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Protect Your Kids from a Neocon Draft
Well, that didn't take very long! On January 28, 2005, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) sent a letter to Congress asking for a new military draft. PNAC, you may recall, was the neocon organization that first laid out the disastrous foreign policy strategy that President Bush has pursued (helped along by the many PNAC staffers who are now in the Bush Administration.)
The letter alleges, in the last paragraph, that the PNAC is “a bipartisan group with diverse policy views . . .”. In fact, the PNAC is a group of foreign policy experts joined with retired military officers, and all with the same goals. PNAC’s own June 3, 1997 Statement of Principles states that the purpose of the PNAC is to “rally support for American global leadership” and create “a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad . . .”. (Click here for the full text.)
The PNAC Statement is signed by some familiar names such Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. This is the same organization that, on January 26, 1998, wrote to President Bill Clinton urging him to “turn your Administration’s attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam’s regime from power” to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction and to assure that the world’s supply of oil not be “put at hazard”. Again, this letter is signed by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz among others.
Some of us may remember the second presidential Bush-Kerry debate held in St. Louis. Daniel Farley asked, “Mr. President, since we continue to police the world, how do you intend to maintain our military presence without reinstituting a draft?” President Bush stated “We’re not going to have a draft, period. This all volunteer army works.” He went on to say “Now, forget all this talk about a draft. We're not going to have a draft so long as I am the president.” In sum, the President said three times during that debate that we would not have a draft.
I strongly urge every reader of this piece to copy it and distribute it to every parent of a draft-age and pre-draft-age child, and to the children themselves. (And don't forget, girls will be eligible for the new draft!) We need to hold President Bush accountable for his words and the message he adamantly conveyed to the American voting public. This was much more than just a campaign promise because it directly affects the lives and well being of our children.
I also urge everyone to take a moment to call and write to your representatives in the House and in the Senate. Let them know you’re not going to sit back and accept life-changing decisions that may have been were mere campaign promises to induce you to vote for the President. Remind President Bush of his words. Our children are counting on us.
Can you say, "Lying sack of ----?"
I am over 26, but I don't consider myself safe either. The draft could easily go up to age 30 or even more.
And "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" might be conveniently removed for the purposes of this draft.
And "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" might be conveniently removed for the purposes of this draft.
Posted by: SkinnyLawyer at January 31, 2005 08:57 PM
Yup, the Neocons are going with the "Won't Ask, Don't Give a Damn About You Anyway" policy for their little draft trick.
Check out this site where Chuck Fager, a Quaker peace worker, responds to the "Project for a New American Century":
http://www.quakerhouse.org/declaration-01.htm
I attended a peace workshop run by Chuck Fager, and he spoke of how we need to be ready to think in the long term. Here's a key quote from the document linked above:
"The Lamb's War is an ancient Quaker term, referring to a struggle for peace and justice carried on both internally and out in the world. And why the Hundred-Year Lamb's War?
"Well, consider the direction of our country and its role in the world. Those in power in Washington have set the US on a course to run the world, not for a year or two, but for a very long time. Indeed, the 'manifesto' for this grandiose project came from a group calling itself the Project for a New American Century. Century. Not decade."...
~I really don't know what to believe on this, if our current military is too small or not. This PNAC letter is calling for enlarging the military with volunteers or a draft?
I certainly am totally against any kind of draft.
John Kerry, during the campaign said that he thought the military was stretched too thin and should be increased by 40,000 (he did emphasize NOT to be sent to Iraq.):
[John Kerry's 2004 position on US military:
Strengthen our military, including doubling our Special Forces capability to fight the war on terror; improve our technology; and task our National Guard with Homeland Security. Add 40,000 new soldiers to the active-duty Army -- not to increase the number of soldiers in Iraq -- but to prevent and prepare for other possible conflicts.]
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2004/kerry_natl-security-plans_compare.htm
~ and Peter Beinart (first name listed on the letter) is a PNAC Neo-con????
Where have I been, I didn't know that!
creepy and predictable
Gitmo Enemy Combatant Ruling to Be Appealed
(the graphic fits with the mood of the topics tonight)
http://www.13wham.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=91403A81-B37A-4BC8-9526-08EB53ACDCE9
(interpretation - torture more likely to be 'ok'?
This doesn't sound like freedom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1403077,00.html
It's about Iraqi intellectuals fears of religious extremism & intolerance - sounds like people we can feel something in common with!!
It's about Iraqi intellectuals fears of religious extremism & intolerance - sounds like people we can feel something in common with!!
Posted by: DiAnne at January 31, 2005 09:47 PM
Yes siree, freedom is on the march.
Democrats to Lay Down Markers for Bush
26 minutes ago Politics - U. S. Congress
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON - Consigned by the voters to another season out of power, Democrats are eager to lay down markers for President Bush and congressional Republicans on Iraq, Social Security and more at the same time they try to absorb the lessons of last fall's elections.
It's a challenge complicated by Republican insistence on stirring echoes of the 2004 campaign at every turn, labeling President Bush's critics as obstructionists lacking alternative proposals.
"I promise they'll hear us across the aisle. I promise they'll hear us down" at the White House, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada assured his rank and file on the day he was chosen Democratic leader. In the weeks since, he, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and others have hastened to fulfill that pledge.
"We need an exit strategy so that we know what victory is and how we can get there, so that we know what we need to do and so that we know when the job is done" in Iraq, Reid said Monday in what his office called a "pre-buttal" to Bush's Wednesday night State of the Union speech.
http://tinyurl.com/3vt3j
A plea for troops to come home
By Maria Sacchetti,
Globe Staff | January 31, 2005
After polls closed on Election Day in Iraq yesterday, war veterans and their families brought the battle to save loved ones in the war to the home front, calling on President Bush to pull out US troops before thousands more die.
The veterans and their families received standing ovations from a crowd of more than 400 people at Faneuil Hall, at the first of a string of unofficial public hearings to be held over the next week in the Boston area.
Testimony came from two groups that favor removing US troops immediately, the 150-member Iraq Veterans Against the War, which was created last summer, and Military Families Speak Out, a 2,000-family organization founded in 2002.
Organizers said they are holding hearings at colleges, churches, and community centers to reveal the war's effect on the military and their families.
continue~
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/31/a_plea_for_troops_to_come_home/
Marc Trager
I hate to say it but Fascism is on the March
More In-Depth version:
First Amendment Rights No Big Deal, Students Say
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4769713,00.html
A friend pointed out that when she was in high school, she not only was aware of what the lst Amendment said & agreed with it, but she was pressing for the Equal Rights Amendment.
Election Euphoria Unlikely To Result in Democratic Domino Effect
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1403062,00.html
Call me a cynic but I like to think I'm dealing in reality. & we're going to hear alot of cheerleading coming from the "Prez" over the next day or so.
Triumphant White House Now Looks to Europe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1402989,00.html
Then it's off to Europe & the Mideast for BushBoy
~this is so interesting, amazing parallel's:
The Vietnam turnout was good as well
No amount of spin can conceal Iraqis' hostility to US occupation
Sami Ramadani
Tuesday February 1, 2005
The Guardian
On September 4 1967 the New York Times published an upbeat story on presidential elections held by the South Vietnamese puppet regime at the height of the Vietnam war. Under the heading "US encouraged by Vietnam vote: Officials cite 83% turnout despite Vietcong terror", the paper reported that the Americans had been "surprised and heartened" by the size of the turnout "despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting". A successful election, it went on, "has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam". The echoes of this weekend's propaganda about Iraq's elections are so close as to be uncanny.
more~
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1403103,00.html
Oh man check this out - remember the US helicopter that came down the other day & 31 were killed? No one knew what happened? Then about a day later a British transport plane went down & everyone was mum? Some of us suspected a news blackout til after the Iraqi elections? Check this out .. the plot thickens
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1402971,00.html
and to top this off, I just heard a Neocon say how "proud I am to have voted for George Bush, because HE STANDS FOR SOMETHING and HE DOESN"T EQUIVICATE OR APOLOGIZE."
Hope she notices now that he stands for BETRAYAL and LIES and DECIET and CORRUPTION.
He's a neoCON alright.
the REAL cost of Bu$h's War~
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050126/cx_edstein_umedia/20052601&e=2&ncid=
In an editorial in today’s Boston Globe, James Roosevelt Jr. said, “The implication that FDR would support privatization of America's greatest national program is an attempt to deceive the American people and an outrage.”
Throughout the six successful decades of Social Security, it has been adjusted in both benefits and revenues. But it has continued to observe FDR's principles of a secure, guaranteed retirement income provided by an insurance system that all workers pay for. Then, as now, the key to taking the fear out of the Social Security debate is speaking truthfully. Instead, the proponents of privatization have not only misused the name and image of my grandfather, they have mischaracterized undisputed facts to create a phony impetus for abandonment of the program.
(snip)
Earlier today, I reported here that Brian Jones of the RNC is accusing Democrats of using scare tactics. But, the fact is that We The People, Democrats and Republicans are worried by these implications and insinuations, from the Bush administration that Social Security is about to go belly up.
It is not that we believe what they are saying; it is that we have grave concerns about their plans for Social Security Reform.
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=304
Wow, now isn't this a surprise? Not!
Study Finds Texas Abstinence Plan Not Working
DALLAS (Jan. 31) - Abstinence-only programs like those promoted by the Bush administration don't seem to be working on teenagers in the president's home state, according to a state-sponsored study by Texas A&M University researchers.
The ongoing study, the first evaluation of the abstinence programs across the state, found that students in almost all high school grades were more sexually active after undergoing abstinence education.
Researchers don't believe the programs encouraged teenagers to have sex, only that the abstinence messages did not interfere with customary trends among adolescents.
"We didn't find what many would like for us to find," said A&M researcher Buzz Pruitt, who met with state health authorities last week to discuss the data.
Pruitt cautioned against drawing overarching conclusions from the study, which is incomplete and does have flaws. For example, the study lacks a comparison group, so researchers can't say whether the teenagers would have shown an even greater increase in sexual activity had they not had abstinence education.
But scientists welcome Texas' contribution to a field lacking in solid data.
The federal government will spend $131 million this year on various abstinence-only education programs - $30 million more than was spent in 2004. But many public health experts are concerned that no one really knows what the government is buying.
"We're using a bunch of programs, and we don't know what their effectiveness is," said Mike Young of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Young and his colleagues have developed a curriculum called Sex Can Wait, which is one of the few abstinence programs that has documented at least a short-term influence on teenage behavior.
Among the findings in the Texas study: About 23 percent of the ninth-grade girls in the study already had sexual intercourse before they received any abstinence education, a figure below the national average.
After taking an abstinence course, the number among those same girls rose to 28 percent, a level closer to that of their peers across the state.
Among ninth-grade boys, the percentage who reported sexual intercourse before and after abstinence education remained relatively unchanged. In 10th grade, the percentage of boys who had ever had sexual intercourse jumped from 24 percent to 39 percent after participating in an abstinence program.
Still, public health experts say these and other studies may eventually help fashion abstinence-only approaches that can make a difference. Texas joins about a dozen other states that have evaluated their abstinence education programs.
The A&M study's results are based on a 10-page questionnaire filled out anonymously by junior high and high school students. The study examined five programs in more than two dozen schools.
To be funded as abstinence education, programs cannot provide instruction in birth control, outside "factual information about contraceptive methods, such as the failure rates that are associated with the different methods," according to documents from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Among other things, the law also dictates that an abstinence program must have "as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity."
The federal government is paying $4.5 million per year for a large study of several abstinence programs. Interim data that already was supposed to have been released remains unpublished. The final report will be out by 2006, said Harry Wilson, associate commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau.
Lacking objective information about a program's effectiveness, Wilson said, the government looks at other barometers, such as community needs, the educators' experience and ties to the community.
"You do the best you can with what you know," he said.
Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com
Posted by: DiAnne at January 31, 2005 10:19 PM
DiAnne,
This is a pretty sad statement on what our kids are learning in school...
Freedom of Speech? The First What?
31 January 2005
“First Amendment No Big Deal, Students Say.”
AP News has an enlightening article today on a new study commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The study conducted by researchers at UConn says, “America's high schools are leaving the First Amendment behind.”
The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech.
I read the article not once, not twice but three times grappling with the implications of this. Here we are in the midst of a fight to protect our rights that the Bush administration seems hell bent on taking away and high school students do not even fully understand what their rights are. There is something very, very wrong with this picture.
More (including links to the study's website and news conference) - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=305
We don't need no stinkin' opposing viewpoints.....
4 Networks Reject Ad Opposing Bush on Lawsuits
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: February 1, 2005
ASHINGTON, Jan. 31 - An advocacy group, USAction, said on Monday that four television networks had turned down its request to run an advertisement opposing President Bush's effort to clamp down on medical malpractice lawsuits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/national/01ads.html?oref=login&adxnnl=0
~news from Big Oil....should we be surprised??
Q4 profit highest ever for Exxon Mobil
DALLAS (MarketWatch) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. reported its best quarter ever on Monday, amid revenue growth of 26 percent and record results from exploration and production, refining and marketing, and chemicals.
http://tinyurl.com/57yog
Posted by: nancyjane at February 1, 2005 09:03 AM
We don't need no stinkin' opposing viewpoints.....
4 Networks Reject Ad Opposing Bush on Lawsuits
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/national/01ads.html?oref=login&adxnnl=0
Next time somebody talks about the "liberal" media shove this article in their face.
Some light reading..
In the ever-evolving interest of 'security,' civil rights are disappearing before our eyes. Think someone's watching? They probably are.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/21128/
The combat pay of the average soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq is only $7.50 a day. What's the meaning of 'support the troops' if we can't even pay them a living wage?
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21130/
Benson wades in on voter apathy
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/benson/
The combat pay of the average soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq is only $7.50 a day. What's the meaning of 'support the troops' if we can't even pay them a living wage?
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21130/
Posted by: battlebob at February 1, 2005 10:38 AM
This short article is worth putting under the wiper of every car that has a yellow "Support our Troops" magnet.
We need a bumper sticker and magnet: "Keep the oil comin' boys".
Thought this was worth passing along..........
http://www.drinkingliberally.org/
I must admit that since Nov.3rd I have probably been drinking a little more liberally than usual!!
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21130/
Posted by: battlebob at February 1, 2005 10:38 AM
This short article is worth putting under the wiper of every car that has a yellow "Support our Troops" magnet.
Posted by: oncall at February 1, 2005 11:31 AM
BB & oncall~
THX for posting this.
I have forwarded this on to my email list ....and I WILL make copies, take them to my local mall (deep in a red state, where yellow magnets seem to be everywhere!)
Excellent idea!
Posted by: oncall at February 1, 2005 10:08 AM
Swift Boat ads were not controversial??
Woman loses father, then husband in Iraq
Vehicle accident, helicopter crash claim related soldiers
The Associated Press
Jan. 31, 2005DALLAS - A woman whose father died in Iraq last year suffered another tragedy when her husband was killed in a helicopter crash in Baghdad last week.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6892775/
~~osama bin forgotten..
Quitting Kabul
The U.S. media presence in Afghanistan continues to dwindle.
http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3815
Swift Boat ads were not controversial??
Posted by: Mass at February 1, 2005 12:06 PM
Absolutely they were horrible. But the networks have given themselves cover by stating that they would run "controversial" adds during election season.
My response to Bush and I would like to signs made to Bush Thur and Fri when he threatens Dems Congressmen who oppose his plan to dismantle SS with the Message: "SS Reform and Threats, BRING IT ON". How do we get signs out near his speech?
"Bush plans to target Senate Democrats facing reelection with speeches and town hall meetings on Thursday and Friday."
The combat pay of the average soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq is only $7.50 a day. What's the meaning of 'support the troops' if we can't even pay them a living wage?
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21130/
Posted by: battlebob at February 1, 2005 10:38 AM
This statement is a little misleading. We are not paying our troops only $7.50/day. We are paying them an *extra* $7.50/day or $225/month while they are in a combat zone, on top of whatever pay-grade salary they regularly receive. Still paltry, of course.
And while the combat zone pay/tax exclusions for visiting VIPs is hardly fair, one of the reasons for the whole "zone" being subject to the pay perks is that personnel are constantly moving around in the zone and the whole zone has been determined to be dangerous for one reason or another (depleted uranium, anyone?).
We deal with pay headaches all the time, for example the folks who are on boats patrolling in the Persian Gulf are getting a "sea pay" premium that the support folks on land in that area who fix their boats are not. There are also whispers in DOD that the whole "combat zone" issue may go away as they are trying to restrict it just to areas where actual fighting is taking place (so our "forward deployed" personnel would get it but not our support personnel putting in 18-hour days nearby); also they are trying to get rid of the combat zone tax exclusion and the pay perks for visiting VIPs. Why? Too expensive, saith the government.
Judge Extends Legal Rights for Guantánamo Detainees
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/politics/01gitmo.html?adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1107278515-xBbP+jFGBUtsO/XltWHUig
FBI Agents Allege Abuse of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14936-2004Dec20.html
Conservatives Believe Americans are Fools on Social Security
February 1, 2005
The House and Senate Republican Conferences have developed a 103-page communications manual for privatizing Social Security. The document reveals conservatives' true feelings about the wisdom of the American public. It pushes members to stress "personalization" over "privatization" since "privatization connotes the total corporate takeover of Social Security." Remember, the audience "doesn't understand financial jargon," and "doesn't know how trillions and billions differ." And it reminds conservatives, "Don't let yourself get dismissed by a skeptical audience," because they "will dismiss the notion that the government can help them accumulate a million dollars," and they "don't find it credible that the accounts will be easy to manage." Here's what Americans should really know:
The Bush administration's crisis mentality leads to critical mistakes. This Administration has a dangerous habit of overstating crises and understating the cost of radical steps. The "Chicken Little" mentality brought us an ill-conceived war in Iraq, designed to control WMD we never found, launched with no exit strategy and with inadequate troops and equipment. This is the team that expected our troops would be greeted by jubilant crowds, rather than armed insurgents. Let's make sure we think this one through. This time, when they launch their reckless plan and declare "mission accomplished," they could leave American retirees holding the bag.
There are many big, unanswered questions about Social Security privatization. First, what happens if you lose money? Are you just left out in the cold? Second, how will we pay the staggering $2 trillion transition costs? And third, what benefit cuts do they have in store? Who will be the winners under this privatization scheme? Who will run it?
Let's get it right for young and old alike. The Social Security trust fund will be solvent for almost 40 years. There is no need to rush in to ill-conceived privatization plans that haven't been well thought out. Let's get reform right and not undercut a guarantee with a gamble.
Daily Talking Points is a product of the American Progress Action Fund.
Krugman does the math & it's beautiful.........
Many Unhappy Returns
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 1, 2005
The fight over Social Security is, above all, about what kind of society we want to have. But it's also about numbers. And the numbers the privatizers use just don't add up.
Let me inflict some of those numbers on you. Sorry, but this is important.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/opinion/01krugman.html?oref=login
Daily Koss has the 103 page Soc.Sec playbook. Read it and weep..
(The link to the PDF is near the top on this page)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/31/131537/763
Posted by: nancyjane at February 1, 2005 12:34 PM
~~I hope CSPAN tapes this, even if it is not covered LIVE, I would love to see Krugman in action again, on Soc Sec :)
On Thursday, Sens. Corzine and Sununu join the New York Times' Paul Krugman and Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute at the National Press Club to talk about Social Security.
meet the new boss...
"Many of the same people who worked in Saddam's time are still doing those jobs today. So there is a continuity of personnel and of mind-set. I think the Iraqi people themselves thought there was going to be a different system. Every day, they are finding it is not so different."
- Hania Mufti, Baghdad director of Human Rights Watch and chief author of a report detailing continuing human rights abuses by Iraqi authorities since the occupation by U.S. forces.
Source: The Washington Post
Social Security Deception Funded With Taxpayers' Dollars
By Mark Weisbrot
Using taxpayers' dollars and government employees to deceive the public is generally prohibited, but lately it seems this has become standard operating procedure. The latest outrage is the Bush Administration's conscription of federal employees at the Social Security Administration in its effort to convince the public that Social Security is in "crisis."
This comes on the heels of a scandal involving the Department of Education payment of $240,000 of taxpayers' money to commentator Armstrong Williams to promote the Administration's "No Child Left Behind" education agenda.
Last September the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that Tom Scully, former head of Medicare in the Bush Administration, broke the law when he threatened to fire Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster. Mr. Foster had wanted to disclose the agency's new estimate of the Medicare prescription drug bill, but backed off when Scully threatened to fire him. At the time, the Bush administration was telling Congress it would cost no more than $400 billion, but Medicare's actuaries had put the cost at $500-$600 billion, which was later accepted as more accurate.
The Bush Administration also used taxpayers' money to sell its Medicare prescription drug bill. It all adds up to a disturbing pattern of deception and abuse of federal offices and funds to advance a partisan political agenda.
According a New York Times report last Sunday based on internal Social Security Administration (SSA) documents, employees are to promote the following message: '' 'Social Security's long-term financing problems are serious and need to be addressed soon,' or else the program may not 'be there for future generations.' ''
This is completely false. According to the Social Security Trustees' own numbers -- which President Bush is also using -- the program can pay all promised benefits for the next 38 years, without any changes at all. And even after that it would still pay a larger real (inflation-adjusted) benefit than people receive today -- indefinitely.
read the entire article....
http://www.cepr.net/columns/weisbrot/mark_weisbrot_1_18_05.htm
Posted by: Veritas at February 1, 2005 12:24 PM
Veritas,
Thanks for adding some factual context to what really is a non-issue about combat pay. I really have to wonder why Hackworth even raised this, especially in such a misleading way.
The real issues are increased death benefits for the military, and health care for veterans. The first has bipartisan support, so it won't be much of an issue. But VA health care funding is likely to be an uphill fight after the President presents his budget to Congress next Monday.
Where are the jobs..
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/show_us_the_jobs.php
[snip]
Translation: On the administration’s watch, people have less money to spend, not more. The average tax cut of $300 for the not-wealthy is a pittance compared to the thin paychecks people bring home. The drop in pay over three years means the typical household has $1,500 less with which to pay the bills—just as health care and energy costs have been rising.
What’s happening here? The administration has to lie. To sell tax cuts overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthy, you have to promise something for the middle class. You can’t exactly call your economic plan “The Enrich The Wealthy, Let the Rest Eat Cake” plan. It just doesn’t have the right ring to it. So the administration’s domestic template bears a startling resemblance to its foreign policy approach for explaining reality: Fabricate a rationale for your policy and defend it no matter what the facts are, and no matter the costs.
The organizers of Not One Damn Dime Day are surveying the effectiveness of the effort. From their E-mail message:
How did Not One Damn Dime Day go? One measure of success is the amount of press attention. We got into 250 newspapers (see www.NotOneDamnDime.com/boycott/Press.asp for the list), and made 40 radio and TV appearances, reaching an estimated 40 million people. If one in ten participated, that makes 4 million participants.
And that doesn't include the number of people who were reached only by email. The Not One Damn Dime (NODD) email probably reached another 40 million people and recruited another 4 million participants. Subtracting out some overlap, our estimate is 5 million to 8 million participants.
We're trying to better estimate the number of participants via a survey run by Bentley College. Please spend ten minutes answering the survey so we can have some solid answers for the press on our numbers. And please ask other participants to respond at http://www.NotOneDamnDime.com/Bentley/
You can see below the number of people who responded online to commit to participating - 16,000 as of Jan. 20. Their reasons for participating are laid out in our blog -- online at http://www.NotOneDamnDime.com/boycott/Survey_Results.asp
Webb drops out of race for DNC chairmanship
Former Denver mayor backs Dean
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~33997~2684232,00.html
Woman loses dad, husband in Iraq
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/01/double.tragedy.ap/index.html
(AP) -- Less than a year ago, Tabitha Bonilla's father gave his life for his country in Iraq. Last week, her husband gave his, too.
Army Capt. Orlando A. Bonilla, 27, of Killeen, Texas, was killed Friday in a helicopter accident in Baghdad. Her father, Army Sgt. 1st Class Henry A. Bacon, 45, died last February in a vehicle accident.
Through tears and long pauses, Orlando Bonilla's wife -- and Henry Bacon's daughter -- tried to "do justice," as she put it, to the two most important men in her life.
"I stand behind my daddy and my husband, and I stand behind the job they had to do, and that's my take on it," she said. "I just support them, regardless of who sent them over there and why they sent them over there, no matter whether it's for right or wrong reasons."
This is pretty long but well worth the read.
Bringing It All Back Home:
The Emergence of the Homeland Security State
By Nick Turse
TomDispatch
Monday 31 January 2005
Part I: The Military Half
If you're reading this on the Internet, the FBI may be spying on you at this very moment.
Under provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the Department of Justice has been collecting e-mail and IP (a computer's unique numeric identifier) addresses, without a warrant, using trap-and-trace surveillance devices ("pen-traps"). Now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Justice's principle investigative arm, may be monitoring the web-surfing habits of Internet users -- also without a search warrant -- that is, spying on you with no probable cause whatsoever.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/013105K.shtml
Freedom of Speech? The First What?
31 January 2005
“First Amendment No Big Deal, Students Say.”
Posted by: Pamela at February 1, 2005 01:50 AM
Posted by: DiAnne at January 31, 2005 10:19 PM
Just to lift some spirits...
I teach high school students at a private school in, as you know, this RED state. Most of the parents are sickeningly conseravtive, as are many of the students. However, a great deal of the students, especially the liberal minority (a strong minority none the less) are fully aware of the importance of the first amendment, as well as the obligation of the government to protect their rights. They are very good at articulating the importance of their liberties, and the best thing is that many do have a sense of THEIR obligation to take a stand when these rights are in jeopardy.
There is hope. =)
Bush proposes higher war-zone death benefits
Democrats urge applying payments to all active-duty personnel
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/01/death.benefits.ap/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats argued Tuesday that President Bush's proposal to boost government payments to families of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and future war zones should extend to all military personnel who died on active duty.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that while he agreed with Bush's plan to give those families an extra $250,000, the money should also "apply to all service members on active duty" and not just those who died in Pentagon-designated combat zones.
-snip-
Chu said the extra $150,000 in life insurance and the higher death gratuity would be retroactive to October 7, 2001, the date the United States launched its invasion of Afghanistan in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Some bills in Congress would make the higher gratuity retroactive but not the extra life insurance.
Under the administration's proposal, the 53 military members who were killed in the September 11 attack on the Pentagon would not get the higher gratuity, a spokeswoman said.
As of Monday, 1,415 Americans had died in the Iraq war, according to the Pentagon's count, and 156 had died in Afghanistan and other locations deemed part of the war on terrorism.
The death gratuity is a one-time payment intended to be given to the family immediately after a service member's death; it is in addition to an array of other survivor benefits such as housing aid.