Bad Deeds for 6-16-2008

Republicans Block Consideration of Medicare Bill – Republican senators blocked legislation Thursday that would trim payments to private health insurers serving people in Medicare and use the savings to raise reimbursement rates for doctors. The advocacy group AARP had lobbied in support of Baucus’ bill and reminded them they would report the results to their members. “The bill blocked today would have improved the program’s low-income, preventive and mental health benefits without drastic increases in Medicare premiums,” said the group’s chief executive, Bill Novelli.

 

Bush Met with Jack Abramoff At Least Six Times, Contrary to White House Claims – The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee disclosed in a report this week that President Bush met with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff on at least six occasions. The White House previously stated that Bush only met Abramoff twice, at White House Hanukkah receptions. But documents and photos obtained by the committee prove that Bush and Abramoff had stronger ties than previously known, although the extent of Abramoff’s reach within the Administration still remains a mystery. The committee’s investigation met resistance from at least three former Administration officials who invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid answering some or all of the investigators’ questions.

 

McCain Denies What He Said About Social Security – In 2004, McCain, in response to an audience question, explicitly backed Social Security privatization by name.

QUESTION: “Will privatizing Social Security be a priority for you going forward?”
McCAIN: “Without privatization, I don’t see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.”

But, on June 12, 2008, at a Nashua town hall, McCain himself lied about his position, saying: “I’m not for, quote, privatizing Social Security. I never have been. I never will be.”

 

 

McCain Stacks Fox News ‘Town Hall’ With Supporters – The town hall forum was “billed by the McCain campaign as a town hall with independent and Democratic voters,” but Fox News noted at the end that the audience was actually “made up of invited guests and supporters.” In response, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said, ““Copying the Bush campaign model of stacking events with his prescreened supporters is not the transparency Americans are looking for. If that is Senator McCain’s idea of straight talk, the American people are in for a long and disappointing campaign season.”

“That was like a Fox infomercial for McCain,” said CNN’s Howard Kurtz. “Don’t you usually have to buy TV time to get that exposure?”

“It was a sweetheart deal for the McCain campaign,” said TIME Magazine’s Karen Tumulty. “There’s just no way around it.”

 

Rove Talks “Fairly Regularly” With McCain Camp; Getting Six Figures From Freedom’s Watch – Rove is back. In fact, he probably never left. The campaign that is trying to prove it’s not a second coming of George W. Bush is using the President’s former chief strategist on a regular basis. Don’t be fooled by Rove’s hesitance to be identified with John McCain publicly.

…away from the spotlight, Rove has been busy pitching in by giving informal advice to McCain’s team and spending a considerable amount of time as an outside adviser to Freedom’s Watch, the conservative political group that is expected to spend tens of millions of dollars to help elect House GOP candidates. William Weidner, a Freedom’s Watch board member, recently told National Journal that Rove has offered strategic advice to both the group and its major financial backer, Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson. Weidner, president of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which Adelson chairs, called Rove “an invaluable asset” to the group….

While the top of McCain’s campaign won’t admit to extensive conversations with Rove, fearing that Rove is too closely associated with the Bush Administration and its worst scandals, some folks are willing to spill the beans off the record.

Generally speaking, Rove’s advice is action-oriented and useful,” said another senior consultant to the McCain camp. “It’s always well received.” This McCain adviser noted that Rove talks periodically to Black and a few other top campaign aides on several key matters. “It can be policy ideas, messaging ideas, fundraising prospects, or people who need calls from someone in the campaign.” Rove is “part of the information network that the campaign has,” this adviser said, adding that Rove talks fairly regularly to such key people as Wayne Berman, a major fundraiser for McCain; Nicolle Wallace, a communications adviser; and Steve Schmidt, a senior aide.

 

CO2 Emissions Set to Double by 2050 Unless Governments Act – The International Energy Agency released a report this week predicting that carbon dioxide emissions could double by 2050 unless governments around the world engage in a “global energy technology revolution” to curb global warming emissions.

 

Southern Baptists Launch Skeptic Campaign to Derail Climate Legislation – Right-wing evangelicals launched a new campaign to attack urgently needed legislation to tackle climate change, calling for “a more biblical, fact-based approach” and urging lawmakers to remain “cautious of claims that our planet is in peril from speculative dangers like man-made global warming.” The campaign, spearheaded by the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and endorsed by Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and Republican Senators Tom Coburn and James Inhofe, is another attempt to sully the legitimate concern among signatories of The Evangelical Climate Initiative, which calls for urgent federal action on climate change.

 

Extremists Pressure Catholic Bishops to Use Communion as Political Weapon – A radical arm of the pro-life movement attacked the Catholic Church this week. As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) gathered in Orlando for its bi-annual meeting, a group called the “Society for Truth and Justice” launched an ad campaign encouraging the bishops to deny Communion to “pro-abortion politicians,” and even to condemn Catholics who vote for those same politicians. Others planned a protest outside the bishops’ meeting on Friday.

 

Pentagon Instructed Guantanamo Interrogators to Destroy Evidence – A military defense lawyer says the Pentagon distributed a manual urging interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify. According to the attorney, the manual emphasized the importance of “keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum” in order to “minimize certain legal issues” in the event that interrogators were called to testify in trials regarding the treatment of Gitmo detainees.

 

Bush Administration is Holding Hostage $50 Billion of Iraq’s Money to Keep Iraq Under U.S. Control – The Bush Administration has a secret plan to keep the U.S. military in Iraq “indefinitely” after the U.N. security mandate authorizing the U.S. military presence in Iraq expires in December. The U.S. is “holding hostage some $50 billion of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing” the plan, under which U.S. troops “would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law” for years to come.

Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors

 

America’s Prison for Terrorists Often Held the Wrong Men – An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments. Because the Bush administration set up Guantanamo under special rules that allowed indefinite detention without charges or federal court challenge, it’s impossible to know how many of the 770 men who’ve been held there were really terrorists. ( I suggest you read the entire article at the link above. – JLV)

 

Congressional Democrats in Dereliction of Duty – Congressional Democrats, in an act of dereliction of duty, chose to bury the 35 articles of impeachment introduced last week. It would be one thing if these Democrats thought the charges against Bush weren’t justified. Most of them believe that the president did indeed break the law, violated the Constitution and probably deserves to be impeached.

But they will not debate the issue because it doesn’t help their cause politically. They like the fact that Bush is president, that his blunders have killed his credibility and that of his party. But how do Democrats make the case that they stand for change and accountability when they fail so spectacularly to even discuss holding Bush accountable for anything?

 

Evangelicals Impersonate Army Officers – A church group called United States Operational Support Command (USOSC) is actually a private organization with a deceptively official sounding name. What’s different about the USOSC, and formerly the USSC, is that their members wear military uniforms and rank. This is not only deceptive. IT’S ILLEGAL! Title 10 of the U.S. Code strictly prohibits any person who isn’t a member of the armed forces from wearing “the uniform, or a distinctive part of the uniform, of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps” or “a uniform any part of which is similar to a distinctive part of the uniform of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps.” Apparently, the organization impersonates military chaplains in “A Worldwide Quest for the Souls of Men and Women in Uniform and their families.”

 

Conservative Radio Talk-Show Host Calls for Execution of Anti-War Activist – Michael Reagan, radio talk show host and son of late president Ronald Reagan, could be investigated by the FBI after he called for the execution of Mark Dice, anti-war activist and founder of media watchdog group The Resistance, on the air. We ought to find the people who are doing this,” Reagan said, “take ‘em out, and shoot ‘em. Really. Just find the people who are sending those letters…to demoralize our troops…they are traitors to this country…and shoot them. You have a problem with that? Deal with it. But anybody who would do that doesn’t deserve to live. You call them traitors–that’s what they are–and you shoot ‘em dead. I’ll pay for the bullet.”

Regards,

Jim