This is sad. But I’m busy finding work – no time to blog now!
I’ll be back when I can.
Billmon returns
In his own way. And I’m glad. We I need him.
Dan Rather was right
You know, one thing that still burns me about this forgery story is that the underlying story was correct, but no one seems to care. And really, the underlying truth of how Bush evaded his military duty is the most important issue of it all. The secretary who typed up memos for Killian said she hadn’t typed these particular memos, but that she had typed some that said the same things in different words. That fact is always glossed over by the fanatical right-wingers who would defend Bush to the death (as long as its not their own), and who have taken such joy in Rather’s disgrace.
James Goodale has an article in the latest New York Review of Books where he hits hard on that correctness and criticizes the CBS report on the incident.
Lost in the commotion over the authenticity of the documents is that the underlying facts of Rather’s 60 Minutes report are substantially true. Bush did not take the physical exam required of all pilots; his superiors gave him the benefit of any doubt; he did receive special treatment and Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian, Bush’s commanding officer, was unhappy with the loss of ANG’s investment in him when Bush informed Killian he was leaving for Alabama. Before the broadcast, Mary Mapes, the CBS producer of the program, confirmed the facts in the documents with retired Major General Bobby Hodges, who had been Killian’s superior in the ANG. Later Hodges told the panel he did not think the documents were authentic, but did not disagree that the facts were substantially correct.
Add to this the fact that no one knows for sure who the forged papers came from, and it’s hard not to stray into frootbat/tinfoil territory. But then it’s easy to entertain tinfoil theories in any story where Karl Rove may be involved. He’s really capable of anything.
I know that the country has moved on from the issue of Bush’s lies and evasions in this matter, and the truth of it all will probably never get the hearing it deserves. But Bush’s lack of character was clear in his actions back then, as it is clear in his actions now. Even though it’s not a central issue any more, it ought to be.
Where I’ve lived
A blog thing going around.
bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /
Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.
Ohio Voting Fraud
Max Sawicky points us to a March Vanity Fair article by Christopher Hitchens. I don’t think of Hitchens as a flaming liberal or anything, but apparently he’s been looking over the 2004 voting results in Ohio, and believes there’s some real evidence of election fraud. At least enough to deserve our attention.
Whichever way you shake it, or hold it to the light, there is something about the Ohio election that refuses to add up. The sheer number of irregularities compelled a formal recount, which was completed in late December and which came out much the same as the original one, with 176 fewer votes for George Bush. But this was a meaningless exercise in reassurance, since there is simply no means of checking, for example, how many “vote hops” the computerized machines might have performed unnoticed.
Army misses recruitment goal
For the first time in five years, the Army has missed its monthly recruitment goal, and not by a little, either. Recruitment came up 27% short, even as the Army has boosted recruitment bonuses to $20,000. Apparently the poor and working class are catching on to the Administration’s misuse of our armed forces, and thinking twice before offering themselves up to be fed into this illegal war.
Friday Cat Blogging
Another quote
“Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
What happens when the right wing wins?
You get a place that ranks near the bottom on measures of social health and stability, and near the top in measures of the toxic, unhealthy aspects of industrial life. At least that’s the case in Texas, home of George W. Bush and Tom Delay the Exterminator. A new report, titled “Texas on the Brink”, has found that:
Texas ranks first in the percentage of uninsured children, first in toxic and cancerous emissions and second in teenage pregnancies. It lags far behind in high-school graduation rates, consumer credit scores and percentage of the population with health insurance.
The reason? According to state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, it’s due to Texas’s “inadequate, outdated and terribly regressive tax system”.
He blamed rigid ideology on tax issues for the state’s standings. Texas ranks 49th in revenue and spending, according to the Census Bureau. “When leaders value a pledge of ‘no new taxes’ above all else, they abandon the mantle of leadership,” Shapleigh said.
Since most corporations don’t care to locate in toxic environments full of uneducated workers, and the dominance of Republicans in Texas means that the tax structure is unlikely to change, it’s hard to see how Texas is going to dig itself out of this hole.
The next few weeks are crucial
In the fight to save Social Security, the next six weeks are crucial. In the Washington Post today, Mike Allen writes:
White House officials are telling Republican lawmakers and allies on K Street that they must begin to overcome opposition to President Bush’s proposal for changing Social Security within six weeks, GOP strategists said yesterday.
The GOP strategists stressed that the six-week goal is not a hard deadline for a political breakthrough, but they said the public’s tepid view of Social Security change cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. The directive raises the possibility that Republicans will have to reconsider whether legislation can be passed this year, as Bush wants. …
I especially like that line about how our dislike of Bush’s proposals “cannot be allowed to continue”. I do hope they’re about to find out that there are some things in this country they don’t yet control.