Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says, “A strong dollar is clearly in our nation’s interest and I feel very good today about the strength of the U.S. economy,” as the U.S. dollar hit a 20-month low against the Euro

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who said in London Tuesday, “A strong dollar is clearly in our nation’s interest and I feel very good today about the strength of the U.S. economy,” as the U.S. dollar hit a 20-month low against the Euro. Treasury secretaries are not paid for their candor, but Paulson’s rejection of our current reality won’t bolster his credibility with either our trading partners or the new Democratic-led Congress. Our current account deficit — the broadest measure of international trade — is on track to approach $1 trillion this year. And our current account deficit is almost 7 percent of our nation’s gross domestic product, considerably above the threshold at which Federal Reserve studies have acknowledged our economy must make policy adjustments or face major financial crisis. We’re borrowing about $3 billion a day just to pay for our imports, and our trade debt now stands at $5 trillion.

The Washington Post doesn’t label the incredible amount of violence in Iraq a “civil war” because government officials won’t
Am I missing something here or are they getting an Armstrong Williams check or committing negligent journalism?
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Texas Ethics Commission has no ethics
A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as “currency” without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday. The 5-3 decision outraged watchdog groups and some officials who accused the commission of failing to enforce state campaign finance laws. “What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas. We call on the commission to resign en masse,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, who heads Texas Citizen, an Austin-based group that advocates for campaign finance reform.

A German says he was kidnapped three years ago, held by the CIA and tortured for months in Afghanistan
“I want to know why this was done to me,” said Khaled el-Masri, a 43-year-old German of Lebanese origin. “I would like an explanation and an apology.” “The claim that this was a case of mixed identity is absolutely absurd,” he said at a news conference. “They didn’t even accuse me of anything.”

US Government Falsely Accused Terror Suspect
A Oregon lawyer who was wrongfully arrested and detained by the U.S. government as a suspect in the 2004 Madrid train bombing because of a bungled fingerprint match. Under the terms of an agreement with the government, Brandon Mayfield – who has said his conversion to Islam made him a target – will still be able to pursue a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Patriot Act. The settlement also required the government to admit that it monitored Mayfield’s phone and e-mail communications and conducted secret searches of his home and office.

Cheney Shuts Down Sections Of Florida Interstate To Go Hunting

Regards,

Jim

Newt Gingrich said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism
Gingrich talked up limiting free speech at the annual Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment award dinner, which fetes people and organizations that stand up for freedom of speech.

Carbon emissions show sharp rise
The Global Carbon Project says that emissions were rising by less than 1% annually up to the year 2000, but are now rising at 2.5% per year.

Bush Wants $500 Million To Build His Legacy Library
(The Clinton Presidential Library cost $165 million)

Republican committee chairman assured student loan bankers that their interests (not the students’) were in “two trusted hands”
The college student loan industry has been so well connected in the Republican-controlled Congress that a powerful committee chairman once assured its bankers and other financiers that their interests were in “two trusted hands.” That’s set to change, however, as incoming Democratic lawmakers have likened the bankers to usurers and promised to “throw them out of the temple of higher education.” Democrats say that one of their first acts will be to cut interest rates on federally backed student loans from 6.8% to 3.4%.

The GAO says much of the $388 billion spent on contracts last year was exposed to “potential waste and misuse”
After riding high for five years, government contractors are bracing themselves for increased oversight, tighter budgets and stepped-up regulations as Democrats take over on Capitol Hill and vow to keep a closer eye on how companies spend taxpayer dollars. Every company that does business with the government could feel the impact, but contractors that benefited most from work in Iraq and Afghanistan, from homeland security initiatives or from Hurricane Katrina are especially likely to be under the microscope. Big-ticket weapons programs are also expected to garner special attention, and it may become more difficult to get a no-bid contract, according to industry observers.

Regards,

Jim

Turkey of the Year Award Goes to Shelly Sekula-Gibbs

Fun With Shelley, Part XVII
Sekula-Gibbs had said in an interview that the deaths of 2,800 Americans in Iraq needed to be put “in perspective” because after all, 9,000 Americans were killed each year by illegal immigrants, according to the General Accounting Office. Seeing as how only 16,000 Americans are murdered each year, that seemed like those dadgum illegals were being very, very busy. So we called the GAO. They were baffled. “I’m trying to think how she got there,” says Rich Stana, the GAO’s director for homeland security and justice issues. So where did Sekula-Gibbs get her 9,000-deaths-a-year figure? Not from the GAO, as it turns out.

National Science Teachers Association Won’t Show An Inconvenient Truth,” but take funding from Exxon Mobil

U. S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings loses on Jeopardy to ‘Lenny’ from the television show “Laverne and Shirley”

U.S. involved longer in Iraq war than World War II

Rumsfeld OK’d prison abuses, ex-general alleges

Memo Says Drug Companies Fear Democratic Congress, Lament Loss of Santorum
A post-election internal memo at one pharmaceutical company illustrates an industry-wide concern that the good times may be coming to an end as the author writes “we now have fewer allies in the Senate”. The memo says the loss of Republican Rick Santorum “creates a big hole we need to fill”, while the ascendance of senators-elect Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown are expected to create problems for the industry. In other words, the power has shifted from the big drug companies to the people.

Regards,

Jim

John Dean described the makeup of authoritarian conservatism as follows:

Two factions of conservatism currently embrace a contemporary adaptation of authoritarian conservatism: neoconservatives and social conservatives. Neoconservatives are a relatively small group of social-dominance authoritarians, with significant, if not disproportionate influence. Social conservatives, whose core members are Christian conservatives, comprise the largest and most cohesive faction of conservatism. They are, by and large, typically right-wing authoritarian followers.

As to their determination, Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute, one of the leading architects of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, wrote the following in a recent editorial:

… Neoconservatism isn’t dead; it can be renovated and returned to prominence, because, even today, it remains unrivaled as a guiding principle for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond. [So they say.]

… we held a broader definition of U.S. security, believing that aggression and mayhem anywhere could eventually reach America’s doorstep. [Sounds like a restatement of the old domino theory used to perpetuate the Vietnam War.]

… If democracy had shown its potency in discouraging war elsewhere, it stood to reason that it also could be a cure to terrorism in the Middle East. [Even if it has to be forced on them by the "infidels."]

Until someone comes up with better ideas …, the neocon strategy of trying to transform the Middle East, however blemished, remains without alternative. No doubt, the results of the midterm elections will produce some course corrections (as Rumsfeld has discovered). But neocon ideas are unlikely to be jettisoned — either by Bush or his successor — until a viable replacement is found. So far, there is none. [What about treating terrorism as criminal acts and using crime fighting resources?]

In another article Mr. Muravchik had this to say, “WE MUST bomb Iran.”

In 2005, Jimmy Carter said this about the neoconservatives in Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis, they “now seem to embrace aggressive and unilateral intervention in foreign affairs, especially to advance U.S. military and political influence in the Middle East.”

John Dean provided the following quote on neoconservatives from Philip Gold, a former Georgetown University professor. They are “a new aristocracy of aggression that combines 19th-century Prussian pigheadedness with a most un-Prussian inability to read a man or a ledger book, and a near total lack of military – let alone combat – experience. Ask these people to show you their wounds and they’ll probably wave a Washington Post editorial at you.”

So, be wary of neocons and anything related to the American Enterprise Institute.

In Power and Absolute Power – What Concerns Me Most, I stated, “Neither political extreme is good for Texas or the country, but the extreme we are headed for this time is a place our founding fathers knew well. They lived in an extreme environment of theocracies and took extreme action to separate the new world from that world. So, what has changed to bring us back so close to where ‘we’ started?” Andrew Sullivan provided part of the answer with this quote from Senator Barry Goldwater:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

This quote is from the preface to John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience. When Senator Goldwater made this statement to John Dean in 1994, John was in the process of figuring out what had happened to their conservative ideology and the Republican party over the previous 30 years. John eventually documented his findings in Conservatives Without Conscience.

What John Dean found was more than conservatives “acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise.” He found that there was a very dangerous personality type behind these Conservatives Without Conscience: authoritarians.

Month to Month Change

In this fourteenth survey of the web, The WAWG Index group average was down by 8.1 percent from October 2006. Of the fourteen categories tracked, 11 were down, 3 were up, and 1 was unchanged. The cumulative change for the index is up 222 percent since October 2005.

The largest decrease for November, at 39%, was for “disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.” The largest increase was for “rampant sexism” at 31%.

Twelve Month Moving Average

Through November, the 12 month group moving average for all fourteen categories was at 19.6 percent. It was 19.2 percent last month. Of the fourteen categories tracked, 3 had twelve month averages that were down while 11 were up.

Six Muslim scholars Removed from a US Airways flight after reciting daily prayers
A passenger raised concerns about the imams — three of whom said their normal evening prayers in the airport terminal before boarding the Phoenix-bound plane, according to one — through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways.

Salon’s Top Ten Republican Dirty Deeds of 2006

News Corp. (FOX News Parent) Accused of Hush Money Offer
The O.J. Simpson book saga took another twist Tuesday when O.J.’s former sister-in-law, Denise Brown, accused the media company behind the project of trying to buy her family’s silence for “millions of dollars.”

U. S. Government Ends Hunger by Renaming It
The federal government has decided to drop the word “hunger” from its vocabulary, according to a new report released by the USDA. The USDA will now use the term “very low food security” to describe people who used to be considered “food insecure with hunger.” Statistically speaking, hunger will no longer exist in America.

Outgoing Republican Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Says Don’t Worry About Global Warming Because ‘God’s Still Up There’
In an interview on Fox News, outgoing Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works James Inhofe (R-OK) argued that the current wave of unprecedented warming is due to “natural changes.” “God’s still up there,” Inhofe said, and to the extent there is warming going on, it is “due to the sun.” Watch the video:

Regards,

Jim

Shelley Sekula-Gibbs’ kills her chances for ’08
In less than a week, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs’ star has been badly tarnished by an odd series of actions, and she’s been lampooned on Web sites, talk radio and in gossip columns. Though the punch lines will quickly fade, political insiders say Sekula-Gibbs has done serious — if not irreparable — damage to her hopes of reclaiming the 22nd Congressional District seat in two years.

Former Tom DeLay Chief of Staff Says of Shelly Sekula-Gibbs: “Never has any member of Congress treated us with as much disrespect and unprofessionalism as we witnessed during those five days.”

Democrats Split on How Far to Go With Ethics Law
The answer should be obvious: All the way! Write or call your Congresspeople and tell them you want full ethical behavior, and no going easy on anyone who is not fully ethical.

FOX News’ Parent Corporation To Publish OJ’s “Confession” Book, and Promotes it on FOX
The accused but unconvicted killer and the attention-hungry pulp publisher have teamed up to create a product lacking in taste and decency. Then they play money games so that the victims’ relatives will not get any of they money owed them

UPDATE: UNDER PRESSURE, FOX CANCELS OJ BOOK, TV SPECIAL
See, you can get FOX to change. So keep it up and get them to become a real news channel.

Republican Fundraiser Sentenced to 18 Years in Prison
Tom Noe, the one-time prominent Republican fundraiser convicted last week of looting Ohio’s workman compensation fund, was sentenced today to 18 years in prison, to be served in addition to a two-year, three-month sentence imposed in September on federal charges of illegally funneling money to President Bush’s reelection campaign.
Noe refused 10-year term in plea deal

Conservative writes, “WE MUST bomb Iran.”
Joshua Muravchik of the conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, writes in the Los Angeles Times, “WE MUST bomb Iran.” Other members of this think tank include Dick Cheney, Lynne Chaney (the V. P.’s wife) and Newt Gingrich.

Cheney Likes the Military Option on Iran
Cheney said that if the Democrats won on November 7th, the Vice-President said, that victory would not stop the Administration from pursuing a military option with Iran. The White House would put “shorteners” on any legislative restrictions, Cheney said, and thus stop Congress from getting in its way. (Hey, what do you think we’re running here, some kind of constitutional democracy? We don’t need no stinkin’ Congress!)

Imprisoned Vid-Blogger Josh Wolf Denied Request For Hearing, Bail
Wolf, a 24-year old, who was jailed for refusing to turn over film that he shot at a protest in San Francisco in July 2005 and testify about its contents, has already served 88 days in jail. Now, he could be kept in prison until the expiration of the grand jury in July.

Regards,

Jim

President Bush has been taking exception to our laws by using signing statements and to our Constitution by eliminating part of it. All the while, the Republican Congress has been sparing the rod and spoiling the child and letting him get away with anything.

But finally, the majority of voters have taken a stand and told them all, “Enough!”

Does this mean the Administration or its authoritarian leaders are going to listen to the voters or that voters were only concerned about one issue? Not likely.

ARE THEY REALLY LISTENING TO US?
The 2006 midterm election was an important first step in fixing all the things wrong with our broken government. However, there is a segment of the population that has other plans they want to implement and they are very goal-oriented and determined. John Dean provides the following quote from Bob Altemeyer on the right-wing authoritarian (RWA) followers that helped elect our current authoritarian social dominators (underline added for emphasis): “Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed, and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship [single-party state] and probably feel that things had improved as a result. … And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.” Here is how the Washington Post described the election results, “With fewer moderates, Republicans are less likely to feel pressure to bow to the wishes of moderates”

Since the RWAs cannot let go and since their social dominator leaders still need them to support their common authoritarian agenda – a single-party state, the Administration is only pretending to respond to the election. The President has done this by finally allowing Don Rumsfeld to take another bullet for the Administration. The same tactic was used the last time the Administration was in trouble. Then they sacrificed I. Scooter Libby for the Valerie Plame leak.

As was stated in John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience, “… All of the key staff people close to Bush and Cheney have very long relationships with them. These have been mutually beneficial relationships. Stated differently, Bush and Cheney are protected by staff who will take a bullet for them. That, I believe, is precisely what Scotter Libby is doing for Dick Cheney regarding the Valerie Plame leak, and if he goes down, he knows that Cheney will take care of him …. ”

So, the President and others are blaming the loss of the election on one issue – Iraq, and are therefore providing a quick fix to satisfy our instant gratification needs. In the meantime, they are ignoring the rest of the message behind the election.

WHAT ELSE NEEDS ATTENTION?
Fixing all that is broken in our government is not just about firing Rumsfeld and pretending to ask for outside advice on the mess in Iraq.

It’s about replacing preemptive attacks on non-democratic, possibly threatening, countries with the promotion of peace between warring middle eastern factions so they can choose a future that won’t foster internal conflict and terrorism.

It’s about replacing fear mongering with sanity and the cooperation of citizens and local, state, national and international intelligence organizations to protect us from terrorism.

It’s about replacing tax cuts for the rich, government spending beyond its means, and robbing the future of our children with paying our own way, bettering the middle class and reducing our dependency on international financing to fund our national debt.

It’s about stopping the redacting of the Constitution, i.e., eliminating habeas corpus, and modernizing our existing laws through cooperation between the Administration and Congress.

It’s about keeping prayer, and probably eventually Bible study, out of the public schools and maintaining our right to choose any religion or no religion at all and keeping religion in the appropriate religious facility.

It’s about keeping only Christian icons out of government facilities and promoting religious tolerance.

It’s about replacing efforts to ban flag burning or intervening in family life and death decisions with non-nationalistic solutions to real national problems like health care.

It’s about leaving decisions on abortion or the right to life to the rule of law – not the rule of religious beliefs.

It’s about an independent judiciary that follows the rule of law not the rule of the mob.

Its about replacing those who violate their oath of office and ignore laws passed by Congress with those who will “protect and defend” the rules laid out in or derived from our Constitution.

It’s about undoing the party-oriented structure of the House of Representatives created by Newt Gingritch and returning it to the pre-1994 seniority oriented structure.

It’s about keeping an eye on our government representatives and not letting them manipulate us with the issue of the hour.

It’s about keeping control of our nation’s future out of the hands of an authoritarian minority and reinstating bipartisan efforts to do what’s best for the whole of the country.

WHAT DO OTHERS THINK?
Some are more optimistic about this mid-term election. For example, Paul Krugman’s article in the New York Times, put it this way:

… I do hope and believe that this election marks the beginning of the end for the conservative movement that has taken over the Republican Party.

But we may be seeing the downfall of movement conservatism [authoritarianism] — the potent alliance of wealthy individuals, corporate interests and the religious right that took shape in the 1960s and 1970s.

Similarly, Jacob Weisberg’s article at Slate.com is optimistic:

Karl Rove’s dream is dying. This is happening for reasons that have nothing to do with Valerie Plame.

Rove’s dream was to reshape American politics by creating a durable Republican majority.

… In Rove’s alliance, the rich provide the cash, and religious conservatives provide the votes.

Notice that both Krugman and Weisberg reference wealth and the religious right as the key to the past successes of the Republican party.

I’m more inclined to agree with George F. Will’s article,

Subsequent elections will reveal whether this election is a harbinger of a new and chronic Republican weakness. For nearly two generations — since the Democratic Party fractured over Vietnam in 1968 and nominated George McGovern in 1972 — the Republican Party has benefitted from a presumption of superior realism regarding the essential presidential competence, national security. Time — actually, 2008 — will tell if Iraq will do the kind of lingering damage to the Republican Party that was done by the Depression, which made the party suspect for a generation regarding the conduct of domestic policy.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

DeLay’s staff all resign after a series of confrontations with Shelley Sekula-Gibbs
DeLay’s staff members all resigned from their positions in the office of Texas’s 22nd district after a series of confrontations with Sekula-Gibbs. “It started when she got to the office Thursday,” said one source. The staffers, say the source, “came to the realization that this was a boss they did not want to work for.”

Shelly in a Snit; She Can’t Understand Why Others Don’t Know How Important She Is
The woman who was sworn in this week as the interim Republican successor to ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was, shall we say, not a hit with holdover DeLay aides.

She showed up to take over DeLay’s old office on Thursday and, according to sources familiar the office dynamics, was “mean” to the staff. On Tuesday, at her new Member’s open-house reception in the office, sources charged that she was less than pleased that neither President Bush nor Vice President Cheney showed up with the rest of the welcome wagon, despite the fact that others who stopped by included Texas GOP Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn and Texas GOP Reps. Kevin Brady and Michael Burgess. (Apparently, according to sources, she was under the impression that the president of the United States would be there to greet the seven-week Congresswoman.)

Shelly Gets Revved Up, then Shuts Down the House
Shelley Sekula-Gibbs was sworn in as a congresswoman on Monday night and already she’s a lame duck.
I’m working hard to accomplish the things I’m working for,” she said yesterday. “For tax cuts. For immigration reform. To make sure we have a good solution for the war in Iraq.”

All that? In a few weeks?
There, after being sworn in, she addressed her distinguished colleagues: “I look forward to getting to know each of you and working on the initiatives that will help strengthen our country.”

Getting to know all 434 of them? That’s a lot to do in a few weeks.
In the next hour, Sekula-Gibbs cast three votes. The first was on a bill to “suspend the rules and agree to the Senate amendment” to something called the Trail of Tears Study Act. She stuck her brand-new voting card into a machine and voted yes. Then she looked up at the big screen behind the House speaker’s desk and saw a little green light appear next to her name.

It was a courageous vote for Sekula-Gibbbs. If she ever runs for office again, that vote could inspire a vicious attack ad. It’s not hard to imagine it: The worst photo ever taken of Sekula-Gibbs appears on the TV screen and an ominous voice says, ” She voted to suspend the rules of Congress . . . ”

When the voting ended, Sekula-Gibbs rose to make the first official motion of her congressional career: “Mr. Speaker,” she said, “I move that the House now adjourn.”

Wow, what a change! From a promise of accomplishing lots of things to motioning to take the rest of the day off!

Fox News memo written by the network’s Vice President of news reveals that Fox is a propaganda machine
Fox News internal memo says, “Be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a dem controlled congress.” This memo makes it clear that Fox News is working a political agenda rather than reporting the news.

Fox News Show Does Exactly What the Networks Vice-President’s memo said to do
During the “Live Desk” show that aired the same day as the memo, MacCallum claimed without providing any details or sources that there were “some reports of cheering in the streets on the behalf of the supporters of the insurgency in Iraq, that they’re very pleased with the way things are going here and also with the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld.”

Bush Reappoints Broadcasting Chief Who Used Public Funds To Promote Conservative Programming
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson was nominated again as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and for a term on the board expiring Aug. 13, 2007. A report by the State Department’s inspector general, released Aug. 29, said Tomlinson misused government funds for two years as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Tomlinson signed invoices worth about $245,000 for a friend without the knowledge of other board members or staff, used the board’s office resources to support his private horse racing operation and overbilled the organization for his time, according to the report. On a few occasions, the report said, he billed for the same time worked on both the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, on whose board he was a member until resigning in November 2005.

CIA Acknowledges Bush Authorized Secret Prisons
In a letter sent by CIA lawyers last Friday to the ACLU, the agency acknowledged for the first time the existence of two classified documents guiding its interrogation and detention of terror suspects, including a directive signed by President Bush that authorizes the CIA to establish secret prisons on foreign soil.

Justice Dept. Brief on Detention Policy May allow Arrest of Legal Immigrants
Justice Department lawyers argued before a federal court this week that the new Military Commissions Act allows the government to detain any foreign national declared to be an enemy combatant, even if he is arrested and imprisoned inside the United States. Critics warn that interpretation raises the possibility that any of the millions of immigrants living legally in the country could be subject to indefinite detention and the suspension of all rights.

With Key Vote Approaching, White House Still Hasn’t Released Intelligence on India’s Nuclear Program
Last January, Congressional leaders requested a secret intelligence assessment of India’s nuclear program and its ties to Iran amid concerns about a White House effort to provide nuclear technology to New Delhi. Ten months later, as the Senate prepares to vote on nuclear trade with India, the intelligence assessment has yet to be seen on Capitol Hill. For the Bush administration, the deal is part of a strategy to accelerate India’s rise as a regional counterweight to China. In July, the House voted in favor of a similar bill. Lawmakers did not know at the time that the Bush administration was planning to sanction two Indian firms for selling missile parts to Iran — a fact that seemed to undercut administration assurances that India’s nonproliferation record is excellent. India and Iran “appear to have engaged in very limited nuclear, chemical and missile related transfers over the years.”

Glen Beck tells first Muslim elected to Congress, “Prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.”
On the November 14 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck interviewed Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), who became the first Muslim ever elected to Congress on November 7, and asked Ellison if he could “have five minutes here where we’re just politically incorrect and I play the cards up on the table.” After Ellison agreed, Beck said: “I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.’ ” Beck added: “I’m not accusing you of being an enemy, but that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.”

Regards,

Jim