The WAWG Blog

Neocon Bill Kristol is Wrong Again – A few days ago I reported that neocon Bill Kristol said there’s no problem with our nation’s infrastructure. He’s says bridges just fall down once in a while. According to the New Orleans’ Sewerage & Water Board the 3,200-mile water system is damaged and at least 50 million gallons of water a day is being lost. Sewerage & Water Board spokesman Robert Jackson said, “We don’t have the confidence now to say the system won’t fail. We’re basically holding it together by tape, by glue, by spit, whatever we can get a hold of.”

Young Republican National President Resigns Over Sex With Another Man – Glenn Murphy, the President of the National Young Republicans, under allegations of sexually harassing another man, has resigned from his post. Murphy sent an email to friends saying he was resigning from the post he has held for a month for business reasons. Later we find out it was for monkey-business. Another hypocritical Republican preaching family values and then lying about why he resigned.

Republican Representative Explains That He’s Not Sexually Weird, But Just Afraid of Black People – About a month ago, Florida State Rep. Bob Allen (R), a co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign in Florida, was arrested in a public park after allegedly offering to pay to perform oral sex on an undercover police officer. In a tape recorded statement he made just after his arrest, Allen offered this reason for the alleged park-john-offer: “This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,” and was afraid of becoming a “statistic.” So, he’s afraid of black people. As a result of this irrational fear, he wanders into a bathroom, where he offers another man $20 to perform oral sex.

Kansas Republicans Think That Nothing Says ‘Freedom’ Like Being Compelled to Recite a Loyalty Oath – The Kansas Republican Party is forming a loyalty committee so that it can punish officers who endorse or contribute to Democrats. The state committee’s actions struck a sour note for some Republicans, particularly moderates on issues such as abortion. Bob Beatty, a Washburn University political scientist, suggested the loyalty committee could prove a “public relations disaster.” “Ironically, it smacks most of the Communist Party,” Beatty said Monday. “That’s the kind of public irony that most parties try to avoid — the party of freedom telling people they have no freedom.”

One More Way That Private-Sector Health Insurance Fails Us
Steve Skvara, a disabled, retired steel worker from Indiana tells the story of how he lost his family’s health insurance after the company he worked for, for 34 years closed two years after they forced him to retire. Skvara received a standing ovation at the AFL-CIO Democratic Debate, and rightfully so. He represents millions of hard working Americans who have lost their jobs and benefits and face the humiliation of not being able to provide for themselves or their families.

When Lower Taxes Comes Home to Roost – A popular Republican talking point in campaigns is lower taxes. In the past two years, Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota twice vetoed legislation to raise the state’s gas tax to pay for transportation needs. Now, with at least five people dead in the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge here, Mr. Pawlenty appears to have had a change of heart. Maybe he should have thought about it earlier.

Bush Has Spent 418 Days of His Presidency in Crawford, Texas – And that doesn’t count the time at places like his family’s seaside compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.

God Didn’t Flood the Evil French Quarter in New Orleans, But He Did Flood Fox News Headquarters in New York

Republican Message to People Injured by Medical Malpractice: Walk it Off – If you’re going to be killed accidentally during surgery, it might be better for your relatives if it happens outside of Texas. “This is also a bad place to be maimed by a doctor,” said Paula Sweeney, a Dallas medical malpractice lawyer who has seen her business evaporate since 2003 state legislation that limited personal-injury lawsuits, especially those against doctors and hospitals. Sweeney said many people who believe they were injured by medical negligence no longer can have their day in court because of the legislation, pushed by Republican lawmakers and approved on a statewide ballot. “I have Republicans calling saying, ‘But my case isn’t frivolous.’ I explain that they didn’t just close the courthouse doors to frivolous cases, but to most all cases,” Sweeney said.

Mitt Romney Says His Sons Don’t Need to be in the Military Because They Show Their Support for Our Nation by Helping Him Get Elected – Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons’ decision not to enlist in the military, saying they’re showing their support for the country by “helping me get elected.” Romney, who did not serve in Vietnam due to his missionary work and a high draft lottery number, was asked the question by an anti-war activist after a speech in which he called for “a surge of support” for U.S. forces in Iraq.

Same Agencies to Run, Oversee Surveillance Program – The Bush administration plans to leave oversight of its expanded foreign eavesdropping program to the same government officials who supervise the surveillance activities and to the intelligence personnel who carry them out, senior government officials said yesterday. The law, which permits intercepting Americans’ calls and e-mails without a warrant if the communications involve overseas transmission, gives Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales responsibility for creating the broad procedures determining whose telephone calls and e-mails are collected. It also gives McConnell and Gonzales the role of assessing compliance with those procedures.

Bush Administration Rewrites Emergency Response Plan in Secret; Ignores State Experts – A decision by the Bush administration to rewrite in secret the nation’s emergency response blueprint has angered state and local emergency officials, who worry that Washington is repeating a series of mistakes that contributed to its bungled response to Hurricane Katrina nearly two years ago. State and local officials in charge of responding to disasters say that their input in shaping the National Response Plan was ignored in recent months by senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials, despite calls by congressional investigators for a shared overhaul of disaster planning in the United States. “In my 19 years in emergency management, I have never experienced a more polarized environment between state and federal government,” said Albert Ashwood, Oklahoma’s emergency management chief and president of a national association of state emergency managers.

Fox News Radio Show Executive Producer Says John Edwards “Whored His Wife’s Cancer as a Fundraising Gimmick” – On the August 3 edition of Fox News host John Gibson’s nationally syndicated radio program, the show’s executive producer, who goes by the name “Angry Rich” on the program, claimed Democratic presidential candidate former Sen. John Edwards (NC) “whored his wife’s cancer as a fundraising gimmick.” He also went on to call him “a fraud” and “a pansy.” Gibson referred to Edwards as “the Breck Girl,” “Silky,” and “the biggest fraud running for president.” How can Bill O’Reilly condemn others for hateful comments when this is allowed at Fox News? And how can they call this a “news” network, much less “fair and balanced”?

Department of Health and Human Services Hacks Plant Lies in Letters – Four regional directors of the Department of Health and Human Services signed their names on copycat letters sent to editorial pages across the country, spreading misinformation about opposing children’s health insurance proposals. All four somehow managed to come up with identical wording for the same dishonest points. For example: “The President supports reauthorizing this important program for low income children [the State Children’s Health Insurance Program] with enough new funding to ensure that no one currently enrolled loses coverage.” This is a flat lie. Bush’s proposal would take away coverage from some currently enrolled kids by imposing a federal income limit on eligiblity. (Currently, states have the flexibility to set their own limits.)

Regards,

Jim

Neocon Bill Kristol Thinks Everything is Fine With America’s Infrastructure; But He Also Thinks Everything is Fine in Iraq – Fox News political contributor Bill Kristol, appearing on the August 5 broadcast of Fox News Sunday, made comments minimizing the significance of a bridge collapse in Minnesota last week. There was some discussion on the show that some of the money squandered on Iraq could have been used to upgrade America’s infrastucture. Kristol prefers bombing bridges to inspecting and repairing them. “I don’t think this symbolizes any great failure of our infrastructure,” said Kristol. “Once every twenty five years some bridge falls down unexpectedly due to engineering problems and it is unfortunate obviously but the idea that the whole country is crumbling is not, I think, credible.”

Fox News Chief Roger Ailes Admits He’s Been Floating “Disinformation the Last Nine Months.” – With The Wall Street Journal and a new business network, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News chief Roger Ailes plan their next move: all-out war. One of the founding ideas of this country was the free press. But when a large part of the press is controlled by one person, it is no more free than if the government controlled it.

New Law Gives Administration More Power to Spy on You – Cheney and Bush are happy to divide the country. They mean to play their hand to the end and they do not take no for an answer. Compromise with them, and you are the one who is compromised. Congress’ latest compromise means the FISA court will be permitted to review the president’s wiretaps only after the fact; and the court is restricted to a generic review of the warrants, with no power to inquire into individual cases. And the “target” need not be a suspected terrorist. If the administration believes a U.S.-to-foreign conversation might serve some kind of intelligence-gathering purpose, it can go ahead and eavesdrop without oversight.

Among Democrats who voted to give more spying power to the Bush Administration was Nick Lampson. – This law will come up for review in six months, so let him know if you are not happy.

After Wiretapping Victory, Bush says He Wants More Spying Authority From Congress – The day after President George W. Bush marshaled political forces in Congress to grant him greater authority to engage in counterterrorism-related spying, the president stated that he would seek greater changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when the legislative branch returns to work in September.

Most Job Openings Are Low-Paying – The Washington State Employment Security Department’s April survey of job vacancies found that, of the 87,447 openings reported statewide, 46 percent paid less than $10 an hour; another 26 percent paid between $10 and $15 an hour. Though registered nurses, with a median hourly wage of $23.55, were most in demand, the next highest-demand jobs were cashiers, farmworkers and retail salespeople — all offering a median wage of $8 an hour.

You Have Less Than 30 Days Left to Preserve Your Rights to the 7th Amendment to the United States Constitution – In about the mid-1990’s the homebuilders exploited a huge loop-hole in the Federal Arbitration Act which encourages the use of alternative dispute resolution instead of the court system. Since then homebuilders have inserted mandatory binding arbitration clauses in their contracts barring homebuyers from the time honored court system guaranteed by the Constitution. This has been followed by credit card companies, employment contracts, insurance, hospitals, and Comcast. You have 30 days from the date Comcast mailed a letter to you to opt out of their kangaroo court binding arbitration.

Here’s the opt-out form :

Bush Plan to Ignore Criminal Contempt Charges May be Illegal – A report issued last week by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service casts doubt on the Bush administration’s claim that assertions of executive privilege protect current and former White House officials from criminal contempt citations by Congress. The report states, “The assertion that the legislative history of the 1857 statute establishing the criminal contempt process demonstrates that it was not intended to be used against executive branch official is not supported by the historical record.”

US is Operating Like a Third-World Dictatorship – Putting political opponents in jail is the sort of thing that happens in third-world dictatorships. In the United States, prosecutions are supposed to be scrupulously nonpartisan. This principle appears to have broken down in Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department — where lawyers were improperly hired for nonpolitical jobs based on party membership, and United States attorneys were apparently fired for political reasons.

As an example, Don Siegelman, a former Alabama governor, was the state’s most prominent Democrat and had a decent chance of retaking the governorship from the Republican incumbent. He was aggressively prosecuted by both the Birmingham and Montgomery United States attorney’s offices. Birmingham prosecutors dropped their case after a judge harshly questioned it. The prosecution may have been a political hit. A Republican lawyer, Dana Jill Simpson, has said in a sworn statement that she heard Bill Canary, a Republican operative and a Karl Rove protégé, say that his “girls” — his wife, the United States attorney in Montgomery, and Alice Martin, the United States attorney in Birmingham — would “take care” of Mr. Siegelman. Mr. Canary also said, according to Ms. Simpson, that Mr. Rove was involved.

Check Up on your Representative and Senators (They May Have Bad Deeds) – The ProgressivePunch website shows the performance of members within 160 different issue categories, and detailed vote descriptions, thereby empowering you to zero in on what matters to you.

Regards,

Jim

Bill O’Reilly Explodes at Senator Chris Dodd for Telling the Truth, Then Has Dennis Miller Come on to Ridicule and Tell Lies – On the O’Reilly Factor on 8/2/07, after Senator Chris Dodd (D. Conn.) made O’Reilly look weak, dishonest and foolish, Afterward, O’Reilly put right-wing comedian Dennis Miller on to try to ridicule Dodd. Miller called Dodd a “hack” and said, ” This guy had nothing!” Miller described the YearlyKos as a ” loserfest” and claimed that O’Reilly’s website gets 8 times more traffic than the DailyKos. However, the website traffic monitoring site, Alexa, shows that, over the past 6 months, DailyKos.com reaches about .03 percent of all web traffic, but Billoreilly.com only reaches about .002 percent of all web traffic. In other words, DailyKos gets about 15 times the traffic that O’Reilly’s site does.

Traffic Graph for Bill O’Reily web site

Traffic Graph for Daily Kos web site

Congress Setting the Stage for More Katrinas – The House initially passed a $14 billion version of the bill, the Senate a $15 billion version. Somehow, the two chambers compromised on a $20 billion bill. The House and Senate versions both had $31 million for a marine terminal in Portsmouth, Virginia, but the final version had $356 million, because Senator John Warner of Virginia served on the House-Senate committee that drafted it. It’s true that the bill includes some projects to help restore Louisiana’s vanishing coastal marshes and cypress swamps, which provide natural protection for New Orleans. (It’s also true that Vitter had pushed to help timber firms to log those cypress swamps.) The bill’s main Louisiana project — a 72-mile levee for some bayou towns — is a giant step in the wrong direction, accelerating the wetlands losses that left New Orleans exposed to Katrina.

Administration Official’s Testimony Shows White House Violating E-mail Policy – J. Scott Jennings, who serves as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs in the White House, testified that he continues to use his Republican National Committee e-mail account heavily for a variety of official government business, such as hiring and firing US Attorneys.

Review of Voting Machine Software Shows a Pervasive Lack of Good Security Engineering – The California Source Code Review Reports on the Diebold, Sequoia, and Hart Intercivic voting systems have been released. The lead researcher for the Sequoia source code team, referring to the reviews of all three systems, states, “I was especially struck by the utter banality of most of the flaws. Exploitable vulnerabilities arose not so much from esoteric weaknesses that taxed our ingenuity, but rather from the garden-variety design and implementation blunders that plague any system not built with security as a central requirement. There was a pervasive lack of good security engineering across all three systems, and I’m at a loss to explain how any of them survived whatever process certified them as secure in the first place. Our hard work notwithstanding, unearthing exploitable deficiencies was surprisingly — and disturbingly — easy.”

Regards,

Jim

New documents suggest broader White House involvement in replacing New Mexico prosecutor – New documents turned over to Congressional investigators Wednesday show that a White House official echoed a message from the office of Senator Pete Domenici to the Justice Department seeking the installation of a new ‘team’ in New Mexico’s US Attorneys office. Domenici is currently under investigation by a Senate ethics watchdog for appearing to interfere with a public corruption investigation that David Iglesias, former US Attorney to New Mexico, was engaged in last Fall. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) also contacted Iglesias.

Aide to Senator Stevens Performed Personal Work – An aide to Senator Ted Stevens performed personal bookkeeping services for the embattled Alaska Republican. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has used a Senate employee as his personal bookkeeper but does not appear to have paid her for those services out of his own funds, even as the aide collected more than a quarter-million dollars in federal pay

Rove Refuses to Testify on Role in Prosecutor Firings, but Makes Public Speeches About It – White House senior adviser Karl Rove has rebuked a Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena and will not appear Thursday to testify about his role in the firing of nine US Attorneys, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said late Wednesday. The Senate Judiciary chairman chided the White House for allowing Rove to give public speeches about the attorney firing scandal but not permit his testimony under oath. “Mr. Rove has given reasons for the firings that have now been shown to be inaccurate after-the-fact fabrications,” Leahy said in a statement. “Yet, he now refuses to tell this Committee the truth about his role in targeting well-respected U.S. Attorneys for firing and in seeking to cover up his role and that of his staff in the scandal.”

Pentagon Used Outside Contractors to Shape Messages Related to Public Affairs – Involvement of outside contractors in “outsourcing press” to cover-up the real story behind cases such as Jessica Lynch, Abu Ghraib, and Pat Tillman is unclear at this time.

Fox News and Rudy Giuliani Are Best Friends – Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, was the media consultant to Mr. Giuliani’s first mayoral campaign in 1989. Mr. Giuliani, as mayor, officiated at Mr. Ailes’s wedding and intervened on his behalf when Fox News Channel was blocked from securing a cable station in the city. This year, they were tablemates at the White House correspondents dinner, which Mr. Giuliani attended as a guest of Fox’s parent company, the News Corporation.

Michael Savage Suggests That Democrats Caused Chief Justice Robert’s Seizure – On the July 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage reacted to news that Chief Justice John Roberts had suffered a seizure that day by raising the possibility that “his health was in some way tampered with by the Democrats.” Savage said, “Something’s wrong with this picture,” after noting that Roberts’ seizure occurred just three days after Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said he would seek in general to reject any future Supreme Court nomination made by President Bush. Savage asked, “Am I to believe there’s no connection between Charles Schumer on Friday saying he would never appoint, or never, excuse me, approve another Bush appointment to the court, to any court? And then the chief justice suffers a so-called seizure two days later? You’re telling me there’s no possibility of a conspiracy by the Democrats to have caused this seizure in some manner?” He added: “Tell me it’s not possible, and I’ll tell you you’re a liar.”

President Bush Invited Ten Talk-Show Hosts to the Oval Office – All Far-Right Conservatives – President Bush invited ten talk hosts into the Oval Office for an hour of conversation today – Glenn Beck, Bill Bennett, Neal Boortz, Scott Hennon, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larson, Mark Levin, Michael Medved, Janet Parshall, and Hugh Hewitt. Bush surrounds himself with this echo chamber in order to hear good things about himself, and not hear a single critical word about his failed presidency.

After company confessed to paying terrorists, Chertoff took no action – At an April 24, 2003 meeting with then-assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, a board member of banana giant Chiquita International gave a startling confession: his company was paying hundreds of thousands to a Colombian paramilitary group on the U.S. government’s list of terrorist organizations. Chertoff told the boar member to wait for more feedback, but that feedback never came. Chiquita then took the lack of response as a signal the US was tacitly implying they should continue paying.

US Has Been Covertly Arming Gulf States Since 2004 – According to current and former intelligence officials, however, the Bush administration has been arming Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states covertly since “at least” 2004, a year after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. The GCC is a union of regional allies, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Created in 1981, it is similar in structure and purpose to the European Union. Using backchannels and corporate partners, arms have been furnished to the Gulf states to beef up security against what the US sees as an increased risk posed by Iran.

House Drops Tougher Auto Fuel Economy – After weeks of uncertainty, House Democrats have decided against a confrontation over automobile fuel economy when they take up energy legislation later this week. Two proposals to boost the required mileage for new automobiles were submitted Wednesday for consideration as amendments to the energy legislation, but they were withdrawn by their Democratic sponsors.

US Cannot Account for 190,000 Weapons Issued to Iraqi Security Forces – The US government cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to an investigation carried out by the Government Accountability Office. According to the July 31 report, the military “cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces.” US commanders often accuse foreign powers such as Iran of supplying arms to illegal militias fighting in Iraq, but the report shows they cannot fully account for the hundreds thousands of weapons they brought in themselves. Last month, Turkey raised concerns over reports that separatist Kurdish guerrillas launching cross-border raids from northern Iraq had received US-supplied guns supposedly destined for Iraqi security forces.

Senators to Abandon ’08 E-Voting Paper Trail Mandate – Democratic senators make push for banning electronic voting machines that lack paper trails, but they’ve backed away from doing so in time for next year’s presidential election.

Editor of Right-Wing National Review Endorses the Return of “Jim Crow” Election Restrictions – After years of browbeating from well-financed conservatives about their “liberal bias”, newspapers feel compelled to be “fair and balanced” by giving column inches in their paper to random conservative idiots. So we get editorials with terrible ideas like this one from Jonah Goldberg, editor of the right-wing National Review: “Instead of making it easier to vote, maybe we should be making it harder. Why not test people about the basic functions of government?” (Yeah, we could make sure that everyone gets their “knowledge” from Fox News. We’ve been down this road before, in darker days in the 1890s when southern states systematically and completely disinfranchised black voters by imposing voter registration restrictions such as literacy tests, poll taxes, the grandfather clause, and the white primary. – JLV)

Regards,

Jim

Diebold’s Voting Machines Can be Compromised by Hackers – Computer hackers can change election results on certain voting machines used in 25 Florida counties and not leave a trace, according to Florida’s secretary of state, who has given Diebold Election Systems until Aug. 17 to fix the problem or lose the right to operate in the state. A new study by Florida State University found that, despite recent software fixes, an ”adversary” could use a pre-programmed computer card to swap one candidate’s votes for another’s or create a ”ballot-stuffing attack” that multiplies votes for a candidate or issue on Diebold’s optical-scan voting machines.

Ohio 2004 Presidential Election Ballots Illegally Destroyed, Missing in At Least 56 of 88 Counties – Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, according to letters from county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner. The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.

Not All Who Claim to be the News Objectively Report the News – The Intellectual Conservative has ranked the Top 100 Conservative Political Websites of 2007. Here are a few who ranked high:

    1. Drudge Report
    2. Fox News
    3. Wall Street Journal
    4. New York Post
    7. Boston Herald
   10. U.S. News and World Report
   14. Washington Times

All these websites were ranked higher by conservatives than the websites of Rush Limbaugh, Red State, or Ann Coulter. They are all entitled to publish their views, but they should not be claiming to be a legitimate news site or use misleading slogans like “fair and balanced.”

Republican Senator Ted Stevens, Under Investigation for Taking Bribes, is Threatening to Block the Senate From Voting on the Ethics Reform Bill – Republican Senator Ted Stevens, whose home back in Alaska was raided by federal investigators Monday in a wide-ranging corruption investigation, has threatened to place a hold on the Democratic-drafted ethics legislation just passed by the House and expected on the Senate floor by week’s end. The senator told a closed session of fellow Republicans today, including Vice President Dick Cheney, that he was upset that the measure would interfere with his travel to and from Alaska — and vowed to block it.

Regards,

Jim

Giuliani Exaggerating Again – It is Rudy Giuliani’s favorite boast on the presidential campaign trail: “I cut taxes 23 times” as mayor of New York, he says, a claim inevitably met by applause. The impressive-sounding stat stars in radio ads this week in New Hampshire and Iowa, where the voiceover asserts that Giuliani “cut or eliminated 23 taxes.” Trouble is, it’s not really true, say tax-cutting allies of the former mayor, as well as experts at the city’s Independent Budget Office and elsewhere. To arrive at the number he likes to cite on the stump, Giuliani has to claim credit for tax cuts initiated by others, tax cuts he opposed, and in one instance, he counts one tax cut twice. Best of all, Giuliani includes a scuttled tax increase on his list (”We don’t consider not raising a tax a tax cut,” said Charles Brescher of the city’s Independent Budget Office).

Terrorist Dry Runs! … Never Mind! Just Kidding
CNN anchor T.J. Holmes, at the top of Saturday morning newscast: “Also, you should remember all that talk earlier this week about the terrorist dry runs at airports here in the U.S. Well, just kidding. It turns out it was all one big false alarm.”

CNN reporter Brian Todd: “In fact, a U.S. government official familiar with the investigation now says there were valid explanations for all four incidents in that bulletin and no charges will be brought in any of these cases.”

Those terrorist “dry runs” at airports that bumped a slew of bad news for President Bush off the front pages and scared a lot of summer vacationers in the process, were, as CNN itself confessed in a different report, “bogus.” CNN in particular, had run wild with the “terrorist dry runs” story last week, when a lot more people are watching than on a Saturday morning. Not only did CNN air it’s “just kidding” report over the weekend, when few folks are watching, but a search on the CNN web site finds the original scare story about terrorist “dry runs,” but no mention of the later story saying there was no threat.

Democratic Congressperson Says Alberto Gonzales Serves in a Non-impeachable Office – Sometimes Congresspeople don’t know what they’re talking about.

A View of How Bill O’Reilly Operates From Someone Who Knew Him Well– The following is from the sexual harassment lawsuit complaint filed by Andrea Mackris against Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly speaking to Mackris (April 13, 2004):

If any woman ever breathed a word I’ll make her pay so dearly that she’ll wish she’d never been born. I’ll rake her through the mud, bring up things in her life and make her so miserable that she’ll be destroyed. And besides, she wouldn’t be able to afford the lawyers I can or endure it financially as long as I can. And nobody would believe her, it’d be her word against mine and who are they going to believe? Me or some unstable woman making outrageous accusations. They’d see her as some psycho, someone unstable. Besides, I’d never make the mistake of picking unstable crazy girls like that. If you cross FOX NEWS CHANNEL, it’s not just me, it’s [FOX President] Roger Ailes who will go after you. I’m the street guy out front making loud noises about the issues, but Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what’s coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he’s going to get a knock on his door and life as he’s known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me.

Mitt Romney Afraid of Snowmen – Mitt Romney said that, he was expressing his reservations about joining the next YouTube debate, “I don’t think candidates should have to answer questions from a snowman.” Well let me just say this to the former governor: how are you going to deal with Osama bin Laden if you’re afraid of that snowman?

Scientist Was Pressured by Administration to Support “1+1=3” – Testimony states:

My immediate supervisor advised me that she had been informed that Vice President Cheney had been briefed on our consultation, apparently with the intent of impressing upon me the importance of this consultation. … I realized that political pressure might be applied to my superiors, but I naively believed that I was shielded from such pressure. I thought that my analysis would, as is always required, be based on a logical analysis of the best available science, and have a logical outcome. I viewed it as a somewhat complicated case of 1+1=2. Regardless of what I found in my analysis, it would have to make sense and satisfy the legal requirements of the use of science under the ESA, and certainly no political pressure could magically change that. I never suspected that I would be asked to support the conclusion that 1+1=3, but I was.

U.S. Drops Baghdad Electricity Reports (Because No News is Good News, Especially When There’s No News of No Electricity)– As the Bush administration struggles to convince lawmakers that its Iraq war strategy is working, it has stopped reporting to Congress a key quality-of-life indicator in Baghdad: how long the power stays on. Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that Baghdad residents could count on only “an hour or two a day” of electricity. That’s down from an average of five to six hours a day earlier this year. But that piece of data has not been sent to lawmakers for months because the State Department, which prepares a weekly “status report” for Congress on conditions in Iraq, stopped estimating in May how many hours of electricity Baghdad residents typically receive each day.

Stealthily Moves To Take Electoral Votes – Two weeks ago, one of the most important Republican lawyers in Sacramento quietly filed a ballot initiative that would end the practice of granting all fifty-five of California’s electoral votes to the statewide winner. Instead, it would award two of them to the statewide winner and the rest, one by one, to the winner in each congressional district. Nineteen of the fifty-three districts are represented by Republicans, but Bush carried twenty-two districts in 2004. The bottom line is that the initiative, if passed, would spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes-votes that it wouldn’t get under the rules prevailing in every other sizable state in the Union. It’s the lotusland equivalent of Tom DeLay’s 2003 midterm redistricting in Texas, except with a sweeter smell, a better disguise, and larger stakes.

Last week, the Democratic-controlled legislature of North Carolina, a state that has gone Republican in every Presidential election since 1976, enthusiastically took up a bill to do the same mischief as the California initiative. The grab would be smaller—it would appropriate perhaps three or four of North Carolina’s fifteen electoral votes for the Democrats—but the hands would be just as dirty.

Regards,

Jim

New US Database on Air Travelers Will Record Private Information Such as Political Opinions – In addition to data such as name, address, flight itineraries, and credit card information, the United States will now database more intimate details about passengers as provided by airlines, such as race, political opinions, religious beliefs, and sexual orientation.

Bush Calls for Easier Wiretap Rules – US President George W. Bush on Saturday called for Congress to revise a US security law in order to ease restrictions on the government’s secret communications surveillance of terror suspects.

Voting Machines Lose Test to Hackers – State-sanctioned teams of computer hackers were able to break through the security of virtually every model of California’s voting machines and change results or take control of some of the systems’ electronic functions, according to a University of California study released Friday.

General Motors Hires Rush Limbaugh to Tout How They Are Helping the Environment – How ironic/moronic! In the radio commercial, Limbaugh brags about his Suburban and his Escalade SUVs, then goes on to say how fuel-efficient the General Motors vehicles are. Do these vehicles run on Oxycontin and Viagra? If so, they have the right spokesman.

Gonzales Has Long History of Not Telling the Truth – The man who is supposed to be the nation’s op law-enforcement official has been devious back to when Bush was governor of Texas and Gonzales helped conceal Bush’s drunk-driving conviction.

Iraqi Working for British Intelligence Tortured by CIA – An Iraqi who was a key source of intelligence for MI5 has given the first ever full insider’s account of being seized by the CIA and bundled on to an illegal ‘torture flight’ under the programme known as extraordinary rendition.

Cameraman Held in Guantanamo for Five Years – 38-year-old cameraman for al Jazeera has been held as an “enemy combatant” in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the last five years. Sami al Hajj is a national hero in Sudan has been praised by Sudan’s president, demonstrations have been held in his name, and a bakery in Khartoum has printed his picture on its packaging.

CEO Pay Out of Control – In 1970, the average CEO made 28 times what the average worker made. In 2005, the average CEO made 465 times what the average worker made.

Rove’s Political Briefing Targeting Democrats Was Presented to Peace Corps Appointees – The mission of the Peace Corps is supposed to be sending volunteers into Third World nations to help with development, not helping Republicans maintain control of our government.

Scaredy-Cat Republicans Want Conservative Bloggers to Pick Questions for YouTube Debate – I’ve got a better idea. Let Republican candidates field all questions, from all sides, with no pre-screening to stifle uncomfortable questions. You guys aren’t afraid of a little democracy, are ya?

Efforts to Silence Dissent – Jeff Zurawski, 39, of Downers Grove and Sarah M. Hartfield, 45, of Naperville were initially charged with disorderly conduct for displaying a banner that read “Impeach Bush and Cheney – LIARS” on May 6 on the Great Western Trail above Interstate 355. But more charges were brought against the two war protesters last week in DuPage County Circuit Court in Wheaton: reckless conduct and unauthorized display of a sign in viewing of a highway.

Regards,

Jim

Karl Rove, the Authoritarian’s Architect, has already brought the authoritarian single-party state to Texas. He has also brought the national Republican Party and its authoritarian membership very close to the same goal. Then came the mismanagement of the Iraq conflict, the setback of the 2006 election and loss of absolute control of our Congress, and exposure of political manipulation of the Justice Department. All of which has temporarily sidetracked their efforts. As the sidetrack takes the authoritarian train to a long awaited total derailment, Karl and his fellow authoritarians/neocons have dug in and become ever more desperate to get the train back on track. But they are running out of time and are ready with a revised plan to make sure they still reach their irrational, oppressive, vengeful, punitive, narrow minded, mean-spirited, dogmatic, dishonest and zealous goal of permanent control over our country.

THE PLAN FOR PERMANENT CONTROL BY THE AUTHORITARIANS

Here’s a look back at The Authoritarian’s Architect – his history, his goals and his underhanded planning expertise.

In 2003, Publishers Weekly summarized Bush’s Brain in this way, “The complete subordination of public policy to political calculation is the theme of this hard-hitting biography of über-advisor Karl Rove. … It’s a colorful story, full of dirty tricks, misleading attack ads and sleazy whispering campaigns that drown out the issues. To the authors, Rove’s “co-presidency” marks “the apotheosis of the permanent campaign,” with everything from farm subsidies to steel tariffs to the saber-rattling against Iraq a part of his carefully considered mid-term election plans. The authors’ line on Rove is by now conventional wisdom, but they bring it to life with a wealth of detail, painting nuanced character studies of Rove, the driven intellectual with an abrasive edge and an iron will to win, and Bush, the callow anti-intellectual with a charming air and a need for discipline and a game plan. … ”

In July 2006, Publishers Weekly summarized the Republican Plan for Dominance in this way, “… the authors note that political hegemony today has less to do with a party’s popularity than it does with pinpoint marketing, judiciary packing and artful gerrymandering. … Nevertheless, Rove has relied not upon Bush’s charisma, but rather pro-industry regulation to build Republican war chests, careful selection of congressional candidates, and grassroots campaigning of the sort that used to be the province of Democrats. From lobbying to single-issue marketing to co-opting traditional Democratic constituencies (Hispanics, African Americans, Jews, immigrants), the authors find that the Republican machine appears to have identified and commodified every potential vote in the nation. ”

In September 2006, Publishers Weekly summarized Karl Rove’s Master Plan in this way., “This bold follow-up to journalists Moore and Slater’s bestseller, Bush’s Brain, takes a provocative look at how Karl Rove used George Bush’s various campaigns and presidency to engineer nothing less than the assertion of a long-term Republican hegemony and the complete dismantling of the Democratic Party. To make their case, they draw on a wide range of materials, including interviews and reportage done by other journalists to demonstrate how Rove mobilized his party’s base, forging an unlikely alliance between religious and economic conservatives, while mounting targeted assaults on gays and lesbians, trial lawyers and labor unions. Yet in this narrative, his bid for a complete realignment of American politics begins to derail with the failure of Bush’s Social Security reform plan, the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, the failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and, most significantly, the implication of Rove in the leak of CIA employee Valerie Plame’s identity. In this damning but scattered account, Rove remains an elusive, almost inhuman figure, despite short digressions about his relationship with his gay stepfather and his weekly brunches with members of the White House and RNC teams during the reelection campaign.”

THEIR PLAN STARTS TO UNRAVEL

In August 2004, James C. Moore, co-author of Bush’s Brain, was a BUZZFLASH guest contributor. The following excerpts provide details on Karl’s plans.

Bush’s Brain will die happy the day he achieves his two greatest goals. The first of these is to turn the U.S. into what is fundamentally a one-party system. Secondly, he wants the federal government to have so little money that it can do nothing to get in the way of business interests; nor will it be able to sustain any kind of socially progressive assistance for disadvantaged Americans.

To create this single-party system without Democrats, The Authoritarian’s Architect’s plan is to eliminate the financial support from their three main sources – as they did in Texas:

… tort reform in Texas [or across our nation] was not about bringing more justice to the courtroom. It was a step in taking away the ability of trial lawyers to make contributions to Democrats.

Step two is to destroy unions. They, too, give greatly to Democrats.

… Jewish voters in America have contributed as much as 40 percent of the funds for the Democratic Party … Their money is critical to Democratic issues and Rove wants to get as much of it over to Republicans as possible. To do this, he has simply had the president step back from criticizing Israel [and bring in all the pro Israel neocons he can muster]. … When I asked why the switch he said simply, “He cares about Israel.” This man is now a Bush Pioneer and has raised $100,000 on three occasions for the president.

Based on recent campaign receipts for Democrat candidates, it appears this part of The Authoritarian’s Architect’s plan is failing. Karl and his neocon brethren must be even more stressed and concerned over their future and loss of power.

As for bankrupting our government, Mr. Moore explained:

When Rove has finally dried up the lifeblood of the Democratic Party, he will guide the president and congress in a direction that begins to bleed the federal government of its money.

Eventually, the Washington bureaucracy will be a vestigial organ, a government that cannot govern because it has no money. There will be no social programs to help the poor. Businesses will develop risky products without the risk of liability and the great institutions, which have nurtured the growth of our nation, will begin to falter and fail.

It appears that this part of The Authoritarian’s Architect’s plan is working. First there is the Iraq sink hole that is now ‘tankering’ $12,000,000,000.00 per month or $144,000,000,000.00 per year. (Do you remember who else wants to bankrupt this nation? Osama bin Ladin. Did someone say, “aiding and abetting…”) Add to this huge outflow the 2006 tax cut for the rich and the authoritarians are well on their way with this goal.

But then there is the buffoonery of Alberto Gonzales, the poll on Republican candidates that shows “none of the above” is winning, and the huge volume of contributions flowing to the Democrat candidates. They still have plenty to worry about. The Republican Party could be on its death bed.

SAVING THEIR PLAN FROM SELF DESTRUCTION

On July 16, 2007 Dr. Paul Craig Roberts discussed The Authoritarian’s Architect’s recovery plan in a CounterPunch editorial. This editorial concerns the possible abuse of Executive power through new the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive released on May 9, 2007.

Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of “executive orders” that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, “terrorist” events in the near future.

… The Bush administration desperately needs dramatic events to scare the American people and the Congress back in line with the militarist-police state that Bush and Cheney have fostered.

William Norman Grigg recently wrote that the GOP is “praying for a terrorist strike” to save the party from electoral wipeout in 2008.

If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the “unitary executive” at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush’s declaration of “national emergency” ….

Why would Republican warmonger Rick Santorum say on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that “between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public’s (sic) going to have a very different view of this war.”

Ask yourself: Would a government that has lied us into two wars and is working to lie us into an attack on Iran shrink from staging “terrorist” attacks in order to remove opposition to its agenda?

(Do the authoritarians have another goal in common with Osama bin Laden — Another attack on the US?)

ONE STEP CLOSER FOR US

The next step in their plan, announced today: revising FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978). This law was passed after attempts by the Nixon Administration to bypass the checks and balances of the Congress.

A LITTLE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Speaking of terrorist attacks, here’s a little historical perspective from Democratic Underground.com:

Germany – February 27, 1933: It started when the government… received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings… When an aide brought him [Hitler] word that the nation’s most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference. “You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history,” he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. “This fire,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, “is the beginning.” He used the occasion – “a sign from God,” he called it – to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion. – Thom Hartmann, March 16, 2003.

The above depiction by Thom Hartmann of the beginning of Nazi Germany’s “War on Terror” took place less than a month after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

Almost 75 years later, as we in the United States are faced with a president and vice president who increasingly make it clear that for the duration of their self-proclaimed “War on Terror”, they are to be held accountable neither to the rule of law nor to the Constitution that they swore to defend and protect, Americans (and especially their representatives in Congress) would do well to recall a similar period in German history.

THE FUTURE ACCORDING TO BUSH

With Hitler’s quotes in mind, here is a speech penned by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, during a very informative Thom Hartmann interview on Air America about his CounterPunch editorial cited earlier. In this speech, Dr. Roberts anticipates what G Dubya will tell us after a so called “terrorist attack.”

My administration knew that there would be more attacks from these terrorists who hate us and our way of life and are determined to destroy every one of us. If only more of you had believed me and supported my war on terror these new attacks would not have happened. Our security efforts were impaired by the Democrats determined attempts to surrender to the terrorists by forcing our withdrawal from Iraq and by civil libertarian assaults on our necessary security measures. If only more Americans had trusted their government, this would not have happened.

Newly Obtained Emails Reveal Republican Party ’04 Vote Suppression Scheme – Previously undisclosed documents detail how Republican operatives, with the knowledge of several White House officials, engaged in an illegal, racially-motivated effort to suppress tens of thousands of votes during the 2004 presidential campaign in a state where George W. Bush was trailing his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry. The documents also contain details describing how Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign officials, and at least one individual who worked for White House political adviser Karl Rove, planned to stop minorities residing in Cuyahoga County from voting on election day.

More Political Interference in Science – Tuesday, a presidential executive order went into effect that would place political appointees deeper inside federal scientific agencies where they could more easily prevent inconvenient science from ever seeing the light of day. The executive order bans any regulation from moving forward without the approval of an agency’s regulatory policy officer, who would be a political appointee.

Earth Observation Satellites Neglected – A recent National Research Council report predicts that by 2010, the number of working satellite sensors will drop by 40 percent. Blame in part the shifting priorities of NASA, one of the main agencies that manage our satellites. NASA’s earth-science budget decreased 30 percent between 2000 and 2006. Although the space agency has requested a $1.1-billion increase over 2007, most of its budget is going to fund the International Space Station and President Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration, a plan to send humans back to the moon by 2020 and, ultimately, to Mars.

Bush Administration Issues Subpoena on Michael Moore – Filmmaker Michael Moore revealed on Thursday’s “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno that the Bush Administration had served him with a subpoena regarding his recent trip to Cuba made as part of his new film, Sicko. The Oscar-winning filmmaker filmed his trip to the US base at Guantanamo Bay, where he pleaded with military officials to let three 9/11 rescue workers enjoy the benefits of healthcare extended to detainees.

Republican Presidential Candidates Afraid of Questions From Everyday Americans – Four days after the Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C,. more than 400 questions directed to the GOP presidential field have been uploaded on YouTube — targeted at Republicans scheduled to get their turn at video populism on Sept. 17. But so far, only Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) have agreed to participate in the debate, co-hosted by Republican Party of Florida in St. Petersburg. So far YouTube, CNN and Florida’s Republican Party are staying optimistic. “We’re very hopeful that all the campaigns will get on board,” said Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube.

Transportation Security Administration Hypes Alarm Over Ice Packs and Cheese – The TSA put out an alert to airports that the discovery of items like ice packs and cheese could be “dry runs” by would-be terrorists. The TSA bulletin said the ice packs found in San Diego contained clay. In fact, the woman whose luggage sparked the San Diego portion of the alert was an American woman in her 60s, hardly the profile of al-Qaeda. And what happened at the airport there bore little resemblance to what was in the TSA report — which claimed that ice packs were wrapped in duct tape and contained clay, which are not usually in ice packs and could resemble plastic explosives. In reality, they weren’t covered in duct tape and didn’t have clay inside of them. a Harbor Police officer found what appeared to be hardened old gel that had seeped out of the ice packs and dried, leaving a clay-like substance around the outside edge of the pack. As has been reported many times, we have an administration that loves to get the media talking about terrorism and vague threats to America.

Bush Helps al-Qaeda – Like any terrorist organization, al-Qaeda wants attention. It wants to be perceived as powerful. And it particularly wants Americans to live in fear. Could al-Qaeda possibly have found a better publicist than President Bush?

Support the Troops, NOT! – Servicemen and women who made huge sacrifices fighting in the war and now paying yet another price, even after coming home. One example is Brian Rodriguez, an honorably discharged soldier who’d been deployed in Iraq. “I was a combat engineer,” Rodriguez said. “We deal with land mines, explosives.” Former Army Specialist Rodriguez started getting bills for $700 for lost or damaged government property this summer. Although he was discharged some four years ago, bills recently arrived demanding payment, but giving no details on what or why — nor do they offer a way to dispute the charges. And he’s not alone. A 2006 government report found more than 1,000 soldiers being billed a total of $1.5 million.

Pat Tillman May Have Been Murdered, Then the Army Covered It Up – Medical examiners, after examining Pat Tillman, became suspicious of the close proximity of three bullet holes in his forehead, suggesting that he may have been murdered. One medical doctor said “The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described.” Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments. Questions linger about how high in the Bush administration the deception reached.

Fox News Attacks Bloggers – This week, Bill O’Reilly declared war on the blogosphere for “hateful ” posts However, in recent months, FOX News has implied that Barack Obama is a terrorist, called black churches cults, and denied the existence of global warming. . Watch the video.

BillOReilly.com Suggests There Should be a Terrorist Attack Against US Capitol Building – O’Reilly attacks DailyKos for hateful comments on their website and says it doesn’t happen on his. But it does.

Billoreilly.com Members Hope for a Day When Illegal Immigrants are Eaten Alive at the Border – More hateful posts on O’Reilly’s website that he says doesn’t happen.

Bill O’Reilly Doesn’t Like Hearing the Truth
Guest Jane Hall tries to make the point that hateful comments get posted to lots of websites including O’Reilly’s, but O’Reilly calls her a liar and cuts off her microphone.

QuickTime
Windows Media Player

Regards,

Jim

Tom Delay: “We have to be connected to Israel to enjoy the second coming.” – In an interview, Tom Delay, when asked how much the “Second Coming” plays into his support for Israel, says, “obviously, it’s what I live for, I hope it comes tomorrow.” Delay closed by saying, “we have to be connected to Israel to enjoy the second coming.”

Bush’s Veto Death March Continues – The president who vetoed just one bill in six years of Republican Congresses now has vetoed or threatened to veto 25 bills in the seven months of the Democratic Congress. A full 75% of the annual appropriations agenda.

Documents Contradict Attorney General’s Sworn Testimony – Documents directly contradict the sworn testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, heightening the questions of his credibility and fueling concern of perjury charges.

Wall Street Journal Sobs for Poor Gonzales – A few incredible excerpts of how the WSJ already sounds like it’s owned by Rupert Murdoch:

First, try the Bush/Cheney/Rove did nothing wrong ploy: “We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: U.S. Attorneys are political appointees. They serve at the pleasure of the President, who has the right to fire them at any time.”
Next, bring out the old Clinton did it too trick: “Just ask Bill Clinton and Janet Reno, who fired all the U.S. Attorneys in one fell swoop in 1993 to little political or media consternation.”

Then try to convince us that the president and his men don’t have to answer to anyone for their actions: “Their refusal to testify is not only understandable, but necessary and, what’s more, a favor to any future White House occupant from either party.”

Maybe some tear-jerker sympathy: “Congress has nearly run out the string on its capacity to bludgeon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.”

And when all else fails, try to convince us that revealing the identity of covert agents, commiting perjury and obstruction of justice are not crimes: “Amid the Valerie Plame brouhaha, it let Attorney General John Ashcroft recuse himself, which allowed Deputy AG James Comey to appoint his pal Patrick Fitzgerald as a special counsel to investigate another non-crime. … As with the Plame affair, the U.S. Attorneys fiasco is a political dispute, not a criminal one.”

Bill O’Reilly Bans DailyKos Contributer From His Website – A contributer to DailyKos exposed hate speech on Bill O’Reilly’s website and posted the information on DailyKos. He opened an account on BillOReilly.com, but was his account was terminated, supposedly for violation of terms and condidtions. He gave completely accurate information when registering and he never made a post, uncivil or otherwise, to BillOReilly.com.

They only thing that might work: Let’s pray for Bill

BillOReilly.com Regular Poster Makes Death Threat on Hillary Clinton – Last night, Bill O’Reilly uselessly scolded Hillary Clinton’s Communications Director for the lack of comment moderation on Daily Kos:

O’REILLY: Every respectable blog in the country does not permit this hatred. Even.
WOLFSON: Bill, even your website has things on it that you would find objectionable.
O’REILLY: That’s bull. Look, we know what you’re going to say because the Kos planted someone in there. But when we see objectionable things, we take it off immediately. They traffic in it.

BillO tried to steamroll Wolfson on this point in the transcript because he knew there are outrageous comments on his site and tried to spin it-but this one!. Well.Falafel-Boy, it’s time to heal thyself. John at AmBlog picked up this:
BillOReilly.com: “If [Hillary] wins. my guns are loaded”

Note that the person has written over 1,000 posts on O’Reilly’s Web site. That means he or she isn’t new, he or she isn’t someone who just came over from DailyKos in order to impersonate a BillOReilly.com member (as O’Reilly ridiculously claimed last night). It’s a BillOReilly.com regular, and Bill clearly has had no issues with this person posting on his site in exchange for cold hard cash. (It costs $30 to be able to post on O’Reilly’s site.)

Political Strong-Arming of Endangered Species List – Individually, the creatures on the endangered species list might seem less than crucial to democracy. But when one after another – as many as 200 – loses protection due to political, rather than scientific, assessments, alarms should sound both for the environment and for government. The Department of the Interior, which oversees endangered fish and wildlife, is the latest in more than 18 agencies or departments whose scientists complain that political appointees have tampered with data. An investigation by the department’s inspector general reported Fish and Wildlife Services employees’ protests that their boss, Julie MacDonald, “bullied, insulted and harassed the professional staff … to change documents and alter biological reporting.”

Tony Snow Lectures Reporter on How to Report – Is this a sign of the crisis at the White House? Are they getting a bit more edgy?

Conservative Blog Says “It’s Time To Take Fredo Out Fishing” – Rather than suggesting that the Bush administration be honest or do what’s right for the nation, they think of ways to subvert the system to maintain power.

Republicans Ready to Make Money Selling Your Broadcast Spectrum – Republicans are salivating over the prospect of $10 billion in free money from the “spectrum sale,” as though the government were just another private entity seeking a windfall. But spectrum is not property. It is part of the Commons.

Regards,

Jim