The WAWG Blog

Republican Silliness Goes Way Back – Air and Simple Gifts is a classical quartet by American composer John Williams composed for the January 20, 2009, inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States. The source piece is famous for its appearance in Aaron Copland’s ballet Appalachian Spring. Williams chose the selection from Copland, one of Obama’s favorite classical composers. Copland’s Lincoln Portrait was supposed to be featured in a pre-inauguration concert by the National Symphony Orchestra for Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, but was pulled from the performance when a Republican congressman from Illinois suggested Copland was too liberal, and perhaps a Communist sympathizer. (I guess that’s not as silly as objecting to French fries.)

Merrill Lynch’s CEO Spent Over $1 Million to Redecorate his Office as the Firm Faced Financial Crisis – In early 2008, just as Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was preparing to slash expenses, cut thousands of jobs and exit businesses to fix the ailing securities firm, he was also spending company money on himself. Thain spent $1.22 million of company money to refurbish his office.

Republicans and Lobbyists Just Don’t Get the Ethics Message – Lobbyists willing to pay a $25,000 fee will mingle with House Republicans at their annual winter retreat next week in Hot Springs, Va. “Of course it’s about access and building relationships — that’s what this town is all about,” said one lawmaker who has attended the retreats for years. He said lobbyists who travel to the retreats often stay on for after-hours socializing throughout the weekend. “It’s not like they’re sitting there plugging their corporate issues — but as with anything, their clients’ interests inevitably come up.” No one attending the conference — lawmakers or lobbyists — are breaking any House rules. (but maybe the rules are pretty lax?)

Coal Industry Pressured EPA Head Into Ignoring Coal Ash 8 Years Ago – In March of 2000, during the last days of the Clinton administration, the EPA decided coal ash was a hazardous waste. Then, two months later, it flipped. If the EPA had stuck to its guns, the Kingston Coal Ash disaster in Tennessee might have been averted. Now, momentum is building to federally regulate coal ash. Video at the link.

Coal Combustion in This Country Produces 130 Million Tons of Coal Ash Every Year – Senator Barbara Boxer of California noted that coal combustion in this country produces 130 million tons of coal ash every year — enough to fill a train of boxcars stretching from Washington, D.C., to Australia. Amazingly, the task of regulating the more than 600 landfills and impoundments holding this ash is left to the states, which are more often lax than not.

The coal industry has been running a cheery “clean coal” campaign, whose ads would have us believe that low-polluting coal is here or just around the corner. It is neither. Coal remains an inherently dirty fuel, and a huge contributor to not only ground-level pollution — including acid rain and smog — but also global warming. The sooner the country understands that, the closer it will be to mitigating the damage.

Most Hospitals Are Demanding Cash Up Front Before Treatment – Fifty-three-year-old Lisa Kelly is fighting Leukemia. With $37,000 of annual hospital coverage, she thought it would at least get her in the door at M.D. Anderson, a leading cancer center. But they told her it was not enough. So Kelly cashed in some of her husband’s inheritance and came in with a check for $45,000. When her tests showed she needed immediate cancer treatment, the hospital asked for another $60,000 to admit her that day. Kelly’s situation is not unique. Nearly 4,200 out of the nation’s 4,900 hospitals are beginning to require proof of payment up front for non-emergency needs. (Only in America!) [Profit before compassion.]

Glenn Beck Makes Stuff Up About President Obama’s Swearing In – Yesterday on his new Fox News show, Glenn Beck panicked about the re-do oath of office President Obama took last night, because Obama did not place his hand on a Bible. “I checked. We have never had a president sworn into office without a Bible,” he intoned dramatically. Beck is simply wrong. As Slate recently reported, official records kept by the Architect of the Capitol show that Teddy Roosevelt did not use a Bible in 1901; and Lyndon Johnson is rumored to have used “a Catholic missal aboard Air Force One after Kennedy’s assassination.” According to his own letters, John Quincy Adams placed his hand on a constitutional law book rather than the Bible. Beck’s vaunted devotion to research must have taken a dive when he moved from CNN to Fox.

Bill O’Reilly says, “This is not the time for ideology” — Then he presents his ideology – O’Reilly has never been short on self-conflict. BillO, The Walking Oxymoron, said the following:

You may have noticed that “The Factor” has not nitpicked Barack Obama. We don’t play the gotcha game because that doesn’t do you any good. This is not a time for ideology. This is a time for problem-solving.

Far-left zealots want to destroy America so they can rebuild it as a socialistic paradise, a hyper-Sweden. Those people are dangerous, and we will watch them closely.

(O’Reilly seems to use a template that says, “Tell the audience that it’s not good to do XXX, then do XXX.)

Schoolgirls Banned From Lessons for Being ‘Too Blonde’ – A headteacher has come under fire from parents and pupils after banning two 16-year-olds from school for being ‘too blonde’. Raegan Booth, 16, and Aby Western, 15, say they were threatened with expulsion by David Alexander unless they dyed their hair brown. The girls claim they are being forced to adhere to the strict dress code of Rednock School in Dursley, Gloucestershire, UK. The school rules clearly state that there are to be no “unnatural” hair colours on students. ‘Unnatural hair colours are blue, purple, green and bright red. Blonde is considered a natural hair colour and there are many different shades. The headmaster claims that he must follow the rules. The headmaster said, “‘I think the problem is how you interpret the rules and we need to make it clearer for the students and parents.” (Maybe it’s how he interpret the rules – a classic problem for authoritarians.) Judge for yourself: photo at the link.

British Bishop Says Nazi Gas Cambers Did Not Exist – British bishop, Richard Williamson, 68, said on Sweden’s SVT television channel this week, “I believe there were no gas chambers … I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers,” he said. “There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies!”

Global Warming Killing Trees Faster in the Pacific Northwest – Forests in the Pacific Northwest are dying twice as fast as they were 17 years ago, and scientists blame warming temperatures for the trend, according to a new study. “Much of the world’s population in North America, Europe, most of China and large portions of Russia live near temperate forests, so what happens in these forests has global importance,” said Jerry Franklin, a professor of forest resources at the University of Washington whose work was instrumental in maintaining the research plots.

Cheney Says Bush Should Have Pardoned Libby – George Bush should have pardoned I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney said after stepping down as vice president this week. Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation into the revelation that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA agent. (Mr. “Protect America” thinks it’s OK to reveal the identity of our CIA agents and to lie about it. – JLV)

[Libby was showing his ‘moral’ discipline by unquestioningly accepting Cheney’s authority and following Cheney’s commands. Libby was loyal to Cheney so pardoning Libby would give recognition to Cheney’s ‘moral’ authority.]

Rush Limbaugh Says, “Racism in this country is the exclusive province of the left.” – In an interview on Sean Hannity’s Jan 21, 2009, show on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh said, “Racism in this country is the exclusive province of the left.” And what did Hannity say to Limbaugh? He said, “You have defined conservatives for over two decades.” Would you want to [be] defined by that?

Coal Plant Spill Worse Than Exxon Valdez – Burning coal is a leading source of global warming pollution. As the recent environmental disaster at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee proves, coal plants represent a major danger to the environment in more ways than one. On December 22, 1.1 billion gallons of coal fly ash slurry spilled at the Kingston Fossil Plant. Fly ash is a byproduct of coal combustion. The slurry (a mixture of the ash and water) traveled downhill, covering the surrounding land with up to six feet of sludge, damaging homes and flowing into nearby waterways. It was the largest coal slurry spill in U.S. history, and the amount released was more than 50 times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Yet the story has not received the level of press coverage it deserves. The first independent test results showed significantly elevated levels of toxic metals in samples of slurry and river water, which can cause cancer and liver damage, among other health issues. The devastating environmental impact of the spill has yet to be fully determined. Hopefully the spill will ignite the debate over the environmental safety of coal power plants.

Global Warming is Causing an Increase in the Frequency of Storms According to NASA – The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth’s tropics — the type associated with severe storms and rainfall — is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

In a presentation to the recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann outlined the results of a study based on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft. The AIRS data were used to observe certain types of tropical clouds linked with severe storms, torrential rain and hail. The instrument typically detects about 6,000 of these clouds each day. Aumann and his team found a strong correlation between the frequency of these clouds and seasonal variations in the average sea surface temperature of the tropical oceans.

For every degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average ocean surface temperature, the team observed a 45-percent increase in the frequency of the very high clouds. At the present rate of global warming of 0.13 degrees Celsius (0.23 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, the team inferred the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by six percent per decade.

Regards,

Jim

Your conservative worldview has held sway for many years. Your conservative cognitive policy has changed the minds of many and perpetuated many unfortunate ideas, values and principles. But we the people have started to recognize what has happened, what has gone terribly wrong and that there is a lot we have to fix.

Your team has lost. Your core membership represents less than a quarter of the voting public.

Your moral authority is badly tarnished and waning.

Your principles of the unquestioning obedience to authority, the “you’re on your own” view of those not like you, the blind support of the imperfect free market, and the insistence on pull yourself up – are on their way out.

Your belief in direct causation and a male dominated identity limits your understand of all those who voted Democrat.

Your preference for profits and profiteering over supporting the common wealth, which helped create the profit, says clearly that helping we the people is secondary to your helping corporations.

Your insistence on turning over governance of we the people to corporations means our safety, education, welfare, health and security are secondary to profits.

Your ideas for what is right for America are wrong. Your ideas are not what the authors of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution had in mind when they broke with the single-party authoritarian rule of England. In fact, your ideas are probably the same as the Loyalists of the late 1700’s.

The bottom line is that “conservatives without conscience” lack empathy, respect and responsibility for those fellow citizens not like them – the majority of us.

Please stop insisting the you want to do what is right for America. You’ve had decades to prove that your ideas work, but they have failed. You can’t pass the buck for our situation to others below you. You and your recently departed leaders are entirely responsible for the mess we are in.

Please stop your petty attempts to delay our inevitable change and start helping to fix what you broke.

We no longer want what you have to offer.

With respect,

All American’s Communications Were Monitored by the NSA – Despite all the assurances of the Bush administration that their wiretapping activities were only to protect Americans from terrorists and that only concerned foreign targets, that was not true. To be clear, it was not even close to being true. Whistleblower Russell Tice, who back in 2006 had exposed the NSA program illegalities went even further than his earlier allegations, things he was perhaps afraid to say while Bush was still in office considering the smear job they did on him the first time around: The NSA, under the direction of George Bush, was monitoring ALL Americans’ communications, specifically targeting journalists and news organizations.

Sean Hannity Blames Sen. Charles Schumer and GeesePeace For US Airways Crash – Sean Hannity, ever on the lookout for new ways to smear Democrats, achieved a creative breakthrough on his 1/17/09 show. Without bothering to investigate any other facts beyond Senator Charles Schumer’s 2004 earmark for a group called GeesePeace, Hannity and FOX News were ready to allege that Schumer is to blame for the crash of the US Airways flight last week. Later in the program, Hannity warned that if it happens again, Schumer would be responsible for any ensuing deaths. Hannity did not bother to find out that GeesePeace is actually trying to control the over-population of geese. The funds provided by Schumer’s earmark were helping to reduce the number of geese. But, when has Fox News ever seen a need to check facts before smearing someone?

Regards,

Jim

In my previous post, I reviewed the conservative and progressive worldviews from a historical and family model perspective. In this posting, I review these two worldviews according to set of critical factors and how they help define each worldview.

This summary is primarily based on Thinking Points by George Lakoff and The Rockridge Institute. Additional information was taken from The Political Mind.

I have also added a few applicable quotes from President Obama’s inaugural speech.

Before reviewing this table, make a note as to your preferred worldview.

After reviewing the above information, has your worldview preference changed any? Either way, add a comment and let me know.

Rush Limbaugh Proclaims, “I Hope Obama Fails” — President Obama’s message today was:

• choose hope over fear
• unity of purpose over conflict and discord
• remain faithful to the ideals of our forbearers
• overcome the economic crisis
• stop protecting narrow interests
• mutual interest and mutual respect
• a new era of responsibility
• defeat those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents
• lessen the nuclear threat
• roll back the specter of a warming planet

But Rush Limbaugh’s message is, “I Hope Obama Fails.” Yes, that was the subject of Limbaugh’s radio show on January 16.

(Is this what happens when someone puts ideology before the common good? Does it come to the point where you don’t care what happens to our nation and our people, just as long as your guys are in charge? Limbaugh is now providing real competition to when Bill O’Reilly publicly wished for a terrorist attack on San Francisco because he doesn’t like their liberal policies. – JLV)

Regards,

Jim

The Neoconservative [Bush] Administration’s Bad Deeds Master List – An assessment of the 128 executive branch failures since 2000.

• Consumers & Workers

• Limited Ability To Block Dangerous Imports
• FDA Enforcement Actions Way Down
• USDA Challenged Over Meat Safety
• Lack of Adequate Foreign Drug Oversight
• Problems in Oversight of Food Safety
• OSHA’s Laissez-Faire Attitude
• FDA Failure To Ensure Drug Safety
• Failure To Protect Consumers From Unsafe Products
• Oversight Collapse Leads To Mine Safety Issues
• Agricultural Quarantine Inspection Stumbles
• Eroding Budget Erodes Consumer Safety
• Lack of Quorum at the CPSC

• Contracting & Workforce

• A Failure of Whistleblower Protection
• Labor Relations Authority: Low Morale, Backlogged Cases
• Contractors Failing Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
• Human Capital Issues Plague Government
• Surge in Outsourcing Creates Problems in Performance, Oversight
• Chronic Understaffing at the EEOC

• Education

• No Child Left Behind: A Few Bumps in the Road
• Reading First: Scandalous and Ineffective
• Student Loan Scandal Costs Students

• Elections

• Paralysis at the Federal Election Commission
• “McCain-Feingold” Fails To Solve Campaign Finance Problem
• Election Assistance Commission Has Not Met Mandates

• Emergency Management

• Hurricanes Expose FEMA Woes
• FEMA Trailers Filled With Formaldehyde
• We Can’t Afford Another Flood
• SBA Emergency Assistance Failed for Katrina
• Flood “Protection” in New Orleans

• Energy

• No Robust, Sustained Alternative Energy Policy
• Foreign Oil Dependence Has Grown
• Refinery Bottleneck Puts Squeeze on Gasoline Supply
• Move to a 21st Century Electricity Grid Is Stalled

• Entitlements

• Unsustainable Medicare Spending
• Failure To Reform Social Security
• Social Security Disability Backlogs

• Environment

• Climate Change: Hide the Assessment
• Failure To Advance Climate Change Policy
• EPA Deprives Public of Information on Toxics
• Science Policy Politicized
• Politicization at Department of Interior
• EPA Stalls on Perchlorate Regulation
• Mountaintop Coal Mining Alters Appalachia
• EPA and OMB Slow Toxic Chemical Risk Studies
• Scandal, Incompetence at Minerals Management Service
• EPA Misleads on Air Quality After 9/11 Attacks
• EPA Ignores Advisers on Particulate Matter Standards
• Everglade Restoration a Man-Made Disaster
• Superfund Program Loses Funding, Momentum
• Toxic Mercury From Coal Plants Unregulated
• Nuclear Waste Problem Unsolved
• EPA Fails To Put Children First
• Failure To Launch: Satellite Delays
• EPA’s Free Pass for Aging Power Plant Emissions

• Finance

• Shaky Start for Troubled Asset Relief Program
• Skyrocketing Deficit
• Oversight Fails To Keep Pace With a Changed Market
• Lax Oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
• SEC Allows Investment Banks To Go Unregulated
• More Corporations Pay Less in Taxes
• Audit Rates of Rich Fall, Audits of Poor Spike
• Lack of Regs Fueled Accounting Scandal
• U.S. Companies Hiding Revenue Offshore
• Mismanagement and Cronyism at HUD

• Health

• Medicare Fraud Out of Control
• 45 Million Americans Without Health Insurance

• Information Protection

• Failures in Cybersecurity
• Millions in Equipment Missing From Indian Health Service
• An Epidemic of Missing Laptops

• Justice & Security

• Too Close to the Edge on Torture
• CIA Renditions Draw Controversy
• Politicization of Department of Justice
• Failure To Protect Sensitive Technology
• Arbitrary Detention at Guantanamo
• Osama bin Laden Still at Large
• Lack of Progress on Immigration Reform
• WMD Nonproliferation Needs More Attention
• National Security Agency Mismanages Info Technology
• $30 Billion Virtual Border Fence Faces Problems
• First Responders Still Can’t Communicate
• FBI Abuses Power To Request Personal Information
• Agencies Failed To Share Intelligence on 9/11 Terrorists
• Pakistan Remains an Al Qaeda Haven
• FBI Failure To Create a Modern Computer Network
• Nuclear Sites Lack Adequate Security
• Losing the Battle for Hearts and Minds
• DHS Still Getting Up to Speed
• Terrorist Watch List Mismanaged
• Poor Retention of Counterterrorism Staff
• Inability To Track Foreign Visitors to U.S.
• Lack of Due Process for Terrorism Suspects
• FBI Struggles To Confront Multiple Threats
• NORAD, FAA Unprepared for Aerial Attack
• U.S. Guns Arming Mexican Drug Cartels

• Military

• False Premise for Going to War
• Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal
• Mismanagement at National Reconnaissance Office
• Poor Health Care for Veterans
• Failure To Regulate Security Contractors
• Pentagon Office’s Misleading Intelligence
• Military Failure To Secure Iraq After Invasion
• Lack of Armored Protection for Troops
• Pentagon’s Slow Adaptation to a War-footing
• Inadequate Planning for Post-Invasion Iraq
• Failure To Secure Weapons in Iraq
• Mismanagement of Major Weapons Acquisitions
• Veteran Disability Claims Languish
• Delay in Opening U.S. Embassy in Iraq
• Air Force Failure To Maintain Nuclear Weapons Accountability
• Taliban Resurgence in Afghanistan
• 190,000 Missing Weapons in Iraq

• Other

• NASA Inspector General Lack of Oversight
• NASA’s Failure To Ensure Safety in Human Space Flight
• Massive Backlog at Patent Office
• Census 2010 Stumbles at the Starting Line
• FCC Chairman Martin Under Fire

• Transportation

• Failing To Modernize Air Traffic Control
• Human Fatigue in Transport Accidents Still Unaddressed
• Close Calls on the Runway
• FAA in the Dark on Maintenance
• Record Delays in Air Travel
• FAA Inspectors Cozy Up to Airlines
• Highway Funding Woes

• White House

• Controversial Assertion of Executive Power
• Excessive Executive Secrecy
• Signing Statements Thwart Congressional Intent
• Vice President’s Office Exempts Itself From Information Safeguards
• Executive Office of the President “Loses” E-mails

Regards,

Jim

Conservative Lies Keep Coming Even After the Election – Consider some of the bogus claims debunked just since Election Day:

It’s not true that unionized auto workers at Detroit’s Big Three make more than $70 an hour, as claimed by some opponents of federal aid.

President-elect Obama never promised to seek a ban on all semi-automatic weapons, as claimed by some fearful gun owners.

And no, Obama did not propose a Gestapo-like civilian security force as claimed by a Republican member of Congress from Georgia and any number of overwrought bloggers.

Democrats in Congress are not discussing any plan to confiscate the assets in 401(k) retirement accounts, another falsehood spread about by chain e-mails and Internet postings.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not demand a 757-size personal jet, a false claim resurrected when Democrats criticized Big Three executives for flying to D.C. on their own private jets to beg for aid.

And Pelosi’s husband doesn’t own a $17 million stake in a food company that she may (or may not) have tried to help with an exemption from a new minimum wage law.

FDA Has Been Squelching Science and Putting People at Risk – In an unusually blunt letter, a group of federal scientists is complaining to the Obama transition team of widespread managerial misconduct in a division of the Food and Drug Administration.

“The purpose of this letter is to inform you that the scientific review process for medical devices at the FDA has been corrupted and distorted by current FDA managers, thereby placing the American people at risk,” said the letter, dated Wednesday and written on the agency’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health letterhead.

In their letter the FDA dissidents alleged that agency managers use intimidation to squelch scientific debate, leading to the approval of medical devices whose effectiveness is questionable and which may not be entirely safe.

“Managers with incompatible, discordant and irrelevant scientific and clinical expertise in devices…have ignored serious safety and effectiveness concerns of FDA experts,” the letter said. “Managers have ordered, intimidated and coerced FDA experts to modify scientific evaluations, conclusions and recommendations in violation of the laws, rules and regulations, and to accept clinical and technical data that is not scientifically valid.”

Bush Administration Sneaks in Provision to Bar Autoworkers From Striking Against GM, But CEO is Doing Just Fine – A little-noticed provision buried in the Bush Administration’s $13.4 billion loan package to General Motors will prohibit the United Auto Workers from launching a strike as long as the company receives funds from the federal government. The terms of GM’s loan package were reported last night in the Detroit Free Press. They did not become public until GM filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Not everyone has felt the full brunt of the declining auto market, however. In 2008, GM CEO Rick Wagoner received a salary increase — to $2.2 million, plus stock options — despite the fact the company had been losing money since 2005.

Tennessee Valley Authority Releases Sludge into River – More pollution from a coal-fired power plant.

Toxic Coal Ash Piling Up In Many States – Millions of tons of toxic coal ash is piling up in power plant ponds in 32 states, a practice the federal government has long recognized as a risk to human health and the environment but has left unregulated. An Associated Press analysis of the most recent Energy Department data found that 156 coal-fired power plants store ash in surface ponds similar to the one that collapsed last month in Tennessee.

Regards,

Jim

Conservatives Advocate Punching, Tasing Protestors – Do you remember when Free Speech was honored in America? It seems that Conservatives would rather replace it with bullying and violence. Is that the future we want?

Conservative author Ann Coulter said Republicans should have “punched” two protesters who interrupted Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech to the Republican National Convention last September on Tuesday’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”‘ Coulter, known for her over-the-top attacks on Democrats, bemoaned the liberal protesters and the muted response of “strong Republican men” on the convention floor.

Fox News morning host Brian Kilmead said that a protester at a Hillary Clinton speech should have been tased. “They should Tase this guy,” Kilmead said. “At one point with security so high and tensions on edge, don’t you think they’re going to get at the very least Tased or beaten to a pulp by somebody? These people look threatening. I would be for Tasing anyone in Code Pink,” he added. “I’m pro-Pink Tasing.”

Shameless Conservatives Resurrect the Schiavo Debacle to Attack Obama’s DOJ Nominee – Conservatives are now brushing off the Schiavo case to use it against Thomas Perrelli, President-elect Obama’s pick for the no. 3 spot at the Justice Department. Right-wing websites are outraged at Obama’s association with Perrelli, since he was one of the lawyers who represented Michael Schiavo, who wanted his wife’s feeding tube removed. The Washington Times today reports that these conservatives are now gearing up to fight Perrelli’s nomination.

Fox News’ War On Textbooks That “Could Rob Your Child Of A Fair Learning Experience” – Oh, The Irony! – While Fox News might not recommend a Fahrenheit 451 burning of all books, they sure want to get rid of those “liberal” texts that say bad things about good conservatives and don’t say bad things about bad liberals. And to reinforce this message, Fox features – without any opposing viewpoints – conservative Dayton University Professor Larry Schweikart to push this meme. (So there are conservative professors – who knew!) Schweikart, who makes frequent appearances on Fox News, has written a book, “48 Lies About American History” – a book that catalogues the (according to Larry) liberal lies that your children are being exposed to in high school texts. Fox News is doing their best to make sure that American youth are getting the “right” stuff as detailed by Schweikart who has appeared on Hannity’s America and Fox&Friends.

If Fox were truly “fair and balanced” and “real journalism” they would interview educators and those involved in publishing texts. Missing from the equation were facts about the location and number of school districts that use the books. I guess Fox would like history texts to be like Fox News – conservative and totally devoid of anything that requires nuanced thinking – not fair and balanced, not real, just ideology meant to stifle intelligent discussion.

FOX News Promotes Crooked Bernard Kerik As “Anti-Terror Expert” – FOX News may be obsessed with corruption in Chicago but it has completely ignored the corruption of former New York City police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Kerik, you may recall, is the disgraced former partner of Rudolph Giuliani who withdrew from a nomination by President Bush to head the Department of Homeland Security amidst a stream of accusations about personal financial and ethical improprieties. Just last week, new corruption charges were filed against Kerik. He has already pleaded guilty to accepting gifts from a company associated with organized crime, that was also seeking to do business with the City of New York. Nevertheless, the “we report, you decide” network deemed none of that important enough to reveal to its viewers when it presented Kerik last night as an “anti-terror expert” during a segment last night devoted to the Israeli/Gazi war. This reminds me of Fox promoting Watergate burgularly chief operative G. Gordon Liddy as a “Great American.”

Man Shot by Police in His Own Driveway – According to family members, Robbie Tolan and his cousin were returning to Tolan’s home in the Houston suburb of Bellaire in the early hours of December 31, when they were approached by officers who suspected the SUV they had just gotten out of was stolen.

Tolan’s parents, who own the SUV, came out of the house to explain the situation. An altercation ensued and Tolan’s mother was thrown against the garage door by an officer. According to Tolan’s uncle, “Her son was on his back at the time, and he raised up and asked, ‘What are you doing to my mom?’ and the officer shot him — while he was on the ground.”
Bellaire’s assistant police chief told reporters, “As far as any allegations of racial profiling, I’d probably say that that’s not really going to float.” However, there has been no other explanation offered for why the officers might have thought the SUV was stolen.

Regards,

Jim

Ann Coulter’s Latest Book Contains More Than a Dozen Lies – Conservative Ann Coulter lies on more than a dozen occasions in her new book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, according to Media Matters. Here are some examples:

* Liberals’ purported “praise[]” for hoaxers for staging hate crimes. Coulter claims that two black students who engaged in a hoax by hanging a black doll from a noose were “immediately praised” by “liberals,” but the sources she cites do not support this claim.

* On Page 15, Coulter writes, “Fox News has never been caught promoting a fraud — unlike CBS (Bush National Guard story), ABC (tobacco industry report), NBC (exploding GM trucks), CNN (Tailwind), and MSNBC (Keith Olbermann).” In fact, as Media Matters has documented, on several occasions since 2004, Fox News has issued a retraction and apology for airing a news report that repeated false information, one of which led Fox News’ Vice President for News John Moody to reportedly warn staff in January 2007 that “seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC.”

* Coulter advances several falsehoods about Kerry in defending the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an organization which spread numerous falsehoods and smears regarding Kerry’s military record in the six months leading up to the 2004 presidential election.

* Coulter falsely claims that “the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth weren’t forced to retract any part of their story. [Page 100]” In fact, the organization altered its website’s account of the December 2, 1968, mission for which the U.S. Navy awarded Kerry his first Purple Heart three days after Media Matters noted that the account was inconsistent with that of the group’s star witness — retired Rear Admiral William L. Schachte Jr., who claims he was the commander on that mission.

* Coulter also suggests that the media ignored the allegations of the Swift Boat Veterans, writing, “The only way they could have gotten less attention would have been to be interviewed on Air America Radio.” By the time the Swift Boat story had played out, CNN, chasing after ratings leader Fox News, found time to mention the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth –hereafter, Swifties — in nearly 300 separate news segments, while more than 100 New York Times articles and columns made mention of the Swifties. And during one overheated 12-day span in late August, the Washington Post mentioned the Swifties in page 1 stories on Aug. 19, 20, 21 (two separate articles), 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31.

* Coulter also falsely suggests that no witnesses supported Kerry’s account that his convoy came under enemy fire during the March 13, 1969, actions for which he was awarded the Bronze Star.

* Coulter writes that Kerry “carrie[d] a home-movie camera to war in order to reenact combat scenes and tape fake interviews with himself” during his tour in Vietnam [Page 100]. Coulter was repeating a discredited charge previously made by Internet gossip Matt Drudge and subsequently echoed by The New York Times and numerous cable and radio outlets during the 2004 presidential election.

* Coulter devotes four pages of Guilty [173-176] to discussing her false assertion that “Obama himself compared Palin to a pig and then denied doing so.” In fact, Obama’s September 9, 2008, statement, “you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig,” did not refer to Palin, but rather to how a “list” of Sen. John McCain’s policies were, according to Obama, no different from President Bush’s. Obama did not mention Palin in at least the 65 words preceding his “lipstick on a pig” comment, as Media Matters noted. Moreover, the expression “lipstick on a pig” is common political rhetoric — Obama had reportedly used the expression in the past, and McCain used it in 2007 in reference to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s health-care proposal.

Politics Delayed Palin Figure’s Drug Case According to Trooper and Union – The December 18 arrest of Sherry Johnston, grandmother to Bristol Palin’s newborn son Tripp Johnston, was delayed until after the November election, according to Kyle Young, drug investigator for the Alaska State Troopers. The case “became anything but normal” once investigators knew Johnston’s connection to the Palin family, Young said in an e-mail, and the search warrant “WAS delayed because of the pending election,” adding that authorities were “not the ones calling the shots.”

US Blocks UN Security Council Action on Gaza – The United States late Saturday blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and expressing concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas.

Conservative Leaders Endorse Ken Blackwell for Republican National Committee Chair – Business leaders, political figures and self-appointed moral policemen are among those supporting Blackwell. Blackwell was a notable figure in the 2004 presidential elections, during which he was simultaneously the Chief Elections Official of Ohio and honorary co-chair of the “committee to re-elect George W. Bush.” He was sued by the Ohio Democratic Party, accused of disenfranchising minority voters in part by forcing some to cast provisional ballots which were at additional risk of being thrown out if cast at the wrong precinct.

Blackwell, then a stockholder in the company, also ordered Diebold touch-screen voting machines over protest from Ohio State Senator Jeff Jacobson in July 2003, despite the machines’ dubious accuracy and lack of paper trails. A fundraising letter sent to Ohio Republicans around the same time by former Diebold chairman Walden O’Dell sparked allegations of a conflict of interest with a statement that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president.”

The presidential votes for Ohio, one of the key states in deciding the 2004 results, were also rerouted through a Tennessee web hosting company known for its close ties to the Republican Party and its hosting of external Bush administration e-mail accounts.

Cheney: Bush’s Actions Were Legal if He’s Not Impeached – If you don’t get punished, you didn’t go anything wrong, right? That’s the message Vice President Dick Cheney gave in an interview with CBS’ Bob Schieffer on Sunday, suggesting that a president’s actions are legal if those actions didn’t result in his impeachment. Asked by Schieffer if he believed that anything the president does in time of war is legal, Cheney said there is “historic precedent of taking action that you wouldn’t take in peacetime.”

SEC Ignored Warnings About Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme, Pronounced Him Free of Fraud – Consider the strange story of Harry Markopolos. Mr. Markopolos is the former investment officer with Rampart Investment Management in Boston who, for nine years, tried to explain to the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard L. Madoff couldn’t be anything other than a fraud. Mr. Madoff’s investment performance, given his stated strategy, was not merely improbable but mathematically impossible. And so, Mr. Markopolos reasoned, Bernard Madoff must be doing something other than what he said he was doing.

In his devastatingly persuasive 17-page letter to the S.E.C., Mr. Markopolos saw two possible scenarios. In the “Unlikely” scenario: Mr. Madoff, who acted as a broker as well as an investor, was “front-running” his brokerage customers. A customer might submit an order to Madoff Securities to buy shares in I.B.M. at a certain price, for example, and Madoff Securities instantly would buy I.B.M. shares for its own portfolio ahead of the customer order. If I.B.M.’s shares rose, Mr. Madoff kept them; if they fell he fobbed them off onto the poor customer.

In the “Highly Likely” scenario, wrote Mr. Markopolos, “Madoff Securities is the world’s largest Ponzi Scheme.” Which, as we now know, it was.
Harry Markopolos sent his report to the S.E.C. on Nov. 7, 2005 — more than three years before Mr. Madoff was finally exposed — but he had been trying to explain the fraud to them since 1999. He had no direct financial interest in exposing Mr. Madoff — he wasn’t an unhappy investor or a disgruntled employee. There was no way to short shares in Madoff Securities, and so Mr. Markopolos could not have made money directly from Mr. Madoff’s failure. To judge from his letter, Harry Markopolos anticipated mainly downsides for himself: he declined to put his name on it for fear of what might happen to him and his family if anyone found out he had written it. And yet the S.E.C.’s cursory investigation of Mr. Madoff pronounced him free of fraud.

Regards,

Jim

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” Alan Greenspan testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the wake of the worst economic upheaval since the Great Depression.

Loosely translated that means: “Gee, I’m surprised that a bunch of money grubbing greedy sons of bitches with not a single moral or ethic among them would rob everybody blind if we let them.”

That’s how I feel after supporting of the $700 Billion bailout package (TARP). I honestly thought that if the Government (that’s you and me) bailed the bankers out they would return the favor by loosening credit, re-negotiating mortgages, stimulating the economy and slowing, if not ending, the downward spiral we seem to be in.

Silly me.

So why hasn’t the economy gotten better after our first $ Trillion ($350 B in TARP plus $500 B to AIG, Goldman Sachs, CITI and a bunch of Hank Paulson’s friends before we got TARP) in giveaways? Let’s examine Bank America as an example. Having been given $25 B in bailout money they bought Merril Lynch and a major stake in a Chinese bank. Meanwhile back here in the good ole US of A they shorten the credit of Republic Doors and Windows which promptly closed it’s doors and put 300 people out of work*. If that’s not bad enough the CEO of failed Merrill Lynch, now owned by Bank of America, wants $10 million of the bailout for his bonus. He hasn’t gotten it yet, but that money would be about $33,000 per employee at Republic. Not mad yet? After the acquisition of Merrill and the Chinese bank they are laying off 30,000 “redundant” employees. It seems that the money we tax payers gave to stabilize the financial sector and save jobs has gotten 30,000 people fired at just one bank.

Still not mad? AIG, one of the pre-TARP beneficiaries of Hank Paulson’s largess, took $10 Billion and immediately threw a party for it’s upper management to the tune of a half $ Million including spa treatments and dinners at the rate of $100/plate. Not being satisfied with the first $10 Billion they came back and got another $8 Billion. Guess what? They threw another “executive retreat” for $350 million.

If you still aren’t mad, how about CITI Group. We gave them $20 Billion and they immediately invested $8 Billion in Dubai. Not here in America, in Dubai.

What happened to the oversight we were promised? Bush threatened to veto the bill if CEOs were held accountable and Hank didn’t buy troubled assets like he was supposed to. Instead he bought shares of the troubled banks which left their balance sheets with too much bad debt to loosen the credit market so they bought other banks instead of lending. Meanwhile, for less than 2% of what we gave Wall Street the UAW and General Motors have to jump through hoops, re-structure and accept a Car Zar to oversee everything they do. If you take a shower before you go to work and make money fudging the books you get $700 Billion no questions asked, if you get your hands dirty building things you’ve got to drop your drawers and submit to a cavity search. More on the big three and the UAW later, stay tuned.

So, like Alan Greenspan, I am in a state of shocked disbelief that a bunch of money grubbing greedy sons of bitches with not a single moral or ethic among them would take my money, stick it in their pockets, throw parties, pay dividends, give bonuses to failures in management and flip me the bird while putting more Americans out of work.

Bank America buys into Chinese bank & lays off employees.

CITI invests in Dubai.

Bush creates loophole.

*There’s more to this story than just B of A, but it’s still unfolding. It seems the owners of Republic recently bought a $2.6 million condo and another, less indebted, window manufacturer.