Pushing for Progress

05 February 2006

The Cost of Corruption

The GOP's Pre-owned New Leader
by Robert L. Borosage
TomPaine.Commonsense:

[...]
Boehner personifies how the cost of corruption in Washington gets passed on to ordinary Americans. As chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, he is known as the “representative from Sallie Mae.” Sallie Mae is the leading provider of loans to college students and their parents, and Boehner has consolidated his leadership by dispensing big bucks raised from lenders in campaign and party contributions. In fact, the Center for Responsive Politics reports that Sallie Mae is the biggest donor to Boehner's political action committee, called Freedom Project.

In return, he protects their interest. Most recently, he helped develop and push through legislation that may weaken the loan industry’s competition — the Direct Student Loan program, where students bypass Sallie Mae and others and borrow directly from the government. While taking it to their competition, Boehner openly reassured bankers that they would not be harmed greatly by this legislation — as reported in the Chronicle of Education — he informed a group of bankers that they could rest easy in his “trusted hands.”
[...]

Iran To Face Security Council

Let's all take a lesson from Nancy Reagan, "Just Say NO! to War With Iran!

Tehran Defiant On IAEA Vote
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 5, 2006; Page A01

VIENNA, Feb. 4 -- Members of the International Atomic Energy Agency voted Saturday to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over concerns that the country is trying to develop nuclear weapons, decisively ending Iran's years-long effort to forestall action that could lead to further pressure on Tehran.
[...]

[update] from reuters: TEHRAN (Reuters) - A defiant Iran on Sunday ended snap UN checks of its nuclear sites and said it was resuming uranium enrichment, a day after being reported to the Security Council over concerns it is building nuclear weapons.

04 February 2006

Rally for Leonard Peltier's Freedom

This photo is from today's march from East Tacoma to the U.S. Court House on the North side of downtown. A large crowd gathered, marched and rallied despite the weather.

02 February 2006

Bush: Don’t expect price breaks from oil companies

The Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — President Bush defended the huge profits of Exxon Mobil Corp. Wednesday, saying they are simply the result of the marketplace and that consumers socked with soaring energy costs should not expect price breaks.
[...]
Early this week, Exxon reported record profits of $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year — the largest of any U.S. company. While some politicians raised furious objections, Bush had a different reaction.

“There is a marketplace in American society,” he said.
[...]
Bush was the first U.S. president to espouse a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel. Those prospects have dimmed with the triumph of Hamas in Palestinian parliamentary elections last week.

“I made the position of this government very clear,” Bush said. “Hamas must renounce its desire to destroy Israel; it must recognize Israel’s right to exist and it must get rid of the armed wing of its party.”

“In order for there to be democracy and in order for there to be two states living side by side with peace, you can’t have the party of one state intending to destroy the other state,” he said.
comment: (Why exactly is it that Hamas must disarm, and Israel isn't required the same? Israel isn't trying to destroy Hamas?)
[...]
On other subjects:
— The president appeared untroubled by the outbursts and chaos surrounding the trial of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
“Saddam Hussein was the person who made a mockery of justice,” Bush said. “He never gave his victims any chance for trial. This fledgling democracy is working through the issues of its Justice Department.”

— Bush dismissed the idea of increasing fuel efficiency standards for cars, trucks and SUVs as a way of curbing foreign oil dependence. “My plan is to diversify away from oil. ... You’re asking questions about how you deal with cars running on gasoline made from oil, I’m telling you let’s get some cars running on fuel other than oil.”

— He rejected calls from some Republicans for the White House to disclose all its contacts with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Bush said there was an investigation of Abramoff’s activities and “to the extent they ask for information, they’ll get it.”

linked

Boehner and Boners: Is the US a Doner?

I couldn't resist posting this after I saw both of these articles! Here are two articles whose juxtaposition is all too intriguing:

Reuters: House Republicans elect Boehner as leader
Thu Feb 2, 2006 5:20 PM ET
By Richard Cowan and Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rep. John Boehner of Ohio upset a former deputy to indicted Texan Tom DeLay on Thursday to become majority leader of the scandal-rocked House of Representatives.

With this party leadership election, House Republicans hoped to begin to move beyond ethics problems, tied to lobbyists, that threaten their control of the Congress in the November election.

Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri had appeared to be the front-runner, based on a long list of public commitments. But Boehner, who campaigned on a vow to seek to renew the party's "spirit and vision," defeated Blunt and Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona in a secret-ballot election by fellow Republicans.
[...]

Harper's:

[Projection]
The Big One

Posted on Thursday, February 2, 2006. From one of the fifty winning entries in a contest to design a warning sign for a planned nuclear dumping site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The contest, sponsored by the Nevada Desert Space Foundation, aimed to find a symbol whose meaning would outlast the projected life span of contemporary language and culture, as the nuclear waste will remain dangerously radioactive for more than ten thousand years. The proposal, by Paul Schollmeier, was accompanied by a line drawing of an erect penis. Greenpeace, Zurich, will exhibit the winning entries later this year. Originally from Harper's Magazine, April 2004.

My proposal is to mark the nuclear repository with a phallic symbol to warn against transgression and trespass, especially if, as seems very likely, our culture should perish. The human phallus presents an immediately and universally recognizable symbol which transcends language and culture. Humans thus ought to have the ability to recognize this symbol as long as we retain our present anatomy. That our anatomy might change drastically in the next ten thousand years appears very unlikely, and if mutations become prevalent, a nuclear disaster of some sort must surely have taken place, and warning signs of any sort would serve no purpose.

I take the phallus to symbolize at once hierarchical and territorial dominance. Of course, some feminists would have much to say about phallocentric folly, but this behavior is a fact of life even in the most enlightened times. The phallus, therefore, presents an image which, for the foreseeable future of our species, should occasion attitudes of respect and circumspection in its beholder. This image ought to cause respect for possible hierarchies represented and circumspection for possible territories defended. Indeed, the very fact that I am using erudite euphemisms to refer to this portion of the human anatomy, not to mention the fact that many, if not most, people will initially react with unease and even aversion to a mere proposal to use the image of an erect penis as a warning sign, attests to the deterrent power this symbol will have on future generations.
[...]

The question: is there a subtle message, based on Schollmeier's vision, in the Republicans' elevation of Mr. Boehner to the leadership position?

30 January 2006

Officer to Serve No Jail Time for Iraqi General's Death

Here's an example of what is wrong with our society and militarism. This decision essentially boils down to the justification of killing as a result of torturous interrogation proceedings. I want no part of this. As a citizen of the USA I demand accountability for those who murder and torture. Murder and torture are not acceptable.

FORT CARSON, Colo. (AP) — A military jury recommended a simple reprimand Monday for an Army officer who killed an Iraqi general by stuffing him headfirst into a sleeping bag and sitting on his chest during an interrogation.

As soldiers applauded in the courtroom, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. hugged his wife after hearing the surprisingly light sentence, which will be reviewed by Fort Carson's commander, Maj. Gen. Robert W. Mixon.

The commander cannot order a harsher sentence, defense attorney Frank Spinner said.

Welshofer, 43, was charged with murder, but was convicted over the weekend of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty that carried a penalty of up to three years and three months in prison, a dishonorable discharge, loss of pension and other penalties.

The murder charge carried a potential sentence of life in prison. Instead, Welshofer faces no jail time, the forfeiture of $6,000 in salary and what amounts largely to a restriction to his barracks for 60 days.

"I have the utmost respect for the decision the panel members came to tonight," Welshofer said. "I'm sure it was difficult for them."

Welshofer was convicted of putting a sleeping bag over the head of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, sitting on his chest and using his hand to cover the general's mouth while asking him questions at a detention camp in 2003 in al Qaim, Iraq.
[...]

This article is linked in its entirety here.

29 January 2006

US Occupation Authority Court thus far a Failure. A Farce?

From Reuters:

[...]
human rights groups have criticized the former U.S. occupation authority's decision to try Saddam and his aides in Iraq rather than in an international court. They say subsequent events have reinforced their view that sectarian and ethnic conflict make a fair trial in Baghdad hard to achieve.
[...]

Also this AP story via Truthout.org:

Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer said yesterday that the deposed Iraqi president wants President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair tried for war crimes.

Khalil al-Dulaimi said Saddam wants to sue both leaders, along with US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for allegedly authorizing the use of weapons such as depleted uranium artillery shells, white phosphorous, napalm and cluster bombs.

"We will sue Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld in The Hague for using such weapons of mass destruction," al-Dulaimi said in Jordan.
[...]