Since it’s now the third anniversary of the beginning of the War in Iraq, and we’re getting pretty close to the third anniversary of “Mission Accomplished,” I think it’s definitely a fitting time to look back over the past several years and see exactly how disillusioned and idiotic the predictions and information that the Bush Administration has fed the American public over the past three years really are.

Everything from a beautiful statement from George W. Casey, who said in July 2005 that by March 2006 “We’ll be able to take some fairly substantial [troop] reductions,” to a quote from Donald Rumsfeld himself in 2003 that “In those regions where pockets of dead-enders are trying to reconstitute, General Franks and his team are rooting them out,” speaking about the insurgency and General Tommy Franks, who is now retired after overseeing the invasion and the utter lack of planning and rebuilding after the invasion became an occupation.

That’s not all, either, there are several lovely quotes from the President himself that show that either he was getting absolutely horrible information from the ground, or was just lying to the American public to keep spirits up for as long as possible. As with any leader, either he was in the dark about how bad the situation was and the fact that it wasn’t getting any better-and he’s incompetent for not being aware of the situation, or he was lying and hiding it from the rest of us, which is equally incompetent. Read the full article for details. It’s good to see that someone is keeping track of how many times we as an American people have been lied to about this war, from the beginning all the way up to the present.

My only hope is that on this anniversary, like so many other grim anniversaries (like the 2500 dead milestone, or the one and two year anniversaries), that someone will finally start thinking about the brave men and women in uniform that are over there fighting this war, the families they have left behind here in the States, and seriously develop a plan to hand over Iraq to its own people in a responsible and nonviolent way so we can being our troops home to the loved ones they more then deserve to be with. My concern reaches past our troops and to the millions of Iraqis dying or living in fear in sectarian violence and their horrid quality of life that hasn’t seemed to have improved since the invasion, and the thousands killed in raids and airstrikes in the past three years; all of this while both parties of government back home seem to hold firm to the status quo and are either too engaged with the current Administration to propose change or too afraid of it.

Regardless, a good look back shows us how different where we are today is from where we were told we would be.

[ Old Forecasts Come Back to Haunt Bush ]
Source: The Washington Post

You can trust that I’m only the type to republish releases from political offices if I really think they warrant consumption, and this one does. Senator Diane Feinstein of California has released a statement from her office that outlines new legislation that she’s trying to push through the legislature to take real aggressive action to curb the very very real threat of global warming and climate change while similarly keeping the economy strong and providing safeguards for keeping the economy moving and keeping the potential threat down to business that business leaders and anti-environmental conservatives routinely claim that any environmental action is.

Seriously; these are the folks who think that cleaning up the air we breathe and the water we drink is going to tank the economy, and that instad polluting our waterways and decimating the EPA is the only way to encourage economic growth. People like our favorite felon Tom DeLay, for example, who called the EPA a “gestapo,” and only ran for office because he was tired of the government telling him that the chemicals he was using as the owner of a pesticide company were actually harmful to the children who crawled on the floors he sprayed. Heaven forbid. But I’m moving off point.

Senator Feinstein has drafted legislation that very well could be the first real steps that the United States has taken domestically towards cleaning itself up as the largest polluter on the planet, and protecting our economy at the same time. If her proposal is taken seriously and agreed upon, it could be the necessary beacon for other world powers like China and India, both of whom are serious polluters in their own right, that could show them that it’s very very possible to protect our planet for future generations, to not kill off thousands of unique species of plants and animals that bring our planet diversity, and to improve the quality of life for all the people on the planet, without impaling your economy and economic growth on a spire of regulations and laws. Here’s wishing Senator Feinstein luck on her proposal. We’ll definitely support her.

[ Senator Feinstein Outlines New Legislation to Curb Global Warming, Keep Economy Strong ]
Source: TruthOut.org (courtesy of the Office of Senator Feinstein)

A brilliant article in the US News and World Report poses an interesting question. If the current administraton thinks it’s perfectly okay to spy on American citizens without a court order and without due process or even probable cause, and refuses to even consider the illegality of its circumventing the checks and balances designed specifically to avoid these kinds of problems, where will it stop? If the Administration believes that it’s all in the interest of “fighting terror” or “defending the homeland,” what’s next? Intrusions to our telephone calls are already going on, and Congressional Republicans, apologists to the last, are drafting legislation that would get the President out of the hot water he’s in and make his warrantless wiretapping program legal. So where do we go from here? Physical searches?

You might scoff, but the same disregard for constitutional law that the President has lied boldface to the American people about when it came to the domestic spying program leads naturally to the ability to search the person or property of an American citizen without a court order or warrant if the government believes-for whatever reason that’s obviously not challengable by a court since this is about “protecting the homeland,” remember-that the suspect may have “links” to a terrorist organization. (and we’ve all seen what the FBI and the NSA consider terrorist organizations. On the one hand there’s Al’Queda and Hamas, but on the other hand there are plenty of domestic peace and activism groups that federal authorities have levelled their sights on)

The problem with this outlandish possibility-that warrantless search and siezure might be next, that the very articles of the constitution that forbid it are on the chopping block-is that it’s already been discussed, and pondered in the possible policy routes of the Administration.

[ The Letter of the Law ]
Source: US News and World Report

Oh boy. Don’t get me wrong, I think that we need to investigate alternative means of powering our homes and offices, and I think nuclear power is definitely a viable and valid option to the more traditional and ecologically damaging technologies like burning fossil fuels. Nuclear technology could be a boon, what with technologies developing that will allow us to reduce energy loss from nuclear reactors and produce less nuclear waste at the same time. But there is a problem with the whole scenario: keeping nucelar and radioactive waste and waste water away from the populace for the thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of years required for the stuff to stop being dangerous to any life that might come in contact with it.

While scientists grapple with the issue of making nuclear energy safer and more efficient, many environmentalists on both sides of the argument are skeptical, and for very good reason. Many nuclear reactors haven’t been upgraded or touched in over 20 years, and often safety problems are overlooked, regulations bucked, and advances in safety and efficiency technology ignored because of the for-profit nature of the industry.

And then news like this comes out, that some reactors are found to be leaking radioactive water that could potentially contaiminate underground aquifers, underground rivers, and water sources for people who live near the plants. This is the kind of news that fuels the knee-jerk reaction that nuclear power is unsafe, and it’s only the nuclear power industry that’s to blame.

[ Nuclear Reactors Found to Be Leaking Radioactive Water ]
Source: The New York Times

Brilliant commentary at AlterNet today from Margaret Kimberly, of The Black Commentator, [ http://www.blackcommentator.com/ ] where she puts out the call for a real civil movement; a turnback to the principles of civil disobedience the likes America hasn’t seen since the 1960s, where a real “civil war” of sorts could be waged right here at home to protest and deny the right-wing’s obsession with turning back the clock to the so-called “good old days;” those days where husbands (always white and striaght and in suits) went off to work, their wives (always white and pretty and sexually available only to their husbands for the sole purpose of having children) who of course need no rights because they can’t possibly think for themselves, stay home and prepare dinner to be piping hot and ready for the husband when they came home. The “good old days,” where latinos didn’t exist anywhere except Mexico and South America, Black Americans “knew their place,” and there were “no such thing” as homosexuals. Ah yes, the “good old days,” as long as you were a white Christian male, because not only was your dominance in society assured (as it still is now), but it was unchallenged and institutionally reinforced by American culture and society. It wasn’t just “okay” to be predjudiced and hateful back then, it was required to be a decent member of society, and it was necessary to fit in. It was the norm, and the right-wing are obsessed with taking the country as a whole back to that time and place, where the dominance of the status quo was assured-far away from the threatening social advances we’ve made in recent years and the move towards equality for gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

Kimberly notes that in her reflection of the yearly celebration of racism and praising of a defeated, anti-american separatist state at the North Carolina Statehouse, commonly referred to as the Confederate flag day held by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, she realizes that there really are people who think that those times were better times, and even the times before those times were better times-times that we’re not too far away from to return to. And that’s the goal-to get back there. And the only way to fight it is to, of course, be what we are: progressive, and keep the country moving forward towards equality and justice.

Kimberly gives us examples like state legislatures moving to require ID cards for citizens to vote, but she doesnt stop at race, she moves on to gender, pointing the finger at the South Dakota legislature for their horrific law against women and stifling of a woman’s right to live inside her own body. She calls these people, this right-wing movement to turn back the clock, the 21-st century confederates, and I’m inclined to agree with her. They’re looking to change America to suit their will or break it apart, and if the house is to remain undivided, someone will have to stand against them again and show them that their hatred and ignorance won’t be tolerated.

[ Civil War in America ]
Source: Alternet

Apparently Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sandra Day O’Connor were threatened with their lives last year, according to former Justic Ginsberg. Ginsberg gave a speech in South Africa where she disclosed for the first time that she and Justic O’Connor were by someone who called on the Internet for their immediate “patriotic” killing. Just like yahoos like Ann Coulter, who said earlier this year that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned and then followed it up with “That’s a joke for you people in the media,” as if anyone would possibly believe that she was joking, or had a viable sense of humor (although her opinions and writing are definitely funny) to begin with.

The point here is that security concerns around judges and justices who rule in a manner that might even remotely be considered “unamerican” or “unpatriotic” according to the far-right loony bin, or as Justice Ginsberg called it, the “irrational fringe” of society, are rising, now that Republicans in Washington and around the country are trying to force control over the one arm of the government they can’t be elected to and they can’t kick dissenters out of, the judiciary. In fact, in Maryland, state delegate Don Dwyer, (whose hilariously homophobic views are parodied at DonDwyer.com [ http://www.dondwyer.com/ ]) immediately after a state judge ruled in opposition of a discriminatory marriage law, called for that judge’s impeachment as a method of political retribution. People like this are found all over the country. They have no respect for the rule of law, they want to write discrimination into state constitutions around the country and into the US Constitution itself, and they’re most easily identified by their lunacy and claims that judges are “overstepping their authority” and “legislating from the bench.” Trust me, they’re easy to spot.

But the trouble now is that, like any good right-winger, when you can’t get your way through corrupting the legal system in one way or another, whether it’s through politics or law, you get it the way you can, through oppression, injustice, and even murder. We’ve seen wingnuts of this type shoot and threaten doctors who practice at women’s health clinics, whether they perform abortions or not, and there’s no reason to believe that their insanity limits them from threatening the lives of even our Supreme Court Justices.

So where does the blame lie? With the Republicans for riling up their base to such great hieghts of hatred? With the far-right element that’s never really needed such riling up? Or with the left for letting it happen without aggressive push to crack down on this behavior? I don’t have answers, but I have ideas, if you couldn’t tell, and I hope that the folks up on Capitol Hill do too, because Justices Ginsberg and O’Connor are waiting.

[ Justice Ginsburg Reveals Details of Threat ]
Source: Associated Press (courtesy of Yahoo! News)

As though we didn’t see this coming, the anti-environmentalists in Congress are looking to again open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, even as the region is just cleaning up from one of the largest oil spills there in history.

The idea is to slip it into the 2007 budget, along with tax breaks and subsidies for oil companies that opt to drill there for the meager amount of oil that’s under the surface, while similarly killing any legislation or conservation-oriented talk that would save far more oil. The last time we came across this kind of issue, Congressional Republicans opted to claim that drilling in ANWR was a matter of national security, while quietly stifling the talk from the Democrats and environmentalists and scientists in the background that those same republicans could reduce American oil dependance by mandating more fuel efficient cars, giving those tax breaks and incentives to auto manufcaturers who demonstrate the ability to produce more fuel efficient cars rather than to the already incredibly profitable oil industry.

Everyone agreed that even some modest changes in auto efficiency could save the country more oil than the fields under ANWR could possibly produce, even if oil drillers managed to get every drop, (which they don’t, usually drilling gets out less than half of the oil in an underground field; the rest is too difficult with current technology to get out) but it’s clear that science and conservation play no role in this administration and in the minds of their congressional apologists, and those eyes are focused on what breaks they can give their oil special interests and how quickly they can bow to their friends in the industry. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about less dependance on foriegn oil, but I’d like to kill two birds-dependance on foriegn oil and dependance on oil altogether-with the same stone: conservation.

[ GOP Again Bids to Take ANWR ]
Source: TruthOut

edit: not surprisingly, Congressional Democrats are calling for the ANWR measure to be dropped from the budget. At least they’re out and fighting on this one:

[ Democrats Want U.S. Budget Bill to Drop Oil Drilling ]
Source: Environmental News Network

Russ Feingold strikes again! It looks like censure and impeachment talk is reaching the mainstream, and Senator Feingold’s efforts are contributing to the talk. There’s no reason to believe that Feingold’s efforts will really go anywhere or lead to anything, not with a Republican-dominated, Bush-apologist Congress in session, but I’m glad to see that someone out there isn’t afraid to take on the label of “liberal,” and isn’t afraid to fight the good fight even if that fight is doomed to loss.

Feingold proposes that President Bush be censured over the issue of Bush’s domestic spying program that allowed him to conduct wiretaps of American citizens without a court order or warrant, saying that he’s deliberately misled the American people on the legality of the program, and that the president needs to be punished for his actions. Feingold has long been a champion of civil rights, freedoms, and liberties; he was the only senator to vote against the original Patriot Act and he recently voted against the renewal; he was the lone senator to try to filibuster the act, and he’s making quite a name for himself on the national stage. I, for one, would be honored to vote for the man.

[ Sen. Feingold Calls for Censuring Bush ]
Source: The Associated Press (courtesy of Yahoo!)

Ah yes, the public memory of the United States is quite short. Taking advantage of other controversies like the Dubai ports deal and the president’s sudden desire for a line-item veto, the issue of lobbying reform has quietly slipped into the background, where congressional Republicans like it. Between the infighting between congressional Republicans (which is always a good thing) and the gradual desire to move the congressional discussion away from the rampant corruption that exists on the right side of the aisle down there, it looks like actual lobbying reform is nothing more than a pipe dream.

Ever since Congress decided that they didn’t need an oversight group to keep tabs on their activities and provide any kind of ethical oversight, the issue of lobbying reform kind of slunk into the background. “We’ll police ourselves!” Congress said, which we all know is preposterous. So real reform slides away, leaving room for the status quo, and our elected officials will still wind up jetting off to exotic locations coutesy of defense contractors and spend long afternoons on the links thanks to the auto industry, and pen into their schedules fancy dinners courtesy of policy institutes and think tanks. And nothing will have changed; those with the money have access to government, and those who don’t are still shut out. Congress had a chance here to really address this issue, and of course, at the whim of the Republican leadership, they failed.

[ Push to Tighten Lobbying Rules Loses Strength ]
Source: The New York Times

I know I’m covering a lot of abortion and choice related news as of late, but because the issue is such a highlight and there are so many voices and words that will never get heard by the major media, I think it’s compelling to share more information than most people would hear on the evening news.

For example, over at TomPaine.com, Frances Kissling, President of Catholics for a Free Choice, [ http://www.catholicsforchoice.org ] has penned a statement that not only sets a great number of Catholic worshippers and leaders apart from the harsh anti-choice rhetoric of the church, but also reads everything like a thesis for bridging the religious divide on the issue of abortion. Catholic for a Free Choice is primarily comprised of Catholic Democrats who feel that the abortion stalemate is overdue to fall, and that it’s very possible to be catholic and democrat at the same time, and I personally agree with that sentiment completely. Here’s the whole article:

[ Bridging the Abortion Divide ]
Source: TomPaine.com

But that’s not even all of it. The article was spurred on by the Statement of Principles that 55 Catholic Democrats in congress published this week, that finally allow many religious Democrats to move out of the shadows on the abortion debate, stand up as proudly pro-choice, pro-child, and pro-family, and against the anti-choicers who would rob American women of some of the basic freedoms that they are guaranteed. It’s definitely an unprecedented event, and the statement itself is more than worth reading.

[ House Democrats Release Historic Catholic Statement of Principles ]
Source: US House of Representatives