Thursday, January 06, 2005
"This is not about your intelligence, this hearing is not about your competence, it's not about your integrity — it's about your judgment and your candor. We're looking for candor, old buddy. I love you, but you're not very candid so far." –Joe Biden (D-Del) to Gonzales
Who we are: Mark Danner, in the NYTimes
At least since Watergate, Americans have come to take for granted a certain story line of scandal, in which revelation is followed by investigation, adjudication and expiation. Together, Congress and the courts investigate high-level wrongdoing and place it in a carefully constructed narrative, in which crimes are charted, malfeasance is explicated and punishment is apportioned as the final step in the journey back to order, justice and propriety.
When Alberto Gonzales takes his seat before the Senate Judiciary Committee today for hearings to confirm whether he will become attorney general of the United States, Americans will bid farewell to that comforting story line. The senators are likely to give full legitimacy to a path that the Bush administration set the country on more than three years ago, a path that has transformed the United States from a country that condemned torture and forbade its use to one that practices torture routinely. Through a process of redefinition largely overseen by Mr. Gonzales himself, a practice that was once a clear and abhorrent violation of the law has become in effect the law of the land…
At present, our government, controlled largely by one party only intermittently harried by a timorous opposition, is unable to mete out punishment or change policy, let alone adequately investigate its own war crimes. And, as administration officials clearly expect, and senators of both parties well understand, most Americans - the Americans who will not read the reports, who will soon forget the photographs and who will be loath to dwell on a repellent subject - are generally content to take the president at his word. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/opinion/06danner.html?oref=login&oref=login
So, we need to do our utmost to curtail the number of intellectually uncurious, passive individuals who require a steadfast “leader” of purported moral clarity.
Social Security Phony Crisis: The Smoking Gun Memo/Email:
In a sane society, this would’ve helped bury the issue- definitively. Clearly, this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. It is about ending Social Security.
Here’s some of the text of the White House strategy note:
This entire debate is about ideology -- between people who believe in the benefits Social Security has brought America in the last three-quarters of a century and those who think it was a bad idea from the start. There is an honest debate to have on this point, a values debate. Only, the White House understands that the belief that Social Security was always a bad program isn't widely shared by Americans. So they have to wrap their effort in a package of lies, harnessing Americans' desire to save Social Security in their own effort to destroy it.
The success of President Bush’s push to remake Social Security depends on convincing the public that the system is “heading for an iceberg,”
“We have it within our grasp to move away from dependency on government and toward giving greater power and responsibility to individuals,” The Democratic Party is the “party of obstruction and opposition. It is the Party of the Past.”
But the administration must “establish an important premise: the current system is heading toward an iceberg.
Let me tell you first what our plans are in terms of sequencing and political strategy. We will focus on Social Security immediately in this new year. Our strategy will probably include speeches early this month to establish an important premise: the current system is heading for an iceberg. The notion that younger workers will receive anything like the benefits they have been promised is fiction, unless significant reforms are undertaken. We need to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course. That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the pre-condition to authentic reform." http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6791950/
Another Lie Campaign: Lawsuits B.S., in spades: Tort/Malpractice “Reform”
Mr. Bush spoke in front of a large banner that promised "affordable health care," on a stage filled with dozens of doctors in white coats. He noted that he had often talked about malpractice litigation in last year's campaign, and he said he now had a mandate, because "voters made their position clear on Election Day."
Expanding his focus beyond malpractice cases, Mr. Bush said Congress should also establish new rules for class action lawsuits and asbestos cases, which he described as "the longest-running mass tort litigation in U.S. history."
Mr. Bush seemed to relish the prospect of victory in a battle with plaintiffs' lawyers, who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates around the country, just as business groups have supported Republicans.
"It's hard work for some in Congress to stand up to the trial lawyers," Mr. Bush said. "I understand that."
"Junk lawsuits are so unpredictable, they drive up insurance costs for all doctors, even for those who have never been sued, even for those who have never had a claim against them," he said.
He asserted that doctors were turning away patients with complicated life-threatening conditions because those cases often carried "the highest risk for a lawsuit."
The House has repeatedly passed bills to limit damages in malpractice cases, but the measures have died in the Senate, where Republicans now hope to prevail after gaining seats in the November elections.
Mr. Bush has strongly supported the House bills, which would protect not only doctors, but also health maintenance organizations, nursing homes and manufacturers of drugs and medical devices.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Wednesday, "The president's medical malpractice plan is nothing but a shameful shield for drug companies and health maintenance organizations that hurt people through negligence." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06bush.html
Makes much sense…except limiting malpractice damages does nothing to stop frivolous lawsuits, and restricting class action lawsuits also does nothing to halt frivolous suits against docs and hospitals. And, what does asbestos litigation do…other than to curb asbestos litigation? Gads. Someone- Blow that whistle!
Gonzales (cont) Amongst others, Barry Scheck (on Al Franken’s program) raised some good questions about Gonzales’ integrity re his facilitating the dubious sentences/ appeals during Bush’s tenure in Texas. More interest is in torture, but the path is greased.
The following was from earlier this week:
A dozen retired generals and admirals said Tuesday they have "deep concern" about Alberto Gonzales' nomination as attorney general because of his role in crafting Bush administration policy on questioning terror suspects.
The high-ranking officers include retired Army Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They made their views known in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on Mr. Gonzales' nomination later this week.
They urged senators to question Mr. Gonzales aggressively about whether he now believes that torture may be used in some instances and whether anti-torture laws and treaties like the Geneva Conventions apply to anyone captured by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110489239198917266,00.html?mod=politics%5Fprimary%5Fhs
Thursday’s Hearing:
Arlen Specter: Do you approve of torture?
Gonzales: "Absolutely not, senator…"
How reassuring!
Torture: More, and more Word keeps leaking out, forcing more “investigations.” The Times and the WaPost report:
When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke last spring, officials characterized the abuse as the aberrant acts of a small group of low-ranking reservists, limited to a few weeks in late 2003. But thousands of pages in military reports and documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to the American Civil Liberties Union in the past few months have demonstrated that the abuse involved multiple service branches in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba, beginning in 2002 and continuing after Congress and the military had begun investigating Abu Ghraib.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06abuse.html?pagewanted=print&position=
U.S. authorities in late 2001 forcibly transferred an Australian citizen to Egypt, where, he alleges, he was tortured for six months before being flown to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court papers made public yesterday in a petition seeking to halt U.S. plans to return him to Egypt.
Egyptian-born Mamdouh Habib, who was detained in Pakistan in October 2001 as a suspected al Qaeda trainer, alleges that while under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten, and he contends that U.S. and international law prohibits sending him back. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51726-2005Jan5.html
Old Buddy: Scott Ritter- Missile Defense!
The Bush administration would do well to reconsider its commitment to a national missile-defense system, and instead reengage in the kind of treaty-based diplomacy that in the past produced arms control results that were both real and lasting. This would not only save billions, it would make America, and the world, a safer place. http://csmonitor.com/2005/0104/p09s02-coop.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: No one’s listening
The Nelson Report, the insider “tip sheet” reports:
"There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear "bad news." www.mediachannel.org
Fallujah Toll: Women and Children
"It was really distressing picking up dead bodies from destroyed homes, especially children. It is the most depressing situation I have ever been in since the war started," Dr Rafa'ah al-Iyssaue, director of the main hospital in Fallujah city, some 60 km west of Baghdad, told IRIN.
According to al-Iyssaue, the hospital emergency team has recovered more than 700 bodies from rubble where houses and shops once stood, adding that more than 550 were women and children. He said a very small number of men were found in these places and most were elderly. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/121b671d950efc3ac031b54b55118d85.htm
Assassinations: If the provincial governor of (Greater) Baghdad can be killed along with his 6 bodyguards, it’s hard to be upbeat about the “security” situation. Juan Cole asks the most basic question,
If things go on like this the real question won't be whether you could hold elections but rather whether the members of the new government could be kept alive. http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/baghdad-governor-6-bodyguards.html
Support the War President!-Always!
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), on social security:
“He cannot afford to fail. It would have repercussions for the rest of his program, including foreign policy. We can't hand the president a defeat on his major domestic initiative at a time of war." (Wall Street Journal, 1/6/04)
Horatio Alger Adieu? From the Economist:
A growing body of evidence suggests that the meritocratic ideal is in trouble in America. Income inequality is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But social mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society. http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560
-R
Who we are: Mark Danner, in the NYTimes
At least since Watergate, Americans have come to take for granted a certain story line of scandal, in which revelation is followed by investigation, adjudication and expiation. Together, Congress and the courts investigate high-level wrongdoing and place it in a carefully constructed narrative, in which crimes are charted, malfeasance is explicated and punishment is apportioned as the final step in the journey back to order, justice and propriety.
When Alberto Gonzales takes his seat before the Senate Judiciary Committee today for hearings to confirm whether he will become attorney general of the United States, Americans will bid farewell to that comforting story line. The senators are likely to give full legitimacy to a path that the Bush administration set the country on more than three years ago, a path that has transformed the United States from a country that condemned torture and forbade its use to one that practices torture routinely. Through a process of redefinition largely overseen by Mr. Gonzales himself, a practice that was once a clear and abhorrent violation of the law has become in effect the law of the land…
At present, our government, controlled largely by one party only intermittently harried by a timorous opposition, is unable to mete out punishment or change policy, let alone adequately investigate its own war crimes. And, as administration officials clearly expect, and senators of both parties well understand, most Americans - the Americans who will not read the reports, who will soon forget the photographs and who will be loath to dwell on a repellent subject - are generally content to take the president at his word. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/opinion/06danner.html?oref=login&oref=login
So, we need to do our utmost to curtail the number of intellectually uncurious, passive individuals who require a steadfast “leader” of purported moral clarity.
Social Security Phony Crisis: The Smoking Gun Memo/Email:
In a sane society, this would’ve helped bury the issue- definitively. Clearly, this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. It is about ending Social Security.
Here’s some of the text of the White House strategy note:
This entire debate is about ideology -- between people who believe in the benefits Social Security has brought America in the last three-quarters of a century and those who think it was a bad idea from the start. There is an honest debate to have on this point, a values debate. Only, the White House understands that the belief that Social Security was always a bad program isn't widely shared by Americans. So they have to wrap their effort in a package of lies, harnessing Americans' desire to save Social Security in their own effort to destroy it.
The success of President Bush’s push to remake Social Security depends on convincing the public that the system is “heading for an iceberg,”
“We have it within our grasp to move away from dependency on government and toward giving greater power and responsibility to individuals,” The Democratic Party is the “party of obstruction and opposition. It is the Party of the Past.”
But the administration must “establish an important premise: the current system is heading toward an iceberg.
Let me tell you first what our plans are in terms of sequencing and political strategy. We will focus on Social Security immediately in this new year. Our strategy will probably include speeches early this month to establish an important premise: the current system is heading for an iceberg. The notion that younger workers will receive anything like the benefits they have been promised is fiction, unless significant reforms are undertaken. We need to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course. That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the pre-condition to authentic reform." http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6791950/
Another Lie Campaign: Lawsuits B.S., in spades: Tort/Malpractice “Reform”
Mr. Bush spoke in front of a large banner that promised "affordable health care," on a stage filled with dozens of doctors in white coats. He noted that he had often talked about malpractice litigation in last year's campaign, and he said he now had a mandate, because "voters made their position clear on Election Day."
Expanding his focus beyond malpractice cases, Mr. Bush said Congress should also establish new rules for class action lawsuits and asbestos cases, which he described as "the longest-running mass tort litigation in U.S. history."
Mr. Bush seemed to relish the prospect of victory in a battle with plaintiffs' lawyers, who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates around the country, just as business groups have supported Republicans.
"It's hard work for some in Congress to stand up to the trial lawyers," Mr. Bush said. "I understand that."
"Junk lawsuits are so unpredictable, they drive up insurance costs for all doctors, even for those who have never been sued, even for those who have never had a claim against them," he said.
He asserted that doctors were turning away patients with complicated life-threatening conditions because those cases often carried "the highest risk for a lawsuit."
The House has repeatedly passed bills to limit damages in malpractice cases, but the measures have died in the Senate, where Republicans now hope to prevail after gaining seats in the November elections.
Mr. Bush has strongly supported the House bills, which would protect not only doctors, but also health maintenance organizations, nursing homes and manufacturers of drugs and medical devices.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Wednesday, "The president's medical malpractice plan is nothing but a shameful shield for drug companies and health maintenance organizations that hurt people through negligence." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06bush.html
Makes much sense…except limiting malpractice damages does nothing to stop frivolous lawsuits, and restricting class action lawsuits also does nothing to halt frivolous suits against docs and hospitals. And, what does asbestos litigation do…other than to curb asbestos litigation? Gads. Someone- Blow that whistle!
Gonzales (cont) Amongst others, Barry Scheck (on Al Franken’s program) raised some good questions about Gonzales’ integrity re his facilitating the dubious sentences/ appeals during Bush’s tenure in Texas. More interest is in torture, but the path is greased.
The following was from earlier this week:
A dozen retired generals and admirals said Tuesday they have "deep concern" about Alberto Gonzales' nomination as attorney general because of his role in crafting Bush administration policy on questioning terror suspects.
The high-ranking officers include retired Army Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They made their views known in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on Mr. Gonzales' nomination later this week.
They urged senators to question Mr. Gonzales aggressively about whether he now believes that torture may be used in some instances and whether anti-torture laws and treaties like the Geneva Conventions apply to anyone captured by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110489239198917266,00.html?mod=politics%5Fprimary%5Fhs
Thursday’s Hearing:
Arlen Specter: Do you approve of torture?
Gonzales: "Absolutely not, senator…"
How reassuring!
Torture: More, and more Word keeps leaking out, forcing more “investigations.” The Times and the WaPost report:
When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke last spring, officials characterized the abuse as the aberrant acts of a small group of low-ranking reservists, limited to a few weeks in late 2003. But thousands of pages in military reports and documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to the American Civil Liberties Union in the past few months have demonstrated that the abuse involved multiple service branches in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba, beginning in 2002 and continuing after Congress and the military had begun investigating Abu Ghraib.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06abuse.html?pagewanted=print&position=
U.S. authorities in late 2001 forcibly transferred an Australian citizen to Egypt, where, he alleges, he was tortured for six months before being flown to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court papers made public yesterday in a petition seeking to halt U.S. plans to return him to Egypt.
Egyptian-born Mamdouh Habib, who was detained in Pakistan in October 2001 as a suspected al Qaeda trainer, alleges that while under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten, and he contends that U.S. and international law prohibits sending him back. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51726-2005Jan5.html
Old Buddy: Scott Ritter- Missile Defense!
The Bush administration would do well to reconsider its commitment to a national missile-defense system, and instead reengage in the kind of treaty-based diplomacy that in the past produced arms control results that were both real and lasting. This would not only save billions, it would make America, and the world, a safer place. http://csmonitor.com/2005/0104/p09s02-coop.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: No one’s listening
The Nelson Report, the insider “tip sheet” reports:
"There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear "bad news." www.mediachannel.org
Fallujah Toll: Women and Children
"It was really distressing picking up dead bodies from destroyed homes, especially children. It is the most depressing situation I have ever been in since the war started," Dr Rafa'ah al-Iyssaue, director of the main hospital in Fallujah city, some 60 km west of Baghdad, told IRIN.
According to al-Iyssaue, the hospital emergency team has recovered more than 700 bodies from rubble where houses and shops once stood, adding that more than 550 were women and children. He said a very small number of men were found in these places and most were elderly. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/121b671d950efc3ac031b54b55118d85.htm
Assassinations: If the provincial governor of (Greater) Baghdad can be killed along with his 6 bodyguards, it’s hard to be upbeat about the “security” situation. Juan Cole asks the most basic question,
If things go on like this the real question won't be whether you could hold elections but rather whether the members of the new government could be kept alive. http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/baghdad-governor-6-bodyguards.html
Support the War President!-Always!
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), on social security:
“He cannot afford to fail. It would have repercussions for the rest of his program, including foreign policy. We can't hand the president a defeat on his major domestic initiative at a time of war." (Wall Street Journal, 1/6/04)
Horatio Alger Adieu? From the Economist:
A growing body of evidence suggests that the meritocratic ideal is in trouble in America. Income inequality is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But social mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society. http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560
-R
