The WAWG Blog

GSA Chief Accused of Using Agency to Aid GOP – Witnesses have told congressional investigators that Lurita Doan, the Bush-appointed chief of the General Services Administration, joined in a videoconference earlier this year organized by one of Karl Rove’s deputies, during which she asked how GSA officials could help “our candidates” in the next election. Doan – who is under investigation by the GSA’s Office of Inspector General and the independent federal Office of Special Counsel – will testify this week before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where she is also expected to face questions about her attempt last summer to give a no-bid job to a friend.

Ex-Prosecutor Says He Faced Partisan Questions Before Firing – John McKay of Washington state, one of the eight former U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration, said yesterday that White House officials questioned his performance in highly partisan political terms at a meeting in Washington in September, three months before his dismissal. According to McKay, White House counsel Harriet Miers “asked me why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry with me,” an apparent reference to McKay’s decision two years earlier – backed by the FBI’s office in Seattle – not to pursue voter fraud charges that could have undermined a Democratic victory in a closely fought gubernatorial race.

Despite historical facts, John Bolton says Bush never said Saddam Hussein was an ‘imminent threat’ – Last week on The Daily Show, former Bush appointee to Ambassador the United Nations showed that he didn’t know the historical facts about the Lincoln administration. This past Sunday, on CNN’s Late Edition on Sunday, John Bolton showed he doesn’t know the historical facts about the Bush administration. Bolton said, “The president never made the argument that he [Saddam Hussein] constituted an imminent threat.” However, on several occasions, administration officials have used the term “imminent threat” to describe Iraq in the run up to the war. On March 16, 2003, President Bush said, “This is about imminent threat.” “This is about imminent threat,” said then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan on February 10, 2003. “When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month…So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?” was Donald Rumsfeld’s message in November 2002, implying that Iraq would need to attack the US to become more of an immediate threat than it was. Vice President Dick Cheney in August 2002 used the similar term “mortal threat” saying, “What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness.”

New York police spied broadly before 2004 GOP convention – For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews. Records show that in hundreds of files labeled “NYPD Secret,” the NYPD intelligence operations chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law. The files included members of church and anti-war groups, environmentalists, and even three New York City elected officials.

Regards,

Jim

Summarized below are some findings from section 5 of the Pew Research survey, Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007.

The survey stated, “Seven-in-ten Americans say they favor ‘affirmative action programs to help blacks, women and other minorities get better jobs and education.’ That is a 12-point increase since 1995, with support increasing among most demographic and political groups.”

“The public also remains split on the broader question of whether the nation has gone too far in pressing for equal rights. … Republicans (60%) are far more likely than Democrats (35%) to say the country has gone too far in pushing for equal rights.”

“There also have been striking changes since the late 1980s in how people of different races view black-white dating. In 1987-88, fewer than half of whites (44%) said that interracial dating was acceptable; that number has nearly doubled (to 81%) in the current survey. Two decades ago, about three-quarters of blacks (74%) felt interracial dating was acceptable. Today,nearly all African Americans (97%) believe that interracial dating is acceptable.”

Then we have this, which can be confirmed at the Washington Post:

Click on image for larger view

The Pew Research survey, Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007, states, “About eight-in-ten Americans say they have no doubt that God exists, that prayer is an important part of their lives, and that ‘we will all be called before God at the Judgment Day to answer for our sins.’ … But the intensity of agreement with these indicators of religiosity has shown a modest decline in recent years, after increasing through much of the 1990s. … The survey also finds that the number of Americans who say they are atheist or agnostic, or choose not to identify with a religious tradition has increased modestly over the past two decades. … There also is a growing partisan gap in religious belief.”

The survey also showed that, “surveys taken over the past 20 years show that the size of the secular group has remained constant over time within each age cohort. In other words, the number of seculars within each generational group is about the same in 2007 as it was 10 or 20 years before.” Note that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is not that different in spite of what we hear from the media.

Social conservatism is on the decline and is being accelerated by the generational change. There has been a steady decline, even among Republicans, for 6 different measures of attitudes on social values. In addition, the younger score lower on those same attitudes.

The survey provided these examples, “… in 1987, 73% of white evangelical Protestants agreed that school boards should have the right to fire homosexual teachers. Today, just 42% do so. And in 1987, 60% of white evangelicals believed that AIDS might be a punishment for immoral sexual behavior; today just 38% believe this.”

Summarized below are the major findings from section 3 of the Pew Research survey, Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007.

The survey stated at the start of this section that, “Support for the principle of “peace through strength,” which surged in the aftermath of 9/11 but fell sharply after the Iraq war began in 2003, has again declined. And while an overwhelming number of Americans continue to believe the U.S. should be active in world affairs, the number strongly endorsing U.S. global engagement has fallen compared with four years ago.” Since 1994, there has been a small decline in this belief.

Other than a spike after 9/11/2001, the interest in revenge has not changed since 1994.

According to Pew Research, “In values surveys since 1994, roughly half of the public has expressed agreement that one has an obligation to fight for his or her country whether it is right or wrong. … Indeed, there is no evidence that the Iraq war – or 9/11 before it – have had much of an impact on these attitudes.”

On the other hand, being patriotic did show a slight increase after 9/11 and the preemptive invasion of Iraq. The results also indicate that independent voters were more affected by these events than party members of either party.

According to the survey, “Despite revelations of widespread abuses at a U.S.-run prison in Iraq, most Americans do not rule out the use of torture as a way of gaining important information from suspected terrorists.” Blacks, women, liberal democrats, senior citizens and white mainline protestants are least favorable to the use of torture.

There is very little history on this, but I hope the current level of acceptance only goes down from here as we realize we have opened Pandora’s Box and the world is worse off for the lowering of our standards. Just because Jack Bauer knows when and on who to use it, doesn’t mean any one else can be that sure.

There is hope, though, that learning such a hard lesson is possible. This can be seen in the drop in favoritism for preemptive strikes by our military. Since our falsely justified invasion of Iraq, support has dropped overall by 12 percentage points. On the other hand, the neocons are gaining support for such action from all Republicans who have increased their support for preemptive strikes by three percent. This makes it very clear as to who we should elect to run this country.

Another sign of hope and an indication of who to elect is found in the belief in our government’s efforts to keep us safe from terrorism. There has been a sharp decline in this belief just since December 2006, except for Republicans and probably The Happy Channel – Fox News. Republicans feel very safe at 82 percent.

According to the survey, “The public has become more critical of the government’s performance in reducing the threat of terrorism. A narrow majority (54%) says the government is doing very well, or fairly well, in reducing the threat of terrorism, while 44% say it is doing not too well or not at all well. This is by far the most negative assessment of the government’s anti-terror efforts since the Sept.11 terrorist attacks.”

Summarized below are the major findings from section 2 of the Pew Research survey, Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007.

There is a recent increase in belief that the rich are getting richer, but it has been stronger at other times historically and it hasn’t changed noticeably since 1994.

There is growing belief that “It is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.”

There is still a strong belief that the poor become dependent on government assistance, however this belief is not as strong as it was in 1994.

Blacks and Democrats are more inclined to believe that “Success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control,” but this belief has decreased since 1994 for all groups, especially for Republicans.

The survey stated, “The public’s evaluations of personal financial satisfaction is increasingly split along partisan lines and the gap between Republicans and Democrats is the largest it has been since the Pew values surveys began 20 years ago.”

This increase in Republican satisfaction is very puzzling to me. First of all it has been out of sync with the rest of the country since 1994. Secondly, as I have documented in 2006 Tax Cut Update – Evangelical Losses Even Larger, “white evangelical Protestants, all Republicans, are getting poorer and getting less from the 2006 tax cut.”

Why would Republicans be satisfied when others aren’t and they are affected by the same changes? Is it because they all watch The Happy Channel – Fox News? After all, it was launched in late 1996.

The Pew Research survey, Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007, stated, “While public perceptions of the Republican Party have tumbled, evaluations of the Democratic Party have not improved substantially in recent years, and the Democratic gains in party identification are in the form of a softer “leaning” among independents rather than in the share who think of themselves as Democrats.”

Since 1994, those who identify with the Republican party have declined by 5 percent, while identification with Democrats has increased by 2 percent.

What is more dramatic for this time frame is that independents have made a significant move toward Democrats.

The Pew Research survey seems to indicate that this shift to the Democratic party is due to increasing dissatisfaction with how things are going:

Evangelicals are still a major segment of the Republican party.

In 1994, the Republicans and double high authoritarian Newt Gingrich, took control of the U.S. Congress. In 2007, the Democrats took back control. What has changed besides voter preferences for government leaders? Presented here and in 8 other postings are the answers to how we have changed during this time. The findings from Pew Research include latest update in their Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007 survey and include previous updates to this survey since it was first done in 1987. This is the first in a 9 part series and provides an overview of the trends presented in this report.

Additional postings will provide more detail in the following areas:

• Survey Results, Section 1 – PARTY AFFILIATION AND VIEWS OF THE PARTIES
• Survey Results, Section 2 – SUCCESS, POVERTY AND GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY
• Survey Results, Section 3 – FOREIGN POLICY, GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT AND PATRIOTISM
• Survey Results, Section 4 – RELIGION AND SOCIAL ISSUES
• Survey Results, Section 5 – SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ATTITUDES ABOUT RACE
• Survey Results, Section 6 – GOVERNMENT, TRUST AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
• Survey Results, Section 7 – BUSINESS, LABOR AND CORPORATE FAVORABILITY
• Survey Results, Section 8 – OTHER ISSUES: CIVIL LIBERTIES, ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE
• Another Summary of the Survey – “Masses” for the Single-party State

This introduction shows that the political situation has become more favorable to Democrats since 1994. However, this trend is probably due more to what the Republicans are doing wrong than what the Democrats are doing right. On the other hand, it’s harder to do either when your not in power.

Here are some of the other key findings from this recent extensive survey:

• The public expresses highly favorable views of many leading corporations. Johnson & Johnson and Google have the most positive images of 23 corporations tested. At the bottom of the list: Halliburton, which is viewed favorably by fewer than half of those familiar enough with the company to give it a rating.
• Views of many corporations vary significantly among Democrats along class lines. Two-thirds of working-class Democrats have a favorable view of Wal-Mart compared with 45% of professional-class Democrats.
• Americans are worried more that businesses rather than government are snooping into their lives. About three-in-four (74%) say they are concerned that business corporations are collecting too much personal information while 58% express the same concern about the government.
• The public is losing confidence in itself. A dwindling majority (57%) say they have a good deal of confidence in the wisdom of the American people when it comes to making political decisions. Similarly, the proportion who agrees that Americans “can always find a way to solve our problems” has dropped 16 points in the past five years.
• Americans feel increasingly estranged from their government. Barely a third (34%) agree with the statement, “most elected officials care what people like me think,” nearly matching the 20-year low of 33% recorded in 1994 and a 10-point drop since 2002.
• Young people continue to hold a more favorable view of government than do other Americans. At the same time, young adults express the least interest in voting and other forms of political participation.
• Interpersonal racial attitudes continue to moderate. More than eight-in-ten (83%) agree that “it’s all right for blacks and whites to date,” up six percentage points since 2003 and 13 points from a Pew survey conducted 10 years ago.
• Republicans are increasingly divided over the cultural impact of immigrants. Nearly seven-in-ten (68%) conservative Republicans say immigrants threaten American customs, compared with 43% of GOP moderates and liberals. Democrats have long been divided along ideological lines, but the GOP previously had not been.

For even more details, you can checkout their 112 page report.

E-Mails Show Focused Effort to Replace US Attorney with Rove Aide – Some of the thousands of pages of e-mails released this week by the Bush administration underscore the extraordinary planning and effort, at the highest levels of the Justice Department and White House, to secure Tim Griffin – aide to Karl Rove and longtime GOP operative – a job running one of the smaller U.S. attorney’s offices in the country. Griffin has since announced that he will resign his post rather than face Senate confirmation. Meanwhile, western Michigan’s former U.S. attorney, who was ousted in the recent purge, says she was told that she was being forced out not because of management problems – the reason cited publicly by the Justice Department – but rather, to make way for a lawyer being groomed by the White House.

Why did the Tom DeLay investigation stop? – In the fall of 2005 dominos were falling fast in the Jack Abramoff investigation. And they were falling in one very clear direction, closer and closer to Tom DeLay. But since January, 2006, nothing. No Buckham plea. No indictments. Nothing…..was a U.S. Attorney fired to prevent the investigation from continuing to inexorably close in on Tom DeLay? Nope. But something very fishy did indeed take place. The lead investigator was given a Federal Judgeship, a new division chief with connections to the GOP machine was appointed (AND REPORTEDLY, TO THE DELAY DEFENSE TEAM ITSELF) and presto…no more momentum in the investigation.

Cheney and Gonzales Shot Down Attempt by Robert Gates to Close Guantanamo – In his first weeks as defense secretary, Robert Gates is said to have repeatedly argued that the Guantanamo Bay prison camp had become so tainted abroad that legal proceedings on site would be viewed as illegitimate, and advised President Bush and others that it should be shut down as quickly as possible and the detainees moved to the United States. Gates’s arguments, which were reportedly seconded by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were rejected after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and some other government lawyers expressed strong objections, a stance backed by the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Ex-Interior No. 2 pleads guilty in Abramoff case – Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles pleaded guilty Friday to obstruction of justice in a Senate committee’s investigation, becoming the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal.

FOX News Covers Gore’s Testimony by Trying To Paint Gore as a Hypocrite – Hannity & Colmes spent most of two segments debating whether or not he’s a hypocrite. Hypocrite or fat and wrong? With all that “news” to consider there wasn’t much time to go over Gore’s actual testimony. The portion that was played was selectively edited to reflect poorly on Gore. Hannity & Colmes said that Senator James Inhofe was “visibly upset that Al Gore was not answering his questions.” “Fair and balanced” FOX News did not mention that Inhofe would not let Gore answer the questions.

A segment of The Big Story with John Gibson on Fox News 3/21/07 purporting to be about Al Gore’s trip to Congress to testify about the urgency of global warming led off with a verbal spar between Gore and Oklahoma Senator Inhofe This exchange was described by Gibson as Inhofe taking Gore to task. But all that was involved was Inhofe interrupting Gore to lecture him on time constraints, which wasted 15 seconds of the precious time and prevented Gore from finishing his response.

Exxon Valdez spill judge had Exxon Mobil ties – Fed judge on court that reduced spill penalty took trips with Exxon-tied org.

Ex-UN Ambassador John Bolton Will Say Anything Regardless of the Facts
Tuesday on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart argued to ex-UN Ambassador John Bolton that Abraham Lincoln was a successful President because he brought his rivals into the cabinet to ensure all points of view were heard. His point was that the Bush administration is comprised entirely of yes men that share the same worldview which leads to stubborn and unpragmatic policies. Bolton quickly shot this down, telling Jon his historical account of Lincoln was flat wrong. In order to verify the point, Jon called up Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, who told Jon Stewart the following:

“Unless Mr. Bolton knows a different Abraham Lincoln from our 16th President, which I suppose is possible, I can categorically say, and hundreds of historians will back us up, you are historically right and he is historically wrong.”

Regards,

Jim

Jodin Morey has tracked down and organized over 60 instances of evidence in 4 articles supporting the impeachment of President G. W. Bush.

In Bush’s Impeachable Offenses, Part 1, Jodin chronicles how we were lead down the path for implementing the Wolfowitz Doctrine. He starts with GW’s first expression of interest in invading Iraq in 1999 and ends with the release of declassified CIA documentation in 2004.

In Part 2, Jodin details the violation of Title 50 United States Code, Section 1805 – electronic surveillance of U.S. civilians without seeking warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.

In Part 3, Jodin documents George W. Bush’s authorized leaking of classified national secrets in violation of executive order 13292 – selectively leaking ‘cherry picked’ information from a classified National Intelligence Estimate.

In Part 4, he documents multiple violations of the Geneva convention and U.S. Military Code as they relate to torture, collective punishment and violations of due process.

Tom DeLay Denies What is in His Own Book – Here is what happened during a Chris Matthews’ interview of Tom DeLay today: Chris Matthews grilled DeLay about passages in his book where he apparently ripped into fellow corrupt Texan Dick Armey, eventually asking the Hammer about describing Armey as “drunk with ambition.” DeLay denied writing that. “I wrote that he was ‘blinded by his ambition.'” Matthews starts flipping though the book and finds the “drunk with ambition” quote and reads it to Bug Man. And DeLay keeps denying it. Finally, Chris hands the book to Tom and tells him to read it himself. DeLay looks down, pauses, and says “I don’t have my glasses.”

Turkey Prepares To Invade Iraq To Contain US-Backed Kurdish Push For Independent State – Media reports from Turkey appear to confirm weeks of rumors that Turkey is moving forward with its long-planned invasion of Northern Iraq. The Turkish Military, by far the most powerful in the Middle East, has cancelled all leave and has moved “additional forces” up to Iraq’s northern border. The target of the presumed invasion will be the ‘outlawed’ PKK, otherwise known as the Kurdistan Workers Party.

Internal email appears to confirm prosecutor who helped convict congressman was fired for personal and policy reasons – A sarcastic internal e-mail message from one top Justice department official to another appears to confirm that personal and policy differences drove the termination of Carol C. Lam, the San Diego prosecutor who initiated investigations of Randy Cunningham when he was a Republican representative from California and Representative Jerry Lewis, as well as some defense department officials

Cheney office’s involvement in manipulation of global warming documents – “A House probe into reports that the Bush administration improperly edited federal climate studies took a new turn yesterday,” writes Lauren Morello for E&E, “as Democrats focused on interactions between the White House Council on Environmental Quality” (CEQ) and Cheney’s office.

Republican Senator James Inhofe asks Al Gore questions but won’t let him answer

During today’s hearings on global warming, global warming denier James Inhofe was asking Al Gore questions, but didn’t want to hear the answers because he thought the responses would take “too much time”. Inhofe kept cutting Gore off. Barbara Boxer then explained to Inhofe how things work in Senate now. Boxer told Inhofe while holding the gavel in his face, “You’re not making the rules. You used to when you did this, you don’t do this anymore. Elections have consequences” There was a big round of applause from attendees in the chamber.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity Chickening Out of Debate – Conservative talk show host Sean Hannity has claimed on his syndicated radio program that Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is putting up roadblocks to get out of their proposed debate. But it is Hannity who is balking based in part on e-mails between Anderson’s office and Hannity’s staff.

Nixon had an 18-minute gap in his tapes; Bush has an 18-day gap in his e-mails – Anyone remember what Nixon’s excuse was for the 18-minute gap?

Regards,

Jim