PATRICK HENRY TODAY: "GIVE ME SECURITY, ANYTHING BUT DEATH"
Starmail - 4. Jan, 19:19
Vote USA 2004
4
Jan
2006
Alito And The "F" Word
by Paul Rogat Loeb, TomPaine.com
Democrats and moderate Republicans should challenge Bush's nominee at every turn.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060104/alito_and_the_f_word.php
Democrats and moderate Republicans should challenge Bush's nominee at every turn.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060104/alito_and_the_f_word.php
Starmail - 4. Jan, 19:17
To Russia, Love Tom DeLay
by Russ Baker, TomPaine.com
Jack Abramoff's plea is just the beginning. DeLay's dealings with Russia should be one of the biggest stories of the year.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060104/to_russia_love_tom_delay.php
Jack Abramoff's plea is just the beginning. DeLay's dealings with Russia should be one of the biggest stories of the year.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060104/to_russia_love_tom_delay.php
Starmail - 4. Jan, 19:16
Bush wiretaps are self-inflicted legal wound
Portsmouth Herald
by staff
01/03/06
From a distance, it might appear that revelations that the Bush administration allegedly broke the law when it signed off on wiretaps without authorized warrants is just another case of inside-baseball politics, Washington style. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. And no matter how apologists for President Bush's desire to play the role of the all-knowing and unquestioned monarch when it suits him -- to protect, we are told, the American people from another 9/11 terrorist attack -- what is at stake is nothing less than the rule of law. It may be a few months before we know whether a full-blown constitutional crisis will occur...
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/01032006/editoria/80958.htm
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by staff
01/03/06
From a distance, it might appear that revelations that the Bush administration allegedly broke the law when it signed off on wiretaps without authorized warrants is just another case of inside-baseball politics, Washington style. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. And no matter how apologists for President Bush's desire to play the role of the all-knowing and unquestioned monarch when it suits him -- to protect, we are told, the American people from another 9/11 terrorist attack -- what is at stake is nothing less than the rule of law. It may be a few months before we know whether a full-blown constitutional crisis will occur...
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/01032006/editoria/80958.htm
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 4. Jan, 19:06
Presidential snooping damages the nation
Time
by Bob Barr
01/03/06
Back in the 1930s, when confronted with clear evidence he had violated the law, Georgia's then agriculture commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Eugene Talmadge popped his bright red suspenders and dared those accusing him of corruption to do something about it, declaring, 'Sure, I stole, but I stole for you.' He was elected Governor in 1932. Accused of breaking the law in the current debate over electronic spying, President George W. Bush has, in his own way, dared the American people to do something about it. For the sake of our Constitution, I hope they will...
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1145243,00.html
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by Bob Barr
01/03/06
Back in the 1930s, when confronted with clear evidence he had violated the law, Georgia's then agriculture commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Eugene Talmadge popped his bright red suspenders and dared those accusing him of corruption to do something about it, declaring, 'Sure, I stole, but I stole for you.' He was elected Governor in 1932. Accused of breaking the law in the current debate over electronic spying, President George W. Bush has, in his own way, dared the American people to do something about it. For the sake of our Constitution, I hope they will...
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1145243,00.html
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 4. Jan, 19:04
Democratic conviction
The American Prospect
by Matthew Yglesias
01/03/06
It was the year of the dogs that didn't bark. A newly dominant Republican Party was supposed to use its position to simultaneously transform American public policy and render the Democrats a permanently irrelevant minority party, isolated in a few coastal enclaves. It didn't happen. And, in fact, it started to unravel almost right away. The Bush administration went for broke with its plan to end Social Security as we know it and instead move to a system of individual stock ownership. The pretty version of how this was supposed to play into the Republican quest for a perpetual majority was that privatization would create a larger 'investor class' of stockowners, people who, in virtue of their shares, identified with corporate managers rather than workers or consumers, and therefore supported conservative economic policies. More prosaically, privatization was simply the latest iteration of GOP money-in, money-out machine politics...
http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10793
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by Matthew Yglesias
01/03/06
It was the year of the dogs that didn't bark. A newly dominant Republican Party was supposed to use its position to simultaneously transform American public policy and render the Democrats a permanently irrelevant minority party, isolated in a few coastal enclaves. It didn't happen. And, in fact, it started to unravel almost right away. The Bush administration went for broke with its plan to end Social Security as we know it and instead move to a system of individual stock ownership. The pretty version of how this was supposed to play into the Republican quest for a perpetual majority was that privatization would create a larger 'investor class' of stockowners, people who, in virtue of their shares, identified with corporate managers rather than workers or consumers, and therefore supported conservative economic policies. More prosaically, privatization was simply the latest iteration of GOP money-in, money-out machine politics...
http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10793
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 4. Jan, 19:01
Miller's moment
AlterNet
by Garance Franke-Ruta
01/03/06
George Miller is the most important Democratic tactician you've never heard of. In the past year, there has been precisely one lengthy profile of him inside Washington, and none in any of the major national papers. And yet, in an environment where Democrats have been almost wholly stymied by the Republicans' iron grip on power, Miller has repeatedly come up with innovative ways to defend progressive interests. 'They have so corrupted the rules of the House of Representatives that you essentially have to engage in guerilla activity to try … to get a vote on a matter,' says Miller, who has become expert in the range of alternatives available during this time of one-party rule. 'We've just tried to be as creative as we possibly could be'...
http://www.alternet.org/story/30349/
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by Garance Franke-Ruta
01/03/06
George Miller is the most important Democratic tactician you've never heard of. In the past year, there has been precisely one lengthy profile of him inside Washington, and none in any of the major national papers. And yet, in an environment where Democrats have been almost wholly stymied by the Republicans' iron grip on power, Miller has repeatedly come up with innovative ways to defend progressive interests. 'They have so corrupted the rules of the House of Representatives that you essentially have to engage in guerilla activity to try … to get a vote on a matter,' says Miller, who has become expert in the range of alternatives available during this time of one-party rule. 'We've just tried to be as creative as we possibly could be'...
http://www.alternet.org/story/30349/
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 4. Jan, 18:59
Abramoff won't go down alone
Salon
by Michael Scherer
01/04/06
His head bowed and his pinstripes faded, the former dean of Republican lobbyists, Jack Abramoff, arrived Tuesday at the chambers of federal Judge Ellen Huvelle to confess his sins. Under detailed questioning from the court, he took the blame for a career spent stealing from his Native American clients, hiding from tax collectors and corrupting members of Congress and their staffs. It was a tortured performance played out in hushed tones. By the time Abramoff rose to beg forgiveness from the Almighty, his voice was barely audible from the gallery. 'Words will not be able to even express my sorrow,' Abramoff muttered. 'All my remaining days I will feel tremendous sadness and regret.' With that, Abramoff turned states' evidence... [subscription or ad view required]
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/01/04/abramoff_plea/
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by Michael Scherer
01/04/06
His head bowed and his pinstripes faded, the former dean of Republican lobbyists, Jack Abramoff, arrived Tuesday at the chambers of federal Judge Ellen Huvelle to confess his sins. Under detailed questioning from the court, he took the blame for a career spent stealing from his Native American clients, hiding from tax collectors and corrupting members of Congress and their staffs. It was a tortured performance played out in hushed tones. By the time Abramoff rose to beg forgiveness from the Almighty, his voice was barely audible from the gallery. 'Words will not be able to even express my sorrow,' Abramoff muttered. 'All my remaining days I will feel tremendous sadness and regret.' With that, Abramoff turned states' evidence... [subscription or ad view required]
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/01/04/abramoff_plea/
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 4. Jan, 18:55
Running on empty
Cato Institute
by Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren
01/04/06
The rise in fuel prices that followed Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has prompted many members of Congress to call for new and expanded federal reserves of crude oil, diesel fuel, home heating oil, jet fuel and propane. Proponents of stockpiling claim that if the government were to hoard those commodities when prices were low, it could unleash them on the market when supplies are tight, thus dampening price increases and stabilizing the market. But the experience in this country with the strategic petroleum reserve strongly suggests that such government-managed stockpiles are a waste of taxpayers' money. Rather than increasing the stockpile, the reserve should be emptied and closed...
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5351
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren
01/04/06
The rise in fuel prices that followed Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has prompted many members of Congress to call for new and expanded federal reserves of crude oil, diesel fuel, home heating oil, jet fuel and propane. Proponents of stockpiling claim that if the government were to hoard those commodities when prices were low, it could unleash them on the market when supplies are tight, thus dampening price increases and stabilizing the market. But the experience in this country with the strategic petroleum reserve strongly suggests that such government-managed stockpiles are a waste of taxpayers' money. Rather than increasing the stockpile, the reserve should be emptied and closed...
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5351
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 4. Jan, 18:53
Telling the future(s)
Kn@ppster
by Thomas L. Knapp
01/03/06
Why do I think the Busheviks want to tangle with Iran so badly? It's simple: Having irretrievably lost two wars in four years (and not doing so well on the general 'war on terror,' either), the only chance the War Party has to climb back up to a reasonably respectable place in history is to turn what they've falsely advertised as a 'generational war for survival' and 'World War IV' into the real thing. ... if the Busheviks can ignite a bona fide world war, there's some chance that 60 years from now Afghanistan and Iraq will be related to 9/11 as Wake Island and Bataan were to Pearl Harbor -- early, hopeless, necessary defeats instead of stupid, pointless defeats...
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2006/01/telling-futures.html
by Thomas L. Knapp
01/03/06
Why do I think the Busheviks want to tangle with Iran so badly? It's simple: Having irretrievably lost two wars in four years (and not doing so well on the general 'war on terror,' either), the only chance the War Party has to climb back up to a reasonably respectable place in history is to turn what they've falsely advertised as a 'generational war for survival' and 'World War IV' into the real thing. ... if the Busheviks can ignite a bona fide world war, there's some chance that 60 years from now Afghanistan and Iraq will be related to 9/11 as Wake Island and Bataan were to Pearl Harbor -- early, hopeless, necessary defeats instead of stupid, pointless defeats...
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2006/01/telling-futures.html
Starmail - 4. Jan, 18:51
