The Italian Job--Revisited

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has requested that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appear and testify at a hearing of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee on April 18th. Previous requests for information have been ignored according to the March 3o, 2007 letter to the Secretary. One subject of the request for testimony is the bogus Niger yellowcake connection used by the regime as one of its justifications for attacking Iraq. Its a good place to start the unravelling of lies, Henry. Bravo!

Thanks to Raw Story for posting the letter on its site.

A Note of Appreciation

The ol' chief has been busier than a one legged rooster at egg laying time. But I am taking time to post my appreciation of the votes to eventually end the occupation of Iraq. (even King Abdullah calls it an "illegal occupation") Senator Reid thanked 100,000 supporters of ending the debacle and said the votes could not have been won without our input. He has my thanks for lining up the votes to express the people's will. Its the way democracy is supposed to work. Democratic leaders should not give in to the inevitable barrage of nonsensical rhetoric from the regime castigating them as unpatriotic meddlers and troop haters. The ball is definitely in President Windrip's court. A bill with a time line for withdrawal should come out of conference committee shortly. Go ahead veto it, Mr. President.
Weekend Update: The Pentagon has more pots of money that it can count. Some creative accounting will keep the war machine cranking along until June, 2007 according to the Congressional Research Service. The Army has $52.6 billion in loose change. War funding could conceivably continue for two more months into July without supplemental appropriations if Congress approves reprogramming requests. Chief Windrip will veto the supplemental appropriation containing the withdrawal language. He is counting on Congress to back down in the face of a barrage of sentimental clap trap about the troops. Simply take them out of harm's way for pity's sake. Another example of the dishonesty and mendacity surrounding this so-called war against terror is the deal not to squeal cut by the Australian adventurer incarcerated at Guantanamo. The military hearing panel recommended seven years imprisonment for his training with Al Qaeda. He got nine months in Australia as part of a secret plea bargain in which he agreed not to talk about torture of detainees. But the truth is already out, Muhammad. Abd al-Nashiri, a Yemeni "high value" detainee said at his hearing that he lied about his involvement in the USS Cole attack because he wanted to "make the people happy". Al Nashiri said he had been tortured since he was arrested five years ago. I do not think taxpayer's money is well spent for this absurd political theatre. We would be a lot safer installing cargo inspection equipment and personnel at all of our seaports. If we still want to be "the land of the free, home of the brave" its time to call the Charlatan's bluff, Columbia.

District of Bizarro IX: The Usual Traitors

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has told us he will be counting on his stalwart crypto-Republican double agents, Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Joe Lieberman(?-CT), to defeat a timetable being attached to the Senate's defense appropriation bill. I absolutely do not understand why the Democratic party and its Senate leadership continues to tolerate the sabotage conducted by these disloyal Senators. If their confused constituents want to keep electing them, that is their constitutional right. But the Senators should be made to run as Independents if they will not join the GOP (Go ahead Joe, join the GOP so we can reduce the confusion). If their votes are responsible for continuing the war on Iraq, the DSCC should refuse to provide any funds for their re-election campaigns. The blood will be on their hands. Assuming Gordon Smith (R-OR) realizes the intensity of anti-war sentiment in Oregon and votes for an end game, Majority Leader Reid still needs two more votes to avoid a tie for Darth Cheney to break.

Dialogue with Hillary V

Hillary is whining again. In Nevada she blamed the American people for not having national health care. In response to questions about not having a specific plan for legislation, she said, "We will all have plans. What we need is a movement". Senator, that is the typical ploy of a Washington insider: when you do not have a clue, blame somebody else. Only 70% of the American people want national health care and they have wanted it for two decades or more. They do not have it because no national politician has been willing to take on the corporate interests that control our nation's politics and build the political coalition in Washington to pass a bill. There are bills pending in Congress right now for national health insurance. But because corporate plutocrats control not only the political agenda, but the means of mass communications, not many Americans now about them. You don't have a plan Senator, but Dennis Kucinich does and so does John Edwards. They are not blaming America. Check your image on the big screen, Senator. It needs adjusting.

White Man's Country--Renamed

You may recall my post of March 7th in which I told you of a canyon in southern Oregon inappropriately named "Greaser Canyon". I brought this misnomer to the attention of a member of the Geographic Place Names Board and a regular columnist of items historically Oregon for the Oregonian newspaper. At the time of the post I had not received a reply to my question about the origin of the name and my suggestion that it be changed to something more appropriate to the realities of modern Oregon.

I now have a kind reply. As with most things these days, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is not only is there a Greaser Canyon, but a Greaser Basin, Greaser Ridge, Greaser Lake and Greaser Ridge. A few man made features are also 'greasers'. But I will stick to the geographic ones since that is in my correspondent's bailiwick. The columnist rightly pointed out the effort being made, not only in Oregon, but elsewhere in the West to change 19th century place names that may offend some in our more diverse citizenry. You may be familiar with examples. The derogatory term for a native woman, "squaw" is but one. I am informed that inappropriate names cross color lines too. "Whorehouse Meadow" was changed to the less succinct but more polite "Naughty Girl Meadow". Just saying that name is enough to convince you the change did not last. It did not. Some changes have more staying power because they right a social injustice. "Darkey Creek" was changed to the last name of the black freeman who settled nearby the banks of Southworth Creek.

I think the 'greaser' names fall into this last category. The board member agrees,"given the increasing prominence of the Latin community in Oregon." He is not sure of the names origin, but because of its proliferation he "could not imagine any racial connotation attached to it". However, he did offer the more candid opinion of an expert colleague who thought it may have derived from vaqueros brought in to work a prominent white man's spread in the 1880s. This explanation I find convincing since Mexican cowboys--vaqueros--were known to whites as "greasers" for the oil they used to groom their hair. The term may have been a mere commonplace in the 1880s, but it is now a derogatory racial slur. The good news is that the names can be changed if the Board is petitioned to do so. So if you live in Oregon and would like to see these place names changed to something less offensive but equally descriptive--such as Vaquero Lake--contact me at the address on the navigation bar and join in making more history.

District of Bizarro VIII: Smoke and Mirrors

Its time for smoke in the District as Congress faces gut check time on the Iraq War. Despite peace marches, memorial vigils, antiwar petitions, state legislature resolutions calling for withdrawal and an election the war party loss, progressive leaders in Congress seem bent on an blaming the Republicans, verbalizing frustration, and doing nothing about the "slow bleed" of American military intervention in the Iraq Civil War. The regime's purge of prosecutors is providing media diversion and cover for their hand wringing timidity. The Pelosi-Murtha bill is wimpish since it only calls for a redeployment by March 2008. The real deal is the the Lee Amendment to the pending $93 billion supplemental appropriation for the war. The Charlatan cannot fight the war without money and he doesn't have the votes to block a veto override. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) wants to dedicate more money only to withdrawal and force protection. [See amendment text here.] While allowing a fully funded wind down of American involvement, the amendment requires all troops and contractors to exit the country by the end of this year. Its very doubtful that the amendment will pass the House because so many Democrats are loath to take a strong anti war stance just in case the ludicrous adventure succeeds before the 2008 election. If only the courage of Congress members matched that of our soldiers fighting a lost cause. Its no wonder Congress' public approval rating is dropping.
Weekend Update: Barbara Lee and her liberal colleagues in the House are signing on the leadership's weaker bill in an effort to get some kind of endgame going in Iraq. There simply are not enough votes to support decisive action ending the failed occupation of Iraq. In the Senate, the Appropriations Committee under the chairmanship of octogenarian Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) (he is looking like Yoda more and more) passed out a $121.6 billion defense spending bill that includes language requiring the president to begin a phased withdrawal within 120 days of passage. That language will not survive since the Senate is locked up by the Republicans' filibuster of any legislation limiting the Charlatan's war making abilities. We are now spending more on wars and the military than we did in WWII. Fine mess the authorities have us in, Ollie.
Latest: The House passed a supplemental war funding bill 218-214. The bill calls for withdrawal from Iraq by August 2008. Fourteen progressive Democrats voted against it since the bill allows the Charlatan to continue the war into next year. The anti-war effort now passes to the Senate. If the withdrawal provision survives Congress the Charlatan will most certainly veto it. The legislators will then be exposed to vilification as "troop haters", "traitors", "defeatist" and "unpatriotic" by the war mongers if they do not override his veto and give him more money for war. Speaker Pelosi got support from MoveOn.org the net roots activist organization. After taking an online survey of its members, it endorsed the more moderate spending bill which then passed. The organization and its founder Eli Pariser have been criticised on the left for not supporting the more aggressive Out of Iraq Caucus' amendment to the spending bill introduced by Barbara Lee (D-CA). According to Pariser 85% of the organization's members supported backing the Pelosi-Murtha, bill but no other alternative--such as the Lee Amendment-- was presented to members for consideration. (I also voted for the Pelosi-Murtha bill knowing no other option would pass muster with conservative Democratic Representatives). One critic called the MoveOn email survey a "Soviet ballot". The pressure for a more aggressive time table would have been greater if the 3.2 million member group had voted to back the Lee Amendment. But Pariser responds that the form of the question was dictated by the the parliamentary realities and the need to build toward a filibuster proof majority against the Charlatan's war on Iraq. According to some in the peace coalition, MoveOn organizers enjoy greater access to legislators than they do and they resent their apparent acceptance by 'mainstream' politicians wary of being identified with 'fringe' elements. That's too bad for those timid politicians because the so-called fringe now represents the position on Iraq of a substantial majority of Americans .

Giving the People What They Need

I wrote to my congressman about the need to fundamentally reform American health care. I got a letter in reply, but it was disappointing. My congressman said he supported reforming the health care delivery system, but his proposal was an anemic, vague plan to let individual states decide what kind of system they wanted. He called it "creative federalism". Sounds great but fuzzy thinking is not what is needed to cure the sick system. Some in your face economic leverage--like Oxycontin against pain--is what the doctor needs.

Enter Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) with a bold plan to heal the inflammation of spiraling costs, unresponsive HMOs, and diabolical insurance companies. Only a single payer plan provides the needed economic muscle to negotiate lower drug prices and control the runaway cost of medical care in America. HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, introduced last year and originally co-sponsored by Kucinich and that other friend of the working person, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), it is now co-sponsored by 61 other House members this session. Kucinich says, "passage is inevitable--it is only a matter of time." The bill proposes to expand the existing Medicare system to include every man, woman and child in America so they can receive publicly financed, privately delivered health care. Every participating American would receive a National Health Insurance ID card and number. No frustrating, profit motivated insurance companies to deal with here. You get to choose who takes care of you. No co-pays or deductibles either. The federal government would have the necessary economic leverage to negotiate lower drug prices and control costs since every provider would be compelled to accept payment from the nationwide public insurance program. The program would be paid for by a roll back of the regime's tax breaks for the rich, a 5% health tax on the wealthiest 5%, a 10% tax on the top 1%, a 1/3 of 1 percent transaction tax, and a 4.25% payroll tax for employers and employees. A study by the Center for Economic Research and Policy found that a family of three with an annual income of $40,000 would spend about $1900 on health insurance under the universal plan. The average premium for a family covered under an employer provided health insurance plan in 2007 is $11,000.

Congressman, HR 676 is what I call "creative federalism": doing the greatest good for the greatest number. So why don't you sign on?