Priorities

Rolling Stone (via /.):

A review of fines levied by other federal agencies suggests that the government may be taking swear words a bit too seriously. If the bill passes the Senate, Bono saying "fucking brilliant" on the air would carry the exact same penalty as illegally testing pesticides on human subjects. And for the price of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl, you could cause the wrongful death of an elderly patient in a nursing home and still have enough money left to create dangerous mishaps at two nuclear reactors. (Actually, you might be able to afford four "nuke malfunctions": The biggest fine levied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year was only $60,000.)

Never Forget

"Incredibly Positive News''

(That post links to a NYTimes story now requiring a fee. Other sources can be found here.)

Inches and Rope to Right-Wingers?

The Daou Report links to this piece: I believe Bush* will go down in history as being a Liberal Hero:

"I believe Nader was right. Things are going to have to get a lot worse before they get better and Bush* is the man to do that very thing. He will be responsible for the collapse of the Dollar and America's esteem world wide. There will be a backlash and Liberal values will become the Law of the land. We will decide it is in the interest of the USA to take care of it's citizens first and not let Corporate America rule over their lives. America will be on the point of total collapse before Bush*'s second term is done. Republicans will have proved beyond any doubt that they are anything but financial wizards. People are going to get fed up with having Christianity shoved down their throats and the two decade long 'temporary insanity' that has overtaken America will be cured. America has a very bright future and it is all because of this Bush* Cabal. All we have to do is survive him now. This pattern of though is what is keeping me going. Remember 'Every Cloud has a Silver Lining'"

I had a nice reply ready to post here, but the first comment, by "jpgray," said what I was going to say far better and in many fewer words:

Ernst Thalmann thought the same thing.

He died in Buchenwald.

Take these people seriously, and fight them at every opportunity. Don't give them an inch. Don't "give them enough rope." I really don't like to think about right-wingers with ropes -- because more likely than not they will hang YOU.

Watch your backs.

Behind The Republican Anti-Social Security Operation

Over at There Is No Crisis they have just released some research into USA Next, the front group for Social Security privatization. Go take a look at Social Security - Is the privatization scheme just a junk mail operation? The first installment of the research is a 158.63 KB PDF file.

From the blog post introducing the research,

It appears that USA Next, the front group for Social Security privatization, was really just a junk mail and spam operation in disguise to benefit Richard Viguerie in the 1990s. It appears that it was, before becoming a corporate shell for pharmaceutical industry money.

So go have a read.

I did some digging and found a few things to add:

The report says that Texans for Lawsuit Reform, an industry front-group working for "tort reform," is a funder of USA Next. Well, here's a name you'll recognize: Enron's Ken Lay helped start and fund Texans for Lawsuit Reform! See the following, which is footnote 47 from my report The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law:

[47] Ken Lay helping start first tort reform organization in Texas:

Doroshow, Joanne. "'Tort Reform,' Bush and the Enron Connection." Center for Justice and Democracy. January 26, 2002. Viewed September 27, 2003 http://www.centerjd.org/press/release/020126.htm

"Bush, Lay Shielded Errant TX Businesses From Lawsuits." Texans for Public Justice. February 12, 2002. Viewed September 27, 2003 http://www.tpj.org/Lobby_Watch/enrontlr.html

Otto Scott, listed in the report as a former USA Next Boardmember is an interesting name. From Who Is Otto Scott:

The more complex answer is that Otto Scott is one of a great many Americans who are well-known to a special audience, but unknown to the nation at large.

Well, Scott is a member of the secretive Council for National Policy. CNP is an organization that keeps turning up... You can look for info on CNP (and please follow one or two of these links) here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

I also found this about W. H. Regnery, former Boardmember:

W.H. Regnery Sr., patriarch of the nation's premier conservative pubishing house, was one of the principal financiers of the America First movement which advocated an isolationist policy prior to WWII and part of a group that founded the National Review in 1944.

I encourage all of you, especially bloggers, to help out by digging into this yourselves. Post your research at your blog, or in a comment at the There Is No Crisis post, or send your research (or links to your blog posts) to Bob Brigham bob.brigham@gmail.com

$10,000 Reward for info on Jeff Gannon

At Washington Socialites, thanks to Blue Gal in a Red State.

Peek

Have you seen Peek: The Blog Of Blogs?

When Will AARP Respond?

The new anti-AARP smear from the Republicans: (some might try to deflect responsibility and say this is from the drug industry-front USANext, but it is the Republicans, it is a typical Republican tactic, the Republicans are benefiting from it and the Republicans certainly are not denouncing it.):

"AARP? Not For Me!
From bogus surveys designed to promote a hidden liberal agenda to actively promoting liberal causes like gay marriage, the AARP has become one of America's most active liberal lobbies -- at the expense of seniors and their families. As a result, more and more Americans are standing up to the AARP and saying 'enough is enough!' Join the growing grassroots movement and voice your opinion on the AARP!"

By not responding with a fight the management of AARP is allowing their organization to be dragged through the mud by fascist thugs. But it's more than that. Managing an organization as large and important and public as AARP puts them in a position with a certain amount of responsibility for the national discourse. By not responding they are allowing this kind of thug tactic to continue and grow in effect and harm all of us. The Kerry campaign did not respond to the Swift Boat smear, and look where that got them. This is another chance to fight back, and maybe put a dent in the Republican smear machine. AARP has a responsibility to all of us to try to shut this stuff down!

Bloggers, we need a drumbeat on this! Let's see if we can get AARP to respond!

Update - And this.

"Dean Scream" tape a fraud

In a column written for the Miami Herald and reprised at www.tallahassee.com, Edward Wasserman, the Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, revealed how the media used out-of-context video tape of Howard Dean to end his campaign, the same "Dean scream" tape now being repeated ad nausea on television to re-discredit Dean, the new Chair of the Democratic Party.

On the clip shown 700 times after the Iowa caucus, Dean is screaming for no apparent reason, red in the face, his voice breaking, seemingly out of control. His face filled the screen; no supporters were visible. Crowd noise was silenced by a directional microphone which deadened ambient sounds. However on a second clip brought to Wasserman by a young producer, was the same speech taped by a supporter on the floor of the hall. The place was packed. The noise was deafening. Dean was on the podium, but you couldn't hear him, drowned out by his supporters. He was no longer over the top; he was like the coach of a NCAA football team at a pre-championship game rally, trying to rally his team and be heard over the roar of enthusiastic fans.

The Scream tape used by the networks and cable channels was a fraud, but the media establishment has never acknowledged it because it incriminates the entire professional mission of television news, the use of pictures to tell a true story. TV producers don't claim to offer context, just visuals of what really happened. If great footage is profoundly misleading, if it doesn't tell you what really happened, too bad, even if it derails the political career of a great man and serves the interests of one or the other political party.

Progressive bloggers need to get the real tape out and pound on the media that use the misleading one. It is time we put a stop to assassination of Progressive leaders by lies, whether they be spoken or video.

Did you know the US Military is using Jesus on the Cross to recruit? Onward Christian Soldiers.

(Thanks to Steve at Left Coaster)

Average Americans and Average Europeans

Mary has a good post at The Left Coaster: How Healthy is the American Economy?

Depends on what the meaning of "average" is. (That's a statistics/Clinton joke.)

Demonstrating the Problem

Earlier today I posted a piece at American Street. Right-wing trolls have shown up in the comments and demonstrated the problem I wrote about (belief that Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and that we found WMD after invading). Go get them.

Not Even One Republican?

Ted Rall, in BUT WHO WATCHES THE WATCHDOGS?, points out:

"Death threats against liberal pundits are commonplace among, and essentially unique to, the right-wing blogs. And the GOP thinks that's OK. Nowhere can one find a responsible mainstream Republican to speak out against this hate speech."

Can any reader think of even ONE Republican politician who has spoken out against the stuff people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are spewing into America's public discourse?

After McVeigh's bombing in Oklahoma City (egged on by Limbaugh) the Republican Party responded by conducting investigations into Waco and Ruby Ridge -- essentially validating McVeigh's act -- instead of investigating the right-wing militias.

Millions Listen To Three Hours Of Lies Every Day

I have a post at American Street titled Millions Listen To Three Hours Of Lies Every Day

Bloggers, Start Your Drumbeat!

Jerome at MyDD wants to know,

" How many days does a coordinated rightwing onslaught have to continue before the establishment of the Democratic Party responds?"

He's referring to Steve Soto's strategy post, Democrats Should Not Let USA Next Get Away With Smearing The AARP.

Bloggers, start your drumbeat! Let's see if we can get AARP and the Democrats to respond!

Another Smear Circulating

I saw this mentioned by trolls at a couple of blogs, so I looked it up. Rangel: Don't Call it 'Islamic Terrorism',

Top House Democrat Charlie Rangel said Tuesday that it was an act of discrimination to label groups like Hezbollah "Islamic terrorists."

But if you read the story it is NOT what Rangel said, of course. Another lie.

But it fits the narrative that Democrats support terrorists, which is why it is being circulated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/22/opinion/22krugman.html?th&oref=login

Was Bush Giving A Speech?

So I'm glancing at my My.Yahoo page (which is my home page, and which lets me see the headlines of blogs I track), and I look at one of the business wire service headlines. Was Bush just on TV or something? Look at the headlines:

Dollar Falls on Reserve Shift Worries
Oil Surges Over $50 on Winter Chill
Stocks Fall; Crude Jumps $2 a Barrel
Consumer Confidence Eases in February
Winn-Dixie Files for Bankruptcy
Sears' Lands' End to Cut Jobs

And I see that the stock market is down 100 points, too...

Update - Down 146 points now.

Closed down 174.

Gonzales, forgotten, but not gone

I don’t know if this is a good sign or not, but the Washington Post reported that new Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has been out of the White House for less than a month and already the president has forgotten him. At Friday's White House bill signing Bush pointed to a Hispanic man in the front row and said: "I welcome our new attorney general." But the man in the front row was Hector V. Barreto of the Small Business Administration. Realizing something was amiss, Bush turned around and noticed the former White House counsel standing on the stage behind him. "Oh, right there," he said. "How quickly they forget in Washington. Al Gonzales. Proud you're up here, Al."

<>Maybe this memory lapse is related to the revelation in the “Bush tapes” last week that even then Bush was thinking of the former Attorney General (what was his name?) as a potential member of a future Bush team, possibly on the Supreme Court (whew, hopefully we have dodged that bullet). Or maybe it is related to the Republicans naked opportunistic ploy for Hispanic votes in pushing torture supporter Gonzales for AG.

Dangerous

Another example of the dangerous direction the Right is taking us, from Heritage's TownHall (Heritage is the hub of the modern Republican Party), Dennis Prager: Liberal feeling vs. Judeo-Christian values: Part VI. First, he goes after the enlightenment,

"Instead of being guided by God, the Bible and religion, great numbers -- in Western Europe, the great majority -- have looked elsewhere for moral and social guidelines. ... With the ascendancy of leftist values that has followed the decline of Judeo-Christian religion, personal feelings have supplanted universal standards. In fact, feelings are the major unifying characteristic among contemporary liberal positions."

Then he advocates war as the preferred solution to problems,

"Aside from reliance on feelings, how else can one explain a person who believes, let alone proudly announces on a bumper sticker, that "War is not the answer"? I know of no comparable conservative bumper sticker that is so demonstrably false and morally ignorant. Almost every great evil has been solved by war..."

Then vegetarians,

"The animals-and-humans-are-equivalent movement is based entirely on feelings. People see chickens killed and lobsters boiled, feel for the animals, and shortly thereafter abandon thought completely, and equate chicken and lobster suffering to that of a person under the same circumstances."

Then gays,

"The unprecedented support of liberals for radically redefining the basic institution of society, marriage and the family is another a product of feelings -- sympathy for homosexuals. Thinking through the effects of such a radical redefinition on society and its children is not a liberal concern."

Then against self-esteem,

"The "self-esteem movement" -- now conceded to have been a great producer of mediocrity and narcissism -- was entirely a liberal invention based on feelings for kids."

Then against laws protecting women from sexual harassment,

"Sexual harassment laws have created a feelings-industrial complex. The entire concept of "hostile work environment" is feelings based. If one woman resents a swimsuit calendar on a co-worker's desk, laws have now been passed whose sole purpose is to protect her from having uncomfortable feelings."

Against non-Christians,

"Almost everything is affected by liberal feelings. For example, liberal opposition to calling a Christmas party by its rightful name is based on liberals' concern that non-Christians will feel bad. And for those liberals, nothing else matters -- not the legitimate desire of the vast majority of Americans to celebrate their holiday, let alone the narcissism of those non-Christians "offended" by a Christmas party."

And more of that kind of stuff. He concludes,

"And that, in a nutshell, is what our culture war is about -- Judeo-Christian values versus liberal/leftist feelings."

Remember, people like this are paid, and paid well to put out this kind of stuff. It is designed to reinforce a "narrative" - an overriding story in which specific things don't even have to be true, as long as they ride along with the larger script. Liberals hate God, aren't patriotic, etc.

Also at TownHall today, Cal Thomas says it is time to close the mosques in the U.S.

Dangerous

Another example of the dangerous diretion the Right is taking us, from Heritage's TownHall (Heritage is the hub of the modern Repubican Party), Dennis Prager: Liberal feeling vs. Judeo-Christian values: Part VI. First, he goes after the enlightenment,

"Instead of being guided by God, the Bible and religion, great numbers -- in Western Europe, the great majority -- have looked elsewhere for moral and social guidelines.

For many millions in the twentieth century, those guidelines were provided by Marxism, Communism, Fascism or Nazism. For many millions today, those guidelines are … feelings. With the ascendancy of leftist values that has followed the decline of Judeo-Christian religion, personal feelings have supplanted universal standards. In fact, feelings are the major unifying characteristic among contemporary liberal positions."

Then he advocates war as the preferred solution to problems,

"Aside from reliance on feelings, how else can one explain a person who believes, let alone proudly announces on a bumper sticker, that "War is not the answer"? I know of no comparable conservative bumper sticker that is so demonstrably false and morally ignorant. Almost every great evil has been solved by war..."

Then vegetarians,

"The animals-and-humans-are-equivalent movement is based entirely on feelings. People see chickens killed and lobsters boiled, feel for the animals, and shortly thereafter abandon thought completely, and equate chicken and lobster suffering to that of a person under the same circumstances."

Then gays,

"The unprecedented support of liberals for radically redefining the basic institution of society, marriage and the family is another a product of feelings -- sympathy for homosexuals. Thinking through the effects of such a radical redefinition on society and its children is not a liberal concern."

Then against self-esteem,

"The "self-esteem movement" -- now conceded to have been a great producer of mediocrity and narcissism -- was entirely a liberal invention based on feelings for kids."

Then against laws protecting women from sexual harrassment,

"Sexual harassment laws have created a feelings-industrial complex. The entire concept of "hostile work environment" is feelings based. If one woman resents a swimsuit calendar on a co-worker's desk, laws have now been passed whose sole purpose is to protect her from having uncomfortable feelings."

Against non-Christians,

"Almost everything is affected by liberal feelings. For example, liberal opposition to calling a Christmas party by its rightful name is based on liberals' concern that non-Christians will feel bad. And for those liberals, nothing else matters -- not the legitimate desire of the vast majority of Americans to celebrate their holiday, let alone the narcissism of those non-Christians "offended" by a Christmas party."

And more of that kind of stuff. He concludes,

"And that, in a nutshell, is what our culture war is about -- Judeo-Christian values versus liberal/leftist feelings."

Remember, people like this are paid, and paid well to put out this kind of stuff. It is designed to reiforce a "narrative" - an overriding story in which specific things don't even have to be true, as long as they ride along with the larger script. Liberals hate God, aren't patriotic, etc.

Checks and Balances and the "F-Word"

Is there enough going on to make you nervous yet? The Vice President of the United States was the keynote speaker at a conference where other speakers called for "a new McCarthyism" to bring "terror" to intellectuals, saying "let's oppress them [liberals]," and "the entire Harvard faculty" are "traitors." A Congressman said, "America's Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd," ? Then he said, "We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq."

Meanwhile, right-wing commentators talk about killing American journalists, their premier blogs talk about former president Carter as being on the side of the enemy and leftists have "seamlessly taken up the cause of Islamic fascism". I have provided only a few examples.

When you hear threatening talk like this, in the company of the country's leadership, you know that whatever comes next isn't going to be pleasant. Things do not appear to be heading in a good direction at all. If you have been following this in the blogs, you know that more and more people are becomming concerned that the Right's rhetoric is growing ever more violent and totalitarian. Serious people have started referring to the "f-word." (See also here, here, here, here and many other places.)

Oliver Willis writes,

You cannot deal with that sort of ideology in any sort of accomodationist manner. Liberals need to understand this, from Democratic senators in Washington who still ? still ? refuse to vote their conscience out of some sense of loyalty to a long-dead notion of civility in Washington, to progressive pundits who actually believe that their right-wing counterparts in the nation's media are actually there for a give-and-take rather than a chance to paint everyone to the left of Joe Lieberman as a terrorist sympathizer.

[. . .] Wake up, folks. We're in an ideological war with these folks and the sooner you realize that the better. The goal of the modern conservative movement, as embodied by George W. Bush, is not just a simple majority of conservative thought – rather, it is the elimination of everything but conservative thought.

I think we are entering a new phase of American history. These are not normal times, the pendulum is not swinging back, and historical trends of American politics no longer apply. American democracy was built on a system of checks and balances, and mechanisms of oversight and accountability. But the checks and balances and oversight and accountability are being removed. There is no Congressional oversight of this administration, the Justice Department does not investigate its crimes, the Federalist Society judges block all attempts to enforce the laws and the new media is no longer functional. The military acts as an arm of The Party and The Party is firmly in control of the State. The system of controls and protections that was carefully built over the last two centuries was put in place for reasons, by people who learned the lessons of history. I can not think of a time in history when a society left itself so wide open to tyranny from its leadership without it occurring.

They're lowballing the casualty reports

Susan Madrak of Suburban Guerrilla has an interesting project in the works. Here's her description:

Today I'm going to do something a little bit like journalism, except I haven't done any real follow-up. Still, it's an important issue, and I'd like any Google maestros reading to help.

Go to your local newspaper site, or TV station site, and do a search for "local man woman killed wounded Iraq". Weed out the duplicates, total the numbers, and then check them against the casualty lists, because there's something funny going on here.

I started to notice something several months ago. The local papers would interview the mother of someone killed or wounded in Iraq, and more often than not, there'd be a bitter aside: "Of course, for some reason, he's not included in the official totals."

Somehow, that struck a chord. And the thought crystallized: They're lying about the numbers. Think about it - it's absurd to think they wouldn't, considering everything else they've done.

A lot of the stuff she found is up at her site right now. Just one example:

Today, Schneider walks with a limp, on his artificial leg. But even though he was injured during a military mission in a shooting war zone, he is not included in the Pentagon’s casualty count. Their official tally shows only deaths and wounded in action. It doesn't include "non-combat" injured, those whose injuries were not the result of enemy fire.

MORE:

232+ civilian contractors dead

Thousands of green card troops (some say that their deaths are not reported either; not in this report).

I Work With...

One of the google ads was for this site, and it's funny: iWorkWithFools.com - Anonymously Share Work Related Stories. Which led me to Customers Suck!, I Quit! and BossHoles.com ("Bosses behaving badly")

http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2005/02/in-memoriamtoday-im-going-to-do.html

http://www.honestchief.com/ (Alterman)

http://www.bornagaindemocrats.com/blog/

A Hunter S. Thompson Random Reader

Rox Populi : The Good Doctor is Out