The WAWG Blog

I have written in several other articles about the neocons that make up a significant portion of those who contribute to the decisions Mr. Bush makes. Elsewhere, I have written about the right wing authoritarian (RWA) followers that make up probably two thirds of the remaining public support that Bush still holds.

Now we have 150 RWA appointees from Pat Robertson’s Regent University where they post the following on their ‘About Us’ web page.

Dr. M.G. “Pat” Robertson, founder and president of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), had an inspired vision to establish a graduate-level institution that would train men and women for the challenge of representing Christ in their professions.

On April 8, Boston.com News reported, “Graduates of the law school have been among the most influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001, according to a university website.” A search of the university website indicates this information has been removed. As shown in the image below, only the search engine results for their site indicates the existence of that claim. However, the content of the Regent web page no longer includes that text.

The Boston.com article also stated the university, “has worked hard in its two-decade history to upgrade its reputation, fighting past years when a majority of its graduates couldn’t pass the bar exam.” Monica Goodling , the former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales graduated in 1999 and only 40 percent of her class passed the bar exam on the first attempt.

A check for Regent appointees via the staff listing at Resources for the President’s Team, only yields one Regent Graduate, Lisa Marie Kruska, Department of Labor Assistant Secretary of Labor. Have they cleaned up their employee web page bios too?

The Boston.com site mentioned Kay Coles James, now former director of the Office of Personnel Management.

The article also quoted Jay Sekulow, from a non profit law firm, American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), at Regent which files lawsuits aimed at lowering barriers between church and state, as saying, “We’ve had great placement. … We’ve had a lot of people in key positions.” Mr. Sekulow was named one of the “25 Most Influential Evangelicals” by Time Magazine.

(Relative to my introductory remarks on RWAs, the Time Magazine article also included the following statement, “Bush won 78% of the vote among the quarter of the electorate that is white evangelical Christian.”)

According to the Boston.com article, this influx of Regent graduates was enabled by John Ashcroft, former Attorney General, who

… changed longstanding rules for hiring lawyers to fill vacancies in the career ranks. … Previously, veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools.

So, the Administration has 20 neocons from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) that Mr. Bush referenced at an AEI dinner in 2003, “the number of Center [for Security Policy] associates who people this administration—and particularly the Department of Defense,” according to Don Rumsfeld and now 150 evangelical lawyers.

How much more damage can all these authoritarians accomplish before they are replaced?

As a foot note to this spreading of authoritarians, here are a few quotes from a Bush speech to his team made on March 7, 2007:

… if I had to give you a simple job description, it was the job requires making a lot of decisions — I mean, a lot.

… good decision-making requires delegation. Good decision-making requires creating an environment where people can walk in and tell you what’s on their mind.

… I have worked hard to surround myself with people who are confident enough in their own abilities to walk in and say, “You’re not looking so pretty, Mr. President, and here’s what I recommend.”

… part of being able to accomplish big goals is you’ve got to have a team of people who work together. Now, not everybody agrees. You don’t want your President to get homogenized advice. You need people who speak frankly, who aren’t intimidated by the surroundings of the presidency …

But the final ingredient to making good decisions to meet big goals is, once I make up my mind, it’s, “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

So, when does the President inform his followers that he has made up his mind and to forget about telling him “what’s on your mind?” Is there a list on the door of what’s open to discussion?

In this eighteenth survey of the web, The WAWG Index monthly average was down by 10.5 percent from March 2007. Of the fourteen categories tracked, 13 were down, 1 was up, and none was unchanged. The largest decrease for April, 35%, was for “rampant sexism.” The only increase was for “labor power loss” at 16%.

Through April, the 12 month group moving average for all fourteen categories was at 13.2 percent. It was 14.3 percent last month. Of the fourteen categories tracked, 5 have averages that were down while 9 are up. “Corporate power gain” went negative.

Looks like between the two metrics, labor made some gains over corporate america.

Inappropriate government lawyers’ membership in Republican group – The Republican National Lawyers Association, which trains lawyers to monitor elections, has several members who work in the Justice Department’s voting section. Bush appointees and civil servants that are members of the group include “at least 25 in the Justice Department, nine in the Department of Defense and others in the Labor and Commerce departments, the White House and the Office of Special Counsel, which oversees investigations into allegations of ethical misconduct by government employees

Failed Vietnam Tactic is the New Plan for Iraq – US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighborhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter. The campaign of “gated communities” – whose genesis was in the Vietnam War – will involve up to 30 of the city’s 89 official districts. The system has spectacularly failed in the past. The system of “gating” areas under foreign occupation failed during the French war against FLN insurgents in Algeria and again during the American war in Vietnam. Israel has employed similar practices during its occupation of Palestinian territory – again, with little success.

Bush Shows His Support of the Troops By Giving Them Three More Months of Combat Pay – One catch: they have to stay in Iraq for three extra months.

White House May Have Erased “Lost” Officials’ E-Mails – The White House said Wednesday that it may have erased “lost” what could amount to thousands of political communications sent improperly through a private e-mail system operated by the RNC and used by Karl Rove and at least 50 other top officials, an admission that “raises serious legal and security issues,” according to Rep. Henry Waxman

Subpoena-Crazy Republican Warns Democrats About Handing Out Too Many Subpoenas – Republican Representative Dan Burton subpoenaed 141 different associates of Bill Clinton. He held hearings for 10 days on the Clintons’ Christmas card list. In one instance, Burton was so reckless, he subpoenaed the wrong man (looking for someone with a similar name). Now he is warning that the new Democratic leadership may be abusing its subpoena powers. Is he trying to pursue a career in comedy?

Republican candidate for the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election Tommy Thompson wants everyone to have an electronic ID tag implanted under their skin – He’s going to get one. This announcement comes two weeks after Thompson joined the board of directors of VeriChip, a company based in Delray Beach, Fla., that manufactures RFID tags-including the implantable tag-for tracking people.

Florida Legislature Forces University To Idolize Jeb Bush – Two weeks ago, the University of Florida voted to deny Jeb Bush an honorary degree. By a 38-28 vote, the faculty Senate rejected the former governor’s nomination, citing concerns about some of Bush’s education initiatives, including his dismantling of affirmative action programs in the state. Upset by this lack of Jeb Bush adoration, the conservative-controlled House Schools & Learning Council voted yesterday to force the university to rename its education school the “Jeb Bush College of Education.” The lawmakers acknowledge they “came up with the idea as an answer” to the faculty’s denial of Bush’s honorary degree.

Federal Panel Altered Findings on Voter Fraud to Support GOP Claims – The Federal Assistance Commission suppressed the findings of experts who concluded that there was little voter fraud around the country, instead reporting that the pervasiveness of such fraud is open to debate, according to the New York Times. The Republican Party has used trumped-up allegations of voter fraud to justify stringent new voter ID requirements; the same panel recently tried to block the release its own report on the impact of those ID laws, which found that they often serve to reduce turnout among minority voters.

Army proposing extending duty for everyone in Iraq – The army has put on the defense secretary’s desk a proposal to extend the tour of duty for every active duty soldier in Iraq by three months. They would be required to stay longer, in large part, because the surge of forces the president announced in January is almost certain to be extended. This will affect tens of thousands of American families.

Air Force Report Pushes to Bring Back Chemical Weapons – Chemical weapons have been an international taboo for decades. But now, some in the United States Air Force are pushing to use them again.

Regards,

Jim

Data Shows Veterans’ Disabilities Being Downgraded – The U.S. military appears to have dispensed low disability ratings to nearly 93% of wounded service members with serious injuries, thus avoiding paying them full military disabled retirement benefits, according to an analysis of Defense Department data. While most recent attention has been paid to substandard conditions and outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, veterans’ advocates say that a more grievous problem is an arbitrary and dysfunctional disability ratings process that is short-changing the nation’s newest crop of veterans. The trouble has existed for years, but now that the country is at war, tens of thousands of Americans are being caught up in it.

Republican Party’s Private E-Mail System May Have Violated Federal Law – A back-channel e-mail and paging system, paid for and maintained by the RNC, may have been used to conceal previously denied contact with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, as well as policy matters in violation of federal record preservation and disclosure rules. “There is concern about what may be in these e-mails,” said one GOP activist, speaking for some Republicans who believe that the huge number of e-mails – many written hastily, with no thought that they might become public – may contain more detailed and unguarded inside information about the administration’s far-flung political activities than has previously been available. RNC officials will respond this week to requests from congressional investigators for access to broad categories of the e-mails.

Professor who criticized Bush added to terrorist ‘no-fly’ list – A top Constitutional scholar from Princeton who gave a televised speech that slammed President George W. Bush’s executive overreach recently learned that he had been added to the Transportation Security Administration’s terrorist watch list. He shared his experience this weekend at the law blog Balkinization.

The Gutting Of The Justice Department – The Administration’s forced brain drain at Justice threatens its stature and effectiveness for years to come. An example: In Minnesota last week, three top attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s office rebelled and demoted themselves to regular line prosecutors rather than work directly with the newly appointed U.S. Attorney there., who is a crony of attorney general Alberto Gonzales.

Bush’s ‘Surge’ Several Times Larger, More Expensive than Administration Claimed
The graphic below says it all.

Bush Admin. Wins ËœMuzzle Award” for Stifling Free Speech - The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression  announced Tuesday that the Bush administration and the Defense  Department are among the winners of the 2007 Muzzle awards for,  respectively, efforts to censor government scientists’ reports and  studies to be more in line with the administration’ policies on  global warming, and covert investigations of organizations that  conducted peaceful anti-war protests. Other winners of the 16th  annual awards include the Ohio General Assembly for enacting a state- level version of the Patriot Act, and U.S. Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y.,  for calling for a criminal espionage investigation of The New York Times.

Professor who criticized Bush added to terrorist ‘no-fly’ list – Identifying their enemies– A top Constitutional scholar from Princeton who gave a televised speech that slammed President George W. Bush’s executive overreach recently learned that he had been added to the Transportation Security Administration’s terrorist watch list. He shared his experience this weekend at the law blog Balkinization.

Data Shows Veterans’ Disabilities Being Downgraded – The U.S. military appears to have dispensed low disability ratings to nearly 93% of wounded service members with serious injuries, thus avoiding paying them full military disabled retirement benefits, according to an analysis of Defense Department data. While most recent attention has been paid to substandard conditions and outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, veterans’ advocates say that a more grievous problem is an arbitrary and dysfunctional disability ratings process that is short-changing the nation’s newest crop of veterans. The trouble has existed for years, but now that the country is at war, tens of thousands of Americans are being caught up in it.

Republican Party’s Private E-Mail System May Have Violated Federal Law – A back-channel e-mail and paging system, paid for and maintained by the RNC, may have been used to conceal previously denied contact with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, as well as policy matters in violation of federal record preservation and disclosure rules. “There is concern about what may be in these e-mails,” said one GOP activist, speaking for some Republicans who believe that the huge number of e-mails – many written hastily, with no thought that they might become public – may contain more detailed and unguarded inside information about the administration’s far-flung political activities than has previously been available. RNC officials will respond this week to requests from congressional investigators for access to broad categories of the e-mails.

Regards,

Jim

I started writing this in late 2001 and have not revisited if for quite some time. I’m posting it with some 2007 updates and have added guidelines on how to enable these hopes.

May our leaders use all sources of information to help them make broadly based decisions.
May reaction recede and pro-action proceed.
May our leaders speak of this terror as against all nations – not just ours.

May the loss of life from 86 countries be not in vain.
May our successes in Afghanistan continue throughout the war.
May those who support the war, allow for those who can’t.

May all citizens recognize the real enemy by its actions – not general labels.
May the silent majority of Islam become its true voice and replace the madness that has hijacked their beliefs.
May western understanding of eastern issues help nurture more understanding from both sides.
May the example of members of the FDNY on their visit to Kabul to deliver aid show the world we are as caring and sharing as we are strong and determined.

May we all change to meet the challenge of terrorism.
May each of us have the courage to take on terrorism in our presence.
May future terrorist acts be minimized by our vigilance.
May our vigilance remain steady and strong until terrorism is minimalized.
May our tendency toward instant gratification yield to patient endurance.
May reductions in ‘their’ civil liberties not extend to us all.
May each of us listen, pause, and recognize when fear is an appropriate response.
May our paranoia and delusions of grandeur be replaced by the realization that terrorists are after high impact targets, not ‘me’.

May we all become better neighbors and citizens, and
May our children and grandchildren be proud of our actions 60 years hence as we are proud of The Greatest Generation.
— C. Andy Hailey

Here are my 2007 hopes:

• May we all be ever vigilant for leaders who would use war dogma and misinformation to scare us into giving up our rights.
• May we all realize that power corrupts – even democracies.
• May we all learn, soon, that the neocon authoritarians use Noble Lies to lead us into war and take away our rights
• May we raise our standards to where they once were and learn that accepting torture only opens Pandora’s box and endangers us all.
• May the rule of law by our Constitution and independent judiciary hold ground over the mob rule of dynamic public opinion.
• May our fear of the right to council for our enemies be replaced by confidence that our judicial process works well and sets the standard for the world.
• May we come to realize that giving up our rights in hope of improving our chances against terrorism only jeopardizes our own liberties.
• May we learn, before it’s too late, that we can’t continue to spend and borrow – the rest of the world is growing tired of financing the debt of an imperialist nation and we must start to pay our own way.

Relative to my hopes, I offer the following quotes from The Psychology of Power and Evil by Philip Zimbardo. This paper explains how evil can happen and how you can avoid falling into its grasp. I see his guidelines for succumbing to or avoiding evil as applicable to enabling or disabling my hopes.

The first set of quotes lists ten procedural steps for “creating evil traps for good people” or how to get “many ordinary citizens to engage in … apparently harmful behavior.”

1. Offering an Ideology so that a big lie provides justification for any means to be used to achieve the seemingly desirable, essential goal. [Like weapons of mass destruction.] … Most nations rely on the same ideology of “threats to national security” before going to war or suppressing dissident political opposition. In the Unites States, the fear of the threat to national security posed by terrorists has led too many citizens to accept torture of prisoners as a necessary tactic for securing information that could prevent further attacks.
2. Arranging some form of contractual obligation, verbal or written, to enact the behavior.
3. Giving participants meaningful roles to play (teacher, student) that carry with them previously learned positive values and response scripts.
4. Presenting basic rules to be followed, that seem to make sense prior to their actual use, but then can be arbitrarily used to justify mindless compliance. Make the rules vague and change them as necessary.
5. Altering the semantics of the act, the actor, and the action, (from hurting victims to helping learners by punishing them)—replace reality with desirable rhetoric.
6. Creating opportunities for diffusion of responsibility for negative outcomes; others will be responsible, or it won’t be evident that the actor will be held liable.
7. Starting the path toward the ultimate evil act with a small, insignificant first step ….
8. Having successively increasing steps on the pathway be gradual, so that they are hardly noticed as being different from one’s most recent prior action.
9. Changing the nature of the influence authority from initially “Just” and reasonable to “Unjust” and demanding, even irrational, elicits initial compliance and later confusion, but continued obedience.
10. Making the “exit costs” high, and making the process of leaving difficult by allowing usual forms of verbal dissent (that make people feel good about themselves), while insisting on behavioral compliance (“I know you are not that kind of person, just keep doing as I tell you.”)

U.S Gets First Terrorist Confession in Five Years

Professor Zimbardo introduces this list as his, “11-steps toward promoting civic virtue that are in opposition to the 10-steps toward evil that I outlined [above] ….”

1. Encouraging admission of one’s mistakes, accepting errors in judgments, being willing to say that you were wrong. Openly doing so reduces the need to justify the mistakes, to continue the wrong or immoral action. It undercuts the motivation to reduce dissonance by asserting or believing in the public commitment when it was a bad decision.
2. Encouraging “Mindfulness” (Langer, 1989) in which people are reminded in a variety of ways not to live their lives on automatic pilot, but to take a moment to reflect on the immediate situation, to think before acting, to not go mindlessly into situations where angels and sensible people fear to tread.
3. Promoting a sense of personal responsibility and accountability for all of one’s actions, making people aware that conditions of diffused responsibility merely disguise their own individual role in the outcomes of their actions.
4. Discouraging even the smallest transgressions, cheating, gossiping, lying, teasing and bullying. They provide the first steps toward escalating downwards to ever worsening behaviors.
5. Learning to distinguish between Just Authority, to whom respect and even obedience may be appropriate, and Unjust Authority (as in the Milgram study), to whom disrespect and disobedience are necessary to oppose and change that tyrant.
6. Supporting critical thinking from the earliest times in a child’s life and maintaining it throughout life. Asking for evidence to support assertions, demanding that ideologies be sufficiently elaborated to separate rhetoric from reality-based conclusions, to independently determine whether specific means ever justify vague and harmful ends.
7. Rewarding social modeling of moral behavior, elevating for societal recognition those who do the right thing, with rewards for “whistle blowers,” such as the U.S. army reservist, Joe Darby, who exposed the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and those who expose wrong doing in government and corporation, and by the Mafia.
8. Respecting human diversity, appreciating human variability and the differences among people as a fundamental way to reduce our in-group biases that lead to derogating others, prejudice and the evils of discrimination.
9. Changing social conditions that make people feel anonymous, instead supporting conditions that make people feel special, so that they have a sense of personal value and self worth.
10. Becoming aware of when conformity to the group norm is counter-productive and should not be followed, when independence should take precedence and be adopted regardless of social rejection by that group.
11. Never allowing one’s self to sacrifice personal freedoms for the promise of security, it is always a bad deal because the sacrifices are real and immediate and the security is a distant illusion. This is as true in marital arrangements as it is in being a good citizen in a nation where the leader promises to make everyone safer against a current threat by giving up some of their personal freedoms so that the leader can have more power. That bad bargain usually translates to more power Over Them, as well as over the enemy. It is the first step in creating fascist leaders even in democratic societies, as Erich Fromm (1941) reminded us about Hitler, but is as true today in many nations.

Please help fulfill my hopes by being more aware of our collective situation and applying the above 11 step program.

Professor Zimbardo is also the author of The Lucifer Effect.

Hussein’s Prewar Ties to Al Qaeda Discounted by Pentagon – Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides “all confirmed” that Hussein’s regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a report declassified Thursday by the Pentagon. This came as Vice President Dick Cheney, appearing on the Rush Limbaugh show, reasserted the existence of such a pre-invasion connection

US Protects Iranian Rebels It Classifies As Terrorists – Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq, despite being considered terrorists by the United States, continues to receive protection from the American military in the face of Iraqi pressure to leave the country. According to U.S. documents, coalition forces regard MEK as protected people under the Geneva Conventions, and U.S. forces regularly escort the group on supply runs between Baghdad and its base. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government, which is developing increasingly close ties with Tehran, has stressed repeatedly that it does not want its country used as a staging ground for operations against Iran.

Bush says he won’t comply with Supreme Court ruling unless China and India do – While acknowledging Tuesday that he took ‘very seriously’ the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles as pollution, [Bush] set up a potential conflict with Congress by attaching two conditions to comply with the decision. Bush’s first condition is that compliance with the Supreme Court not hurt the economy. While answering questions about whether he would comply with the ruling, he said: “It’s going to require new technologies, which tend to be expensive, and it’s easier to afford expensive technologies if you’re prosperous.” The second condition was that nations like China and India would have to take the same kind of steps.

If you haven’t done so already, tell your friends that the EPA needs to show us their plan for complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling within the month.

Administration wants to decrease protection for endangered manatees although there were record deaths last year – The Florida manatee, this state’s imperiled environmental icon, in 2006 suffered its most dismal year on record. According to a memo sent from Fish and Wildlife to the White House, the agency was going to say that the manatee “no longer meets the definition of an endangered species.”

US offered to scare Iran while British sailors were detained – The United States reportedly offered to mount aggressive air patrols over Revolutionary Guards bases during Iran’s stand-off with Britain but was rebuffed by London.

CEO of Ford Saves President Bush – Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford’s hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week.

O’Reilly uses tragedy to attack immigrants – Bill O’Reilly has used the tragedy of the death of two young girls in Virginia Beach, VA, whose car was struck by a drunk driver, to launch an attack on illegal immigrants.
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FOX News compares Hillary Clinton to Nazi Goebbels
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Republican Mitch McConnell Says Democrats Want The Troops Dead

Fox News contributor Says, in Iraq, we didn’t kill enough Sunnis – He said, “Wasn’t the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence?”

Ann Coulter says she wants speedier genocide in Dafur – Coulter said,”These people can’t even wrap up genocide. We’ve been hearing about this slaughter in Darfur forever – and they still haven’t finished. The aggressors are moving like termites across that country. It’s like genocide by committee. Who’s running this holocaust in Darfur, FEMA?”

Regards,

Jim

Houston Councilman Michael Berry says American Indians do not deserve the federal assistance that they’re getting because they were “whipped in a war” and “We conquered them.” – Berry said on his radio show on KPRC 950 AM in Houston on March 27 that American Indians do not deserve the federal assistance that they’re getting because they were “whipped in a war.” He also said this about Indians, “We conquered them.”

Swift Boat donor’s appointment sidesteps Congress – President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress where Democrats had derailed Fox’s nomination. Recognizing Fox did not have the votes to obtain Senate confirmation, Bush withdrew the nomination last month. On Wednesday, with Congress out of town for a spring break, the president used his power to make recess appointments to put Fox in the job without Senate confirmation. Bush’s ploy is illegal say Democrats, pointing to the federal law that prohibits unpaid “voluntary service” – the terms under which Bush sneaked Fox through – in positions, such as the ambassadorship, that have a fixed rate of pay. More.

Alberto Gonzales Preps with Former Republican National Committee Chairman for Senate Testimony – In an effort to salvage his career, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has retreated from public view this week to spend hours practicing “the truth” with the coaching of former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie and three days of mock testimony sessions. However, officials say that Gonzales’s efforts are hampered even behind closed doors due to legal conflicts between the attorney general and his own staff, leading to a scenario in which “some senior officials are not able to discuss the facts as they know them in the same room.”

White House Posts Lawmakers’ Earmarks Online, Omits Its Own – The White House on Wednesday unveiled an online list of all the pet spending projects appended by Congress to the federal budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year. The list saw light of day despite the Bush administration’s own best efforts, as it was reportedly pressuring the OMB just weeks ago to publish only a partial list for fear of angering some pork-friendly GOP lawmakers. The White House did manage, however, to keep its own earmark requests off the list. More.

Romney calls himself a longtime hunter, even though he’s gone out only 2 times – In boasting about his lifelong experience as a hunter, Mitt Romney may have shot himself in the foot. The Republican presidential contender has told audiences on several occasions, most recently this week in gun-savvy _ and early voting _ New Hampshire, that he has been a longtime hunter. But it turns out he has been on only two hunting trips.

Conservatives go nuts ranting against Nancy Pelosi wearing a headscarf while visiting a mosque, but don’t seem to mind Laura Bush wearing one while visiting a Muslim shrine – Various conservatives blogs contain many ugly comments about Pelosi wearing a hijab, but check out the photo at the link below:

Regards,

Jim

I have written about many of the prominent neocons that are influencing the direction of this country. There is Eliot Cohen who joined Condolezza Rice as her council while she is trying to play the role of diplomat in the Middle East. There are the quotes from both Bush and Rumsfeld about the presence of neocons in the Administration. David Frum, a neocon from American Enterprise Institute (AEI), basically said they must be right about whatever subject they speak on because they have big spenders supporting them. I’ve also written about their threat to our liberties, and it’s much more likely than any terrorist threat. They will just tell us the appropriate Noble Lie and we will gladly give up our rights.

Now I would like to introduce you to another know-it-all neocon and show that as confident as he may be in his speech and manner, you can’t always believe him.

He recently resigned as our ambassador to the U.N., to which he was appointed without Congressional confirmation in 2005 by President Bush, after Bush concluded that the new Congress was even less likely to confirm his renomination the second time around.

According to Right Web

• He is a close associate of William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard.
• He has been a key figure of the Republican Party since the 1980’s.
• On July 19, 2002, The Wall Street Journal reported Bolton’s “most memorable moment came after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to the recount, when Mr. Bolton strode into a Tallahassee library, where the count was still going on, and declared: ‘I’m with the Bush-Cheney team, and I’m here to stop the count’.”
• Senator Joe Lieberman voted with Republicans to confirm Bolton for undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs.
• Before joining the Bush administration, Bolton was a member of the New Atlantic Initiative, a bipartisan initiative sponsored by AEI and funded by two right-wing foundations, the Olin Foundation and the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation.
• In 1997, he said in effect that, international treaties signed by the United States should not be considered as a body of law that the United States should respect in its international engagement, but rather just political considerations that can be ignored.
• He has been a senior vice president of AEI.
• Bolton is an outspoken hawk on U.S. policy in the Middle East, and has since the mid-1990s been closely associated with a number of neoconservative organizations and pressure groups that are close to the right-wing Likud Party in Israel, including AEI, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG).
• In February 2003, Bolton said that once regime change plans in Iraq were completed, “It will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran, and North Korea afterwards”
• In 1999, Bolton, speaking as an AEI scholar, said: “Diplomatic recognition of Taiwan would be just the kind of demonstration of U.S. leadership that the region needs and that many of its people hope for. The notion that China would actually respond with force is a fantasy.”

According to Source-watch, here is a list of “Bolton Scandals:”

• National Congressional Club
• Iran-Contra
• Taiwangate
• Abolition of International Law
• Pushing the Iraq war
• Foreign Travel

As an example of Mr. Bolton’s Noble Lies, listen to the melding of two interviews in the embedded video below. One interview is with John Bolton, in which he claims he has a better understanding of President Lincoln, and other things like Democracy, than Jon Stewart’s recollections from his interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin. Doris Goodwin is the author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln where she confirms that Bolton is just plain wrong.

An article on John Bolton by the Center for American Progress, concluded with, “At this point it is clear that the world Bolton has left us four years later is one that is more dangerous. He can only do more damage from a position of greater power.”

The Secret War Against Iran – A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005. It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or “finding” as well as congressional oversight. Jundullah has produced its own videos showing Iranian soldiers and border guards it says it has captured and brought back to Pakistan. The leader, Regi, claims to have personally executed some of the Iranians.

Conservative blogs continue to tell lies that CNN reporter Michael Ware disrupted a Sunday press conference in Baghdad with Sen. John McCain

Founder of conservative environmental group that served as Jack Abramoff’s gateway to the Interior being investigated on several charges – Italia Federici ran a nonprofit called the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), a conservative think tank, which she founded with Gale Norton, who became Bush’s Secretary of the Interior. As a result, Federici was well connected in the Interior Department. So she and Abramoff had a deal. Abramoff’s clients pumped $500,000 into her organization; in return, she ensured that people inside the department knew about his tribal clients’ needs.

White House May Have Aided Republican Delegation Meeting with Syrian President – The White House and conservatives criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi meeting Wednesday with Syrian President Bashir Assad. However, a Republican delegation had made the same trip – without comment from the White House – only days earlier. And Bush officials’ approval of the republican trip may have been more than tacit according to the chief of staff for congressman Joe Pitts, who, along with two fellow House Republicans met with Assad on Sunday, their “low profile” meeting “was done in cooperation with the administration.”

Justice Official Refuses Even an Informal Interview – Monica Goodling, the special counsel to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who has refused to testify about her role in the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys, has again rebuffed requests to talk to congressional investigators, saying through her lawyer Tuesday that she would not even agree to an informal interview with Capitol Hill Democrats.

Bush Blames Democrats in Congress for Not Funding Troops While Democrats in Congress Send Bush a Bill With More Funding Than He Requested; Bush Blames Democrats for Going on Vacation while Bush Prepares to Go On Vacation – “We acted quicker than the Republican Congress has ever acted on a supplemental request on Iraq,” said Drew Hammill, spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi, arguing that the Democratic leadership is continuing to work on the supplemental through the Easter recess. Hammill also said it was ironic that Bush criticized the congressional Easter break only days before taking an Easter vacation of his own. President Bush plans to spend Thursday through Sunday at his ranch for an extended Easter weekend. This will be Bush’s 63rd trip to his ranch since taking office. He has spent 405 days, either entirely or partially, at his ranch in Crawford.

Family Research Council cites Joe Barton’s citing of 600,000-year-old scientific evidence that Al Gore’s carbon dioxide claims are false, while also contending that the Bible proves that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. How can Barton have “scientific evidence” that’s 594,000 years older than the universe itself?

Christian Right Evangelist Chuck Missler Disproves Evolution With a Jar of Peanut Butter – Craziest piece of non-logic I’ve seen. Video at the link above.

Bush bypassing Senate to name conservative academic to post – President Bush intends to bypass the Senate in order to name a “conservative academic” to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). According to the Wall Street Journal, “Susan Dudley, the former head of regulatory studies at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, has generated opposition from environmentalists and liberal interest groups, who say she would carry out a pro-business agenda at the expense of public health and safety.” Dudley “is already on record as believing that EPA rules are too strict.

21 Shia market workers ambushed, bound and shot dead at the same Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain – Is this retribution for the visit from McCain, who said that the American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress? The good news is that Senator Lindsey Graham got “five rugs for five bucks” at the market over the weekend.

Reasons George W. Bush Wants To Put A Man On Mars
Dick Cheney needs a new undisclosed location
It’s part of his “No Planet Left Behind” initiative
Maybe we’ll find some weapons of mass destruction there
New place to drill for oil
He’s hoping to get Mork’s autograph
We cannot back down until the people of Mars hold free elections
Free Mars bars!
Why not? It’s not like we have an enormous national debt
Pete Rose bet him he wouldn’t do it
Chance of finding life form dumber than him
We’ll need somewhere to go once his environmental policy ruins Earth
Might get him in one of those “newspapers” he’s heard so much about
It was strongly suggested by Halliburton’s Outer Space division

Regards,

Jim