2539
The “Islamization” of the GOP
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2533
More: http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/schiavo-case-and-islamization-of.html
Who is Randal Terry?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503220001
More voices of moderation and empathy
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/22/frc/index.html
Today, the ever-tasteful Family Research Council said that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore's ruling not to reinstate Schiavo's feeding tube "errs on the side of death," and proceeded to make its case with a helpful comparison using Osama bin Laden. (No, really.) We'll let you do the math on this one.
"Imagine terrorist Osama Bin Laden being put on trial in the United States and sentenced to die a slow, painful death. Now imagine during the appeals process a presiding judge saying, 'continue with the death sentence. If Mr. Bin Laden dies or suffers while I am thinking, then so be it.' Death penalty opponents would be rightfully outraged. Any human being, no matter how despicable, has certain rights -- especially in the U.S. court system. However these same rights are being denied to the innocent Terri Schiavo?"
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/22/15234/6337
The 2000 Republican Platform: "Medical decision-making should be in the hands of physicians and their patients."
The 2004 Republican Platform: "We must attack the root causes of high health care costs by: ... putting patients and doctors in charge of medical decisions."
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/03/23/frists_history_of_pulling_the_plug.html
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), "who has championed the 'rescue' of Terri Schiavo, is a renowned heart surgeon who has pulled the plug on a 'regular basis,'" the New York Daily News reports. But Frist says he "ended life support only when the patient was ruled brain-dead, and he is convinced Schiavo is not brain-dead.". . . After all, he did see video footage of Schiavo.
[NB: A video more than two years old, produced by the Schindlers, of selected random clips edited to appear that Terri is responding to external stimuli]
Go Mark! Mark Kleiman has a brilliant series of posts dissecting the Schiavo case and all the hypocrisies. I can’t clip them all – just go to his site
http://www.markarkleiman.com/
More lies from Scotty on Bush’s 1999 Texas law
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/03/22/1999law/index.html
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle. . .
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005844
http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1219
Hilarious! Bush pleads for an end to criticisms against his Social Security plan (even though he hasn’t proposed any plan yet, right?)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush23mar23,1,252132.story
At the start of a potentially crucial congressional recess, in which lawmakers will hear from constituents about President Bush's plans to overhaul Social Security, Bush and his allies asked Democrats and AARP on Tuesday to stop attacking their ideas.
More signs of desperation: http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2528
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56812-2005Mar22.html
President Bush's traveling Social Security roadshow passed through Tucson and Denver yesterday, and the lead stories in the local morning papers were more about the razzledazzle and less about the message that Bush is trying to get across.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2115141/fr/rss/
The president has lost on Social Security. How will he handle it?
“StrengtheningSocialSecurity.Gov” site being pulled? (it wasn’t loading this morning)
http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/03/paging_the_gao.html
Considering the .gov url, isn't this site kinda um. . . illegal?
GOP revises its talking points on Social Security (again)
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005838
Thus it was with some pleasure that I received a copy of the House Republican Conference's latest set of talking points on the subject, useful because "you might encounter citizens with questions that are often difficult to answer in simple, understandable language." And, indeed, you might.
Meanwhile, the DC Conventional Opinion Brigade keeps granting legitimacy to the Social Security debate by refusing to acknowledge the rotting corpse in the middle of the room
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005829
(Conservatives are also rebelling against Patriot Act renewal)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23patriot.html
David Brooks (!) slams GOP for sleaze
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/opinion/22brooks.html
Back in 1995, when Republicans took over Congress, a new cadre of daring and original thinkers arose. These bold innovators had a key insight: that you no longer had to choose between being an activist and a lobbyist. You could be both. You could harness the power of K Street to promote the goals of Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich. And best of all, you could get rich while doing it!
More: http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/22/2913/00957
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_20.php#005211
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005831
Bin Laden was in Tora Bora, Bush Co. knew it, he escaped, and they lied about it
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20050322/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/bin_laden_afghanistan_3
Economists: Bush deficit bigger threat to U.S. than terrorism
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2530
War crimes, cover-up
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2529
U.S. law enforcement agents working at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, concluded that controversial interrogation practices used there by the Defense Department produced intelligence information that was "suspect at best," an FBI agent told a superior in a memo in May last year.
But the Justice Department, which reviewed the memo for national security secrets before releasing it to a civil liberties group in December, redacted the FBI agent's conclusion.
The department, acting after the Defense Department expressed its own views on which portions of the letter should be redacted, also blacked out a separate assertion in the memo that military interrogation practices could undermine future military trials for terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay.
It also withheld a statement by the memo's author that Justice Department criminal division officials were so concerned about the military interrogation practices that they took their complaints to the office of the Pentagon's chief attorney, William J. Haynes II, whom President Bush has nominated to become a federal appellate judge.
http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/03/why_does_the_mi.html
The Pentagon has refused to reopen an investigation into allegations by three Iraqis working for Reuters that they were abused and mistreated by U.S. forces, saying it stood by an initial probe exonerating American troops. . . Reuters says the investigation, during which none of the three was interviewed, was inadequate and should be reopened.
More on the Bolton scandal
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/03/index.html#005835
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000389.html
Desperate for new recruits, Guard and Reserve raise age limits (guess those young ‘uns just ain’t rushing to enlist any more, huh?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58028-2005Mar22.html
More GOP redistricting (Georgia)
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/23/05635/4286
Meanwhile, Democrats in places like Illinois, New Mexico and Louisiana pat themselves on the back for "taking the high road", even as Republicans continue their mad power grab unimpeded by any pushback.
Recapture of House in 2006 judged unlikely
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/03/22/status_quo_predicted_in_2006_house_races.html
Freedom of speech? A photo essay
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2524
More on the FEC and political blogs
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/22/155821/232
Bonus item: “I like to get home. I like to remember -- to go back to my roots, where I was from”
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2534
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
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