Bad Deeds for 5-4-07

During Presidential Candidate Debate, Republicans Profess Their Love for War – Republican White House contenders offered strong support for the war in Iraq but voiced qualms about the Bush administration’s management of the war during a quiet first debate on Thursday, uniformly calling for “victory”, while, in true White House style, neglecting to describe how that might be achieved or even what it would constitute.

During Presidential Debate, Republican Candidates Brownback, Tancredo and Huckabee Say They Don’t Believe in Evolution

Bill O’Reilly Uses Derogatory Names Every 6.8 Seconds – A new study by Indiana University media researchers finds that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly calls “a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.” Researchers found that O’Reilly “was prone to inject fear into his commentaries and quick to resort to name-calling.

Bush Doesn’t Listen Because He Says That He’s the Commander Guy – At a speech to the Associated General Contractors of America, Bush said, “The question is, who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders? As you know, my position is clear – I’m the commander guy.” Commander Guy Bush has made it clear that he is opposed to timelines, and even benchmarks (especially since the benchmarks his administration set up a long time ago were never met.). “Yet in 1999, on June 5, then-Governor Bush said about President Clinton, ‘I think it’s important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they would be withdrawn.'” Bush thinks a timeline is required for Democratic presidents, but not for Republicans? Given that tens of thousands of Iraqis and Americans are dying for this hypocrisy, it merits more than passing notice.

Pelosi calls out Bush for 1999 statement on timetable

Halliburton Did Business with Terrorist States – On Monday, the Senate Oversight Committee held a hearing dealing with Halliburton and their exploitation of a loophole in U.S. law that allowed the company to use foreign subsidiaries in order to do business with terrorist states – namely, Iran.

Colorado Elections IT Manager Selling Voter Data to Republicans – An IT manager for Colorado’s state-wide voter database has been selling “targeted voter data” through a “GOP Campaign help” web site at PoliticalLiveWires.com. According to his online resume, Dan Kopelman is currently “Elections Technology Manager” with “oversight and guidance of the State Wide Voter Database” in the office of Colorado’s newly elected Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman.

Cummins Confirms Justice Dept. Used Pregnancy As Excuse To Appoint Griffin – Do they not understand the concept of discrimination?

Another Example of Another Unqualified Bush Political Appointee and the Harm They Do – Bradley Schlozman was the most aggressively political of the political appointees in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. And the administration installed him as the U.S. attorney in a key swing state in an election year. Bob Kengle, who joined the division in 1984, said that Schlozman would change performance evaluations for lawyers and analysts who disagreed with him. Joe Rich, the former chief of the voting section, had a similar experience with Schlozman. “He was universally despised by career people. He was the most disdainful and vitriolic guy I’ve ever dealt with, and he had it in for everybody.” Rich described Schlozman as “very central” in the department’s hiring. As I reported earlier this week, Schlozman apparently gauged potential recruits by whether they were active Republicans. Rich and Kengle left the division together in 2005. “I reached my personal breaking point,” Kengle said. At the Civil Rights Division, Schlozman, who oversaw the voting section, was responsible for pushing through two of the most controversial decisions: approving Tom DeLay’s 2003 Texas redistricting and the 2005 Georgia voter I.D. law.

The First Refugees of Global Warming – Bangladesh watches in horror as much of the nation gives way to sea.

Two Australian Cities Running Out of Drinking Water Due to Climate Change – The Queensland town of Killarney currently has its drinking water trucked in, at a cost of some $8000 per week. Eight grand a week for a town of less than 2,000 people. Senior state bureaucrats have also discussed the possibility of moving residents from Leyburn, population 200.

Glenn Beck’s Global Warming Special Dominated by Industry-Funded “Experts” and Serial Misinformers – CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck’s May 2 hour-long special, Exposed: The Climate of Fear. Beck relied heavily on people with energy industry ties and others espousing positions on global warming that have been soundly debunked or rejected by the overwhelming majority of scientists studying climate change. Here is a list of some of those featured:

• Marlo Lewis: Lewis is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an institution funded by the energy industry.
• Timothy Ball: Ball is a climatologist who is also the chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, a Canadian environmental think tank which, as the weblog Desmogblog noted, is “controlled by energy industry lobbyists.”
• Patrick J. Michaels: Michaels is editor of a biweekly newsletter on climate studies funded in large part by the coal industry.

Republicans in Congress Use Our Armed Forces and Senior Citizens as Political Fodder – The Republicans have been refusing to support the hate crimes bill because it doesn’t include members of the US Armed Forces and senior citizens. Conyers just rose and basically said, okay, I’ll add them. The Republicans’ response? Uh, no. The Republicans have been railing for days about how this legislation doesn’t cover our Armed Forces and senior citizens, and now that the Dems offer to put our Armed Forces and seniors in this legislation, the Republicans said no and affirmatively stopped the Democrats from doing it anyway. That means the Republicans had no intent on protecting our Armed Forces and seniors. The Democrats managed to get the bill passed anyway. But now Bush threatens a veto (see below).

Bush Threatens Veto of Hate-Crime Protection Bill – President Bush said he would veto a bill passed by the House of Representatives on Thursday to extend hate-crime protection to people who are victimized because of their sexuality. Perhaps Bush shares the concerns of Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, who opposes the bill on the grounds that it could encroach on his right as a “Christian” to indulge his hysterical gay panic.

Wall St. Journal Publishes Article which expressly argues that the power of the President is greater than “the rule of law” – One day after Law Day, the Wall St. Journal online published a lengthy and truly astonishing article by Harvard Government Professor Harvey Mansfield, which expressly argues that the power of the President is greater than “the rule of law.” The article bears this headline: The Case for the Strong Executive — Under some circumstances, the Rule of Law must yield to the need for Energy. It is the most explicit argument I have seen yet for vesting in the President the power to override and ignore the rule of law in order to receive the glories of what Mansfield calls “one-man rule.”

Regards,

Jim