2005 April | Moonage Political Webdream

29

Apr

by Moonage

This is so cute I had to steal it from LGF:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the study confirms that nuclear bunker busters cannot dig deep enough to prevent large casualties.

The bottom line is that it would result in the deaths of up to a million people or more if used in densely populated areas, she said in a statement. This is the clearest evidence to date that our nation should not pursue the research and development of these weapons.

And, they come to the exact same conclusion I do:

Got that? For Feinstein, the possibility that these weapons could cause massive casualties to the enemy is an argument against developing them;

Yeah buddy, this is the Democrat Party in high intellectual gear.  They are thinking fast and furious on how to oppose everything.  Problem is, I think, nay, I’ll BET, the average US citizen WANTS a missile that does a lot of damage to the enemy.  If we had this five years ago, we wouldn’t be in Iraq now.

What Feinstein doesn’t get at all is by opposing everything, she’s not espousing anything.  People don’t jump on your bandwagon for opposing everything.  They might agree with you on one topic or another, but, the bottom line is people want solutions to their problems.  Feinstein, Boxer, Kerry, and Dean are not providing answers to people’s individual problems, they are just opposing other people’s efforts to solve them.  Obstructionism will not support the Democrat Party.  Kerry proved it in 2004, and no one on the Democrat national level got it.  Look for a lot more of the same.  Look for the Dems to continue losing.  Pointing their finger at Delay won’t win them a single seat anywhere in the country.  Not one.

Tags: Filed Under National Politics | 1 Comment 

28

Apr

by Moonage

Two bills just passed Congress:

HR 241: Providing for the adoption of the resolution (H. Res. 240) amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to reinstate certain provisions of the rules relating to procedures of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to the form in which those provisions existed at the close of the 108th Congress.

This was the highly contentious political debate over the Ethics rules that had Congress in a gridlock.  The Republicans caved in ( appropriately ) and dropped the issue in the Democrats lap.  It was so contentious that the vote to repeal the previous contentious rules had 94% voted for it.

AND, we had this vote:

To improve circulation of the $1 coin, create a new bullion coin, provide for the redesign of the reverse of the Lincoln 1-cent coin in 2009 in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, and for other purposes.

Sound contentious to you?  It got 97% support.  Neither of these were contentious votes with bipartisan support on each.  One haggled over committee rules, the other haggled over the design of a coin seldom used.  In essence, neither really had any affect on the common man.

So, then this comes up:

To ensure jobs for our future with secure, affordable, and reliable energy.

It barely passes with 79% of the Democrats voting against it.

Democats are willing to support attacking Tom Delay enough to shut Congress down.  Willing to support the founding father of the Republican Party en masse ( I’m not sure I believe they even knew what they were voting on ).  But, are totally unwilling to support ensuring jobs for our future with secure, affordable, and reliable energy.

That doesn’t play too well with me.

Tags: Filed Under National Politics | Leave a Comment 

27

Apr

by Moonage

Todd Zywicki pointed me to Patrick Ruffin, who makes the hypothesis:

The conventional wisdom seems to be congealing in an anti-Rudy direction, and not willing to automatically cast a jaundiced eye on actual polls of said conservative primary voters, I’d like to run a test for the solidly conservative blog activists who will be instrumental in setting the early c.w. for 2008.

He then puts his claim on the line by running a poll.  I’m not going to reveal the results yet.  I would like for you all to try the poll.

It’s the hypothesis that gets me.  I haven’t seen any conventional wisdom that is anti-Rudy.  None.  There’s going to be political positioning all over the place for the next couple of years, but I expect that.  None of that will settle on me as "conventional wisdom".  The conventional wisdom I have is that although Rudy is very popular as a US icon and hero, he’s not terribly good at conventional politics and won’t run the risk of tarnishing his hero status by putting his dirty laundry out for public fodder again.  In short, he won’t run.  I think Frist is positioning himself for a run, but won’t pull the trigger.  McCain better.  But, if he teams up with Kennedy one more time, he’s toast.  I haven’t seen any action from Allen.  I really don’t expect him to be in the picture.  I’m not ready to speculate who the Republican(s) might be.  But, I am quick to toss out those that I don’t expect to be viable.  None of Ruffin’s choices are.  But, it’s interesting none the less.

Tags: Filed Under 2008 Presidential Race | 1 Comment 

27

Apr

by Moonage

Heads up to Little Green Footballs for this pointer.  Here’s Ted Kennedy’s recent release commemorating the anniversary of the Abu Ghraib scandal ( reprinted without permission, the highlights are mine ):

April 26, 2005

STATEMENT BY SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY ON ANNIVERSARY OF ABU GHRAIB SCANDAL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Laura Capps/Melissa Wagoner (202) 224-2633

The sad anniversary of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal is now upon us. It’s an appropriate time to reflect on how well we’ve responded as a nation.

The images of cruelty, and perversion are still difficult to look at a year later. An Iraqi prisoner in a dark hood and cape, standing on a cardboard box with electrodes attached to his body. Naked men forced to simulate sex acts on each other. The corpse of a man who had been beaten to death, lying in ice, next to soldiers smiling and giving a "thumbs up" sign. A pool of blood from the wounds of a naked, defenseless prisoner attacked by a military dog.

These images are seared into our collective memory. The reports of widespread abuse by U.S. personnel were initially met with disbelief, then incomprehension. They stand in sharp contrast to the values America has always stood forour belief in the dignity and worth of all peopleour unequivocal stance against torture and abuse — our commitment to the rule of law. The images horrified us and severely damaged our reputation in the Middle East and around the world.

On December 4, 2003, President Bush had proclaimed to the world that the capture of Saddam Hussein brought "further assurance that the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever." The photos of Abu Ghraib made all too clear that torture continued in occupied Iraq.

Where are we a year later? Has this problem been resolved? Has the moral authority of the U.S. been restored? Have we recovered from what is perhaps the steepest and deepest fall from grace in our history?

Sadly, the answer is no, because at every opportunity, the Administration has tried to minimize the problem and avoid responsibility for it.

The tone was set at the very start. Senior-level military commanders knew about the problems much earlier. They knew about Abu Ghraib photos as early as January 2004. General Taguba submitted his scathing report on February 26th. Yet rather than deal with the problem honestly, Pentagon officials persuaded CBS News to delay its report while they developed a damage-control plan.

The plan included an effort to minimize the abuse as the work of "a few bad apples"all conveniently lower-rank soldiersin a desperate effort to emphasize the role of senior military officials in exposing the scandal and insulate the civilian leadership from responsibility.

It was clear from the start that further investigation of the abuses was needed. The American people deserved a thorough review of all detention and interrogation policies used by military and intelligence personnel abroad, and a full accounting of all officials responsible for the policies that allowed the abuses to take place.

What we got instead were nine incomplete and self-serving internal investigations by the Pentagon. None of the assigned investigators were given the authority to challenge the conduct of the civilian command. For example, the Schlesinger Panel’s report found that abuses were "widespread" and that there was "both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels," but Secretary Rumsfeld did not authorize the panel to address matters of personal accountability.

The assigned investigators were also denied the cooperation of the C.I.A., which had a central role in the torture scandal. General Fay found that C.I.A. practices led to "a loss of accountability, abuse" and "poisoned the atmosphere at Abu Ghraib." His efforts to fully uncover the agency’s role, however, were stymied by their refusal to respond to his requests for information. Indeed, no investigation, Congressional or otherwise, has gotten full cooperation from the C.I.A.

With respect to matters under the Defense Department’s control, the answers we’ve received have been inconsistent and incomplete.

In May 2004, General Sanchez categorically denied to the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had approved the use of sleep deprivation, excessive noise, and intimidation by guard dogs as interrogation techniques in Iraq. A memorandum uncovered last month by the ACLU, however, showed that he had in fact approved the use of these techniques.

Secretary Rumsfeld told the Committee that the military received its first indication of trouble at Abu Ghraib when a low-ranking soldier came forward in January 2004. Only later did we learn from press reports that throughout 2003, the Red Cross had provided the military with detailed reports about torture and other abuses at the prison and elsewhere in Iraq. The State Department and the Coalition Provision Authority also appealed to top military officials to stop the abuse during 2003.

The Church Report, released last month, rejected any connection between the official interrogation policies in Iraq and the abuses that occurred. The Fay Report, by contrast, blamed the abuses at Abu Ghraib on a number of "systemic problems" that included "inadequate interrogation doctrine and training" and "the lack of clear interrogation policy for the Iraq Campaign."

Other parts of the Church Report — including those on the role of General Counsel William Haynes in adopting the radical legal reasoning of the Justice Department’s Bybee Memorandum, over the vigorous objections of experienced JAG officers — have been wrongly classified. In fact, the Defense Department has repeatedly abused its classification procedures to hide critical information from Congress and the public. Similarly, the Justice Department has gone to extremes to withhold from public scrutiny legal memos it considers too embarrassing to reveal.

Even Congress has been remiss in its responsibilities to oversee this scandal. As Senator Rockefeller, the vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said, "More disturbingly, the Senate Intelligence Committee — the Committee charged with overseeing intelligence programs and the only one with the jurisdiction to investigate all aspects of this issue — is sitting on the sidelines and effectively abdicating its oversight responsibility to media investigative reporters."

A year after Abu Ghraib, new revelations about abuse committed by U.S. personnel are still being reported frequently. The military has confirmed 28 acts of homicide committed against detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. Only one of these deaths took place at Abu Ghraib.

The Red Cross has documented scores of abuses at U.S. facilities across Iraq and Afghanistan and at the naval base at Guantanamo.

F.B.I. agents have reported "torture techniques" at Guantanamo, including techniques that senior Pentagon officials had specifically denied were being used.

Top officials in the Administration have endorsed interrogation methods that we’ve condemned in other countries, including binding prisoners in painful "stress" positions, threatening them with dogs, extended sleep deprivation, and simulated drownings.

The Administration has also increased the practice of "rendering" detainees to countries like Syria, Egypt, and Jordan — countries that the State Department condemned in its most recent human rights reports because of their use of torture. The practice of "rendition" — described by a former C.I.A. official as "finding someone else to do your dirty work" — is a clear violation of our treaty obligations under the Convention Against torture.

We know that many of these harsh techniques are no more effective at obtaining reliable information than traditional law-enforcement techniques. After considerable debate with the FBI, the military acknowledged that its methods were no more successful during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay than the FBI’s methods. General Miller, the former commander at Guantanamo, testified that the Army Field Manual provided sufficient tools for intelligence gathering.

As Ambassador Negroponte, our nation’s new intelligence czar said, "Not only is torture illegal and reprehensible, but even if it were not so, I don’t think it’s an effective way of producing useful information." Stripped to its essence, torturing prisoners is morally wrong and unproductive.

Yet, political leaders made a deliberate decision to throw out the well-established legal framework that has long made America the gold standard for human rights throughout the world. The Administration left our soldiers, case officers, and intelligence agents in a fog of ambiguity. They were told to "take the gloves off" without knowing what the limits were.

In a series of secret memos and correspondence — some of which have still not been provided to Congresstop-level Administration lawyers engaged in a wholesale rewriting of human rights law.

They redefined torture so narrowly as to be meaningless.

They adopted a concept of Presidential power so expansive that it denied the authority of Congress to pass laws prohibiting acts of torture — even in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

They approved long-discredited defenses to torture like "necessity," "self-defense," and "superior orders" — defenses that have been rejected since the Nuremberg Trials following World War II.

They argued that contrary to longstanding precedent, international law does not bind any U.S. official.

They reinterpreted our treaty obligations in order to authorize the C.I.A. to engage in cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, to remove "protected persons" from Iraq for interrogation, and to "render" persons to countries known to practice torture.

In rewriting our human rights laws, the Administration consistently overruled the objections of experienced military personnel and diplomats. As Secretary of State Colin Powell warned the White House, "It will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva Conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops." Senior Defense officials were warned that changing the rules could lead to so-called "force drift," in which, without clearer guidance, the level of force applied to an uncooperative detainee might well result in torture.

When leaders didn’t like what they heard, they cut off the criticism. When Secretary Powell raised concerns about the decision not to apply the Geneva Conventions to the conflict in Afghanistan, White House Counsel Gonzales cut him out of the process. When lawyers objected to the radical views in the Bybee torture Memorandum, Defense Department General Counsel Haynes cut them out of the process and made the memo official policy for the entire military.

What happened here was not a reasoned response to 9/11 — an objective reassessment of our rules and policies to account for the rise in terrorism. Instead, the leaders used 9/11 to undermine any constraints on the power of the President, and the country has been paying a high price for their arrogance ever since.

Dozens of Administration memoranda involving post-9/11 detention and interrogation have come to light in the past year. Yet in not one of these memos is there an appreciation of how well the existing rules served the nation in past conflicts. Not one of them explains why the Army’s interrogation manual, which discusses dozens of effective techniques that comply with domestic and international law, no longer serves America’s interests. Not one of them comments on how compliance with the Geneva Conventions protects U.S. soldiers.

Clearly, the civilian lawyers in the Defense Department, the Justice Department, and the White House Counsel’s office have been on an ideological mission. Their goal was not to reassess the current rules on detention and interrogation in light of the 9/11 attacks; their goal was to destroy them, and to a large extent, they succeeded.

The military was set adrift from its longstanding rules and traditions. The Bybee torture Memorandum was eventually repudiated by the Justice Department, but the Pentagon’s Working Group Report of April 2003, which incorporated the Bybee Memorandum nearly verbatim, has still not been explicitly superceded, and no new guidance has gone to the field.

Our men and women in the military are still not clear whether and to what extent they should consider themselves bound by the Convention Against torture, the federal law prohibiting torture, or even the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibit torture and cruel treatment. The basic validity of the military’s "golden rule" — treat captured enemy forces as we would want our own prisoners of war to be treated — is in doubt.

The President has directed the military to treat detainees "humanely," but this directive has not provided adequate guidance to our troops. General Counsel Haynes himself advised Secretary Rumsfeld that simulated drowning, forced nudity, the use of dogs to create stress, threats to kill a detainee’s family, and other extreme tactics all qualified as "humane." When the Pentagon’s top civilian lawyer shows so little respect for human dignity, how can we expect more from our soldiers serving in the field?

As for the C.I.A., it was conspicuously excluded from the President’s directive on humane treatment. More recently, we’ve learned that the Administration does not believe that the prohibition against cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment applies to foreigners held by our government agencies abroad. The C.I.A. concealed detainees from the Army and the Red Cross. It continues to send dozens of detainees to countries known to practice torture. It says it’s conducting its own investigation into the abuses, but it refuses to provide a timetable or any preliminary findings. No agency should be above the law. The C.I.A. must answer for its activities.

Accountability for the torture scandal continues to be lacking.

We know about the prosecutions of the low-level, "bad apple" soldiers involved in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. But prosecutions have been declined for other soldiers, including 17 implicated in the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not a single C.I.A. official has been charged, although one private contractor is awaiting trial for the killing of a detainee in Afghanistan.

Even more disturbing, no action — criminal, administrative, or otherwise — has been taken against the high civilian officials responsible for the authorization of torture and mistreatment by U.S. officials in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and elsewhere. We know about the actions that have been taken against Charles Graner and Lynndie England. But what about William Haynes, Alberto Gonzales, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, David Addington, Douglas Feith?

These officials were warned of the consequences of undoing the rules before they changed them. They were informed of the objections to use of these harsh techniques. The FBI, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the British all refused to participate in interrogations because they had such grave concerns about the brutal methods. Finally, one brave soldier, Joseph Darby, acknowledged that what was happening was wrong.

Far from being held accountable, some of these officials have been promoted. Bybee, who signed the notorious Justice Department memorandum redefining torture, was confirmed to a lifetime judgeship on a federal appellate court. Haynes, the General Counsel who made the Bybee Memorandum official policy for the military, has been re-nominated for another appellate judgeship. Gonzales now serves as the nation’s Attorney General.

Last weekend, the Army’s Inspector General revealed he had exonerated almost all of its top officers of any responsibility for abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib, even though one of them, Lieutenant General Sanchez, explicitly approved the use of severe interrogation practices, and even through a review by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger found that General Sanchez and his deputy "failed to ensure proper staff oversight of" the operations at Abu Ghraib.

What signal does this pattern of prosecutions for low-ranking soldiers, exonerations for generals, and promotion for civilians send to our men and women in the armed services, and to our veterans?

The torture scandal is not going away on its own. Our nation will continue to be harmed by the reports of abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, the failure by top officials to take action, and the abandonment of our basic rules and traditions on human rights.

The scandal directly endangers U.S. soldiers and U.S. civilians abroad. We no longer demand that those we capture in the war on terrorism be treated as we treat prisoners of other wars. What will we say to a country that justifies its torture of a U.S. soldier by citing our support for such treatment? How we can we hold other nations accountable for their own human rights violations, when we continue to hold prisoners for years, without charging them or convicting them of anything?

The nation’s standing as a leader on human rights and respect for the rule of law has been severely undermined.

We cannot simply answer, as some have done, that the behavior is acceptable because terrorists do worse. By lowering our standards, we have reduced our moral authority in the world. The torture scandal has clearly set back our effort in the war on terrorism. It is fueling the current insurgency in Iraq. Even our closest allies, such as Great Britain, have raised objections to our treatment and rendition of detainees.

Al Qaeda is still the gravest threat we face. The widespread perception that the U.S. condones torture only strengthens the ability of Al Qaeda and others to create a backlash of hatred against America around the world. If we do not act to locate official responsibility for Abu Ghraib, we will condone a new status quo in which our policy toward torture is technically one of zero tolerance, while de facto our officials tolerate and commit torture daily.

Many of us were struck by the rhetoric in President Bush’s Inaugural Address. "From the day of our founding," he said, "we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth." Many of us would like to work with the President to develop a foreign policy that advances these important values. But rarely has the gulf between a President’s rhetoric and his Administration’s actions been so wide. It is simply not possible to reconcile his claim that "America’s belief in human dignity will guide our policies" with the barbaric acts that have been committed in America’s name.

We must not allow inaction to undermine two bedrock principles of human rights law that we worked hard to establish at Nuremberg: that higher officials cannot escape command responsibility and lower officials cannot excuse their actions by claiming that they were "just following orders."

It is time to come to terms with the continuing costs of the torture scandal, and respond effectively. We need to fully restore the nation’s credibility and moral standing, so that we can more effectively pursue the nation’s interests in the future.

First, we must acknowledge that the rule of law is not a luxury to be abandoned in time of war, or bent or circumvented at the whim and convenience of the White House. It is a fundamental safeguard in our democracy and a continuing source of our country’s strength throughout the world.

Sadly, a recent National Defense Strategy policy contained this remarkable statement: "Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism." Who could have imagined that our government would ever describe "judicial processes" as a challenge to our national securitymuch less mention it in the same breath as terrorism? Such statements do not reflect traditional conservative values, and they are clearly inconsistent with the ideals that America has always stood for here and around the world.

Second, we must acknowledge and apply the broad consensus that exists against torture and inhumane treatment.

Never before has torture been a Republican versus Democrat issue. Instead, it’s always been an issue of broad consensus and ideals, reflecting the fundamental values of the nation, and the ideals of the world.

President Reagan signed the Convention Against torture in 1988. The first President Bush and President Clinton supported its ratification. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Senator Jesse Helms voted 10-0 in 1994 to recommend that the full Senate approve it. The Clinton Administration adopted a "zero tolerance" policy on torture. torture became something that Americans of all political affiliations agreed never to do.

9/11 didn’t nullify this consensus. We did not resolve as a nation to set aside our values and the Constitution after those vicious attacks. We did not decide as a nation to stoop to the level of the terrorists, and those who did deserve to be held fully accountable

Americans continue to be united in the belief that an essential part of winning the war on terrorism and protecting the country for the future is safeguarding the ideals and values that America stands for at home and around the world.

That includes the belief that torture is still beyond the pale. The vast majority of Americans strongly reject the cruel interrogation tactics used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo — including the use of painful stress positions, sexual humiliation, threatening prisoners with dogs, and shipping detainees to countries that practice torture. The American people hold fast to our most fundamental values. It is time for all branches of the government to uphold those values as well. It is clear beyond a doubt that we cannot trust this Republican Congress or this Republican Administration to conduct the full investigation that should have been conducted long before now. We’ve had enough whitewashes by the Administration and Congressional Committees.

Finally, to implement these values, we need a full and independent investigation of our current detention, rendition, and interrogation policies, including an honest assessment of what went wrong in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo.

The investigation will require genuine candor and cooperation by all officials and agencies in the Bush Administration, full accountability, a clear statement of respect for human rights, and a plan for protecting those rights throughout the government. Only a truly independent and thorough investigation can restore America’s reputation and put us back on the right path to the future.

The challenges we face in the post-9/11 world are obvious, and the stakes are very high. Working together, we have met such challenges before, and I’m confident we can do so again. I urge all of my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to join together to protect the rule of law, protect our soldiers serving abroad, and restore America’s standing in the world.

According to LGF, he mentions torture 38 times in this diatribe.  I didn’t count.  In fact, I can’t read it all.  It’s pathetic.  As Chrenkoff notes:

Senator Edward Kennedy didn’t have anything to say on 19 March, the second anniversary of the start of the liberation of Iraq. In fact, he kept quiet until two days later, only to talk about President Bush’s judicial appointments.

Senator Kennedy didn’t have anything to say on 9 April, the second anniversary of the liberation of Baghdad and the end of Saddam’s regime. In fact, he kept quiet until the following day, when he spoke on the occasion of receiving a community award.

Kennedy disgusts me.  His partisanship goes way beyond the limits of statesmanship.

Tags: Filed Under National Politics | Leave a Comment 

27

Apr

by Moonage

Here we go again.

"I think what’s good about the movie is that it deals with 9/11 in such a subtle, open, open way that I think it allows it to be more complicated than just ‘Oh, look at these poor New Yorkers and how hard it was for them,’ because I think America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way and so I think the delicacy with which it’s dealt with allows that to sort of creep in."
- Maggie Gyllenhaal

Believe it or not, she used those comments while plugging her new movie, The Great New Wonderful.  A story about post 9/11 New York.

I don’t think I’ll be watching.

She exploits their deaths to make some money and then puts the blame of those victims on themselves.

She doesn’t say the US government, she just condemns "America".

This is yet another star that needs to stick to her script.

Tags: Filed Under The Media | Leave a Comment 

27

Apr

by Moonage

href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,154734,00.html">President Bush is offering to make closed military bases available for new oil
refineries and will ask Congress to provide a “risk insurance” to the nuclear
industry against regulatory delays to spur construction of new nuclear power
plants, senior administration officials said Tuesday.


The officials,
who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the president will outline his
proposals in a speech Wednesday in which he intends to emphasize how new
technologies can be used to ease the energy supply crunch.


The White House
acknowledged that none of the initiatives was expected to provide any short-term
relief from soaring gasoline and oil prices. It is Bush’s second speech on
energy within a week, reflecting the growing concern within the White House over
the political fallout over high energy prices.


The officials
said the president believes the country needs a diverse supply of
energy, including expansion of aggressive nuclear power. There has not
been a new commercial nuclear reactor ordered in the United States since
1973.


That’s the opening salvo from Fox.? As of this posting it’s conjecture based
on anonymous sources, of which I usually don’t like to respond to.? However,
given the meeting with the Saudis and his previous speech this week, I have
reason to believe it might be accurate conjecture.? So, I’m going to run with
it.


The details of this conjecture opens all kinds of cans of worms to me.? I am
a huge advocate of nuclear power.? The only drawback is the waste, and there are
ideas floating around on how to deal with that.? But, that takes energy,
something we don’t have a lot to spare right now, and, makes the conjecture
prohibitively expensive.? That’s, the crux of the biscuit.


There are a lot of things that will happen once we have energy to spare.?
When the US had coal energy to spare, the manufacturing boom of the early 20th
century took off.? Once the US had electrical energy to spare and we realized
the problems of burning huge amounts of coal, society started demanding
different types of things to satisfy our needs.? Gas stoves were replaced by
electrical stoves and microwaves, fireplaces replaced by forced air heatpumps,
and cars started utilizing electronics to run more efficiently.? In addition, we
had the advent of computers, cell phones, massive television sets and everything
else that has altered mankind since the 1950′s.? But, that energy was basically
limited to our homes.? With the advent of power cells and low resistance metals,
energy has the technology available now to expand outside our homes and
revolutionize how we travel and work.? However, it’s expensive.? And, since we
don’t have a lot of energy to spare, the cost of the energy doesn’t compel
consumers to look beyond burning petroleum for transportation as our
grandparents did about the time the lightbulb became popular.


The key for the US and the world to move beyond 19th century technology is
the availability of energy.? There has to be more than enough to force a major
difference between the cost of burning petroleum and using electricity.? It
can’t be about the same.? It will be a while before electrical motors for
transportation will have the sexy attraction of raw power that petroleum offers,
so there has to be a compelling reason for people to switch.? That reason will
be cost.? If a person could travel 500 miles for $5, that would be a compelling
reason.? Someone has to be able to make money in order to offer that $5
recharge, and, it will have to be the distributors.? In order for the
distributor to make any money at $5, they have to have more than enough cheap
electricity to sell it at about $1.? The markup for them at $5 is much more than
they make selling gasoline at $30 a fill-up.? In order for them to make any
money on volume, the product has to be there.? In order for that product to be
there, the demand for that product has to be there.? It’s a circle that has
refused to be broken for thirty years.? Someone has to kick start the process.?
I hope to God that someone truly is Bush.? ? The current nuclear capacity of the
US is about 20% of the demand for electricity.? That doesn’t account
for the demand used by automobiles, since they don’t use electricity.?



The key here is not to build enough reactors to alleviate the foreign reliance
on petroleum to cover the electrical demand, but to build MORE reactors
than that need, drive down the cost of electricity, thus compelling other needs
for electricity.? That primary need would be personal transportation.?
Make it so cheap that people will be attracted to the odd shaped muscle-less
vehicles that are on the market now.  Needless to say, that won’t mean
building five or ten reactors.  That will require building probably fifty
to one hundred.


Are the environmentalists freaked out yet?  Bush originally tossed
around a nuclear policy in 2001,
they
attacked it before it was ever even policy:


"The Bush-Cheney administration’s promotion of nuclear
energy is distressingly short-sighted and potentially dangerous," said Kyle
Rabin, Nuclear Energy Policy Project Director for the Albany-based Environmental
Advocates. "It’s all about denial and fantasy: Denying the nuclear meltdowns and
near disasters; fantasizing that Yucca Mountain will solve the country’s
radioactive waste problems. Nuclear power must be phased out and elsewhere in
the nation. The environmental community will fight any attempts to build new
nukes and to breathe new life into existing plants. Our state political leaders
and policymakers must also have the courage to stand up to the nuclear industry,
whose time has come and gone."

The primary opposition has always been what to do with
nuclear waste.  Now, I live in the coal capitol of the country, Kentucky. 
I’ve seen the ravages of coal waste runoff into streams.  A couple of weeks
ago an abandoned mine
blew out and destroyed a highway in eastern Kentucky.  The waste from
that blowout went right into the Kentucky River.  The effects of the pretty
much abandoned coal industry in Kentucky of nearly 50 to 100 years ago is still
haunting this region.  People are still dying in coal mines. 

As of 2003, the record low of 67 people died in Kentucky coal mines. 
There is nothing tangibly safe about harvesting and using fossil fuels. 
But, these environmentalists offer no viable alternative to what we are doing
now, thus continuing the cycle of relying on something more dangerous to both
man and the environment than the possible worst case scenario they offer at
Yucca Mountain.  I
am an environmentalist.  I know the harm their policies are causing. 
It’s time to ignore them because they are accomplishing nothing and are
hindering progress to more environmentally friendly energy sources.

But, there are some
environmentalists already seeing the light:

Environmentalists for Nuclear Power (MFK in short) is a politically and
economically independent Society founded in 1988 by environmentalists who were
tired of the ongoing Swedish energy debate dominated by a completely unrealistic
anti-nuclear propaganda.

We are participating in the debate with facts and knowledge rather than
with the usual prejudices and beliefs. Health, environment and economy must be
taken into consideration and nuclear power must be judged under the same
conditions as other alternatives for the Swedish electricity supply.

Replacing clean nuclear power with polluting fuels like coal, gas, oil or
biomass would be a historic mistake – both environmentally and economically. The
waste of monetary resources would be astronomic and we would have to pay for it,
as electricity users, employees and as tax payers. Emissions of sulphur,
nitrogen and carbon dioxide, which Sweden, thanks to nuclear power, has been
able to keep low, would rise rapidly again. A clean environment might be costly
- but why should we pay for a worse environment?

The support can be there for Bush’s initiatives.  He
needs to grab it and march them all over the country in the spotlight. 
In order to spur aggressive expansion of nuclear energy, regulations will have
to be softened.  That always attracts activists like flies to light ( I
sure prefer another phrase ).  He’ll need activists fighting just as loudly
for his agenda as he’ll have against those changes.  They’re out there. 
I’m one of them.

The only thing I don’t want is refineries on the closed
military bases.  In this day of organized terror, they need security in the
worst way.  Put the reactors on those bases and leave some of the military
there to guard them.

Other than that, LET’S GO!  Man will not burn fossil
fuels forever.  That is a fact.  The sooner people realize that the
better it will be for our children.  There will be mistakes and accidents,
but we’re already suffering a lot of deaths and destruction every year burning
fossil fuels.  There is no logical reason I know of to keep putting off
nuclear power.  None.  The sooner we start relying on nuclear power,
the sooner new breakthroughs will occur making it safer and more efficient. 
The longer we put it off, the longer those breakthroughs will take.  The
people protesting nuclear power use the learning curve as evidence against it. 
What they don’t see is they are the problem with the learning curve.  Get
out of the way and let’s work the bugs out now, not put it off for another
generation.

This is a rant I know.  But, it’s something I am
passionate about.


Contact your representatives and tell them to encourage the Bush nuclear
initiatives.  Fighting it has accomplished nothing in 30 years.

Tags: , , , , Filed Under Government, Legislative Process, National Politics, Opinions, Political Correctness | Leave a Comment 

26

Apr

by Moonage

"Rita Preckshot went to a peace rally, and a fight broke out."

I love that line so much, I had to use it for the title.  The article’s a fun read too.

But, they make it sound like this is an unusual event.  Fact is, activists have a long history of violence.  From environmentalists trying to save trees by putting spikes in them, to other environmentalists starting fires to prevent greenhouse gases, to the violent protests against the World Bank in Seattle protesting their investing in third world countries, the logic of radical activists has never been terribly grounded in reason.  Punching out small women in the name of advocating peace doesn’t surprise me at all.

Tags: Filed Under National Politics | Leave a Comment 

25

Apr

by Moonage

I have lambasted the abuse of 527′s by political partisans.  Especially George Soros.  I have advocated that one of the new Congress’s first real actions should be eliminating 527′s.  Well guess what.  Senator John McCain is apparently trying to make up with yours truly ( for teaming up with Ted Kennedy ), and has proposed Senate Bill 271 to do just that:

527 Reform Act of 2005 – Amends the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to include in the definition of political committee any applicable 527 organization.
Alllows such organizations to influence: (1) the selection, nomination, election, or appointment of one or more candidates to non-Federal offices; (2) one or more State or local ballot initiatives, State or local referenda, State or local constitutional amendments, State or local bond issues, or other State or local ballot issues; and (3) the selection, appointment, nomination, or confirmation of one or more individuals to non-elected offices.
Excepts from the definition of 527 organization certain kinds of committees, clubs, associations, or other groups of persons, unless such a group makes disbursements aggregating more than $1,000 during any calendar year for: (1) a public communication that promotes, supports, attacks, or opposes a clearly identified candidate for Federal office during the one year period ending on the date of the general election for the office sought by the clearly identified candidate occurs; and (2) any voter drive activity.
Sets forth rules for allocation and funding for certain expenses relating to Federal and non-Federal activities.
I can’t stress how much I support this bill.  Contact your representatives and tell them the same.  There is no logical reason to allow 527′s to hijack the next election.


Tags: Filed Under National Politics | 1 Comment 

25

Apr

by Moonage

I have commented a couple of times in the past on Bankruptcy reform.  In large part I support it.  I’m one of those people that likes to see how a policy is enforced before I comment a whole lot on it.  However, Todd Zywicki at Volokh has taken stabs at it.  The crux of the matter is that states will be indexed based upon some federal standard establishing state-by-state "mean incomes".  That part is apparently open to translation as bizzyblog takes exception to Todd’s reference for the mean.  Bizzy’s primary issue is that the LIHEAP definition can not work because it is not indexed for a four family income more recently than 1999.  And, if adjusted, that income level excludes most everyone.  His further contention is that it does not address urban versus rural residency.  The second point I agree with totally.  But, since it favors people living in rural areas, I don’t mind.  There is no such thing as total equality in any segment of the tax code, I don’t see why this has to be any different.  Those living in rural areas will just reap the benefits.  I’ll elaborate more on this a little later.  It’s the primary point that gets me.  I know how federal law and policy works.  It’s not the exact execution of a policy that has to pass muster, it’s the intent of the policy.  If the intent is fair and non-biased to the protected classes of society, then it will generally hold up in court. If it doesn’t, it will be adjusted.  So, the intent of this law is to adjust by inflation and demographic income levels.  Following Bizzy’s logic, the law would have to adjust by neighborhood to be in full compliance.  That’s unrealistic.  The feds set states as a generalization, that definition has held for a long time.  It will pass the smell test.  Here is the LIHEAP table slightly adjusted:

State 2003 Deviation by state Change over time 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998
Alabama 55,448 -13% 9% 53,754 54,594 51,451 52,405 50,644
Alaska 72,110 14% 18% 69,868 71,395 66,874 70,294 61,116
Arizona 58,206 -8% 18% 56,857 56,067 55,663 53,041 49,445
Arkansas 48,353 -24% 9% 49,551 47,838 44,537 46,671 44,270
California 67,814 7% 22% 65,766 63,761 63,206 63,100 55,415
Colorado 71,559 13% 13% 68,089 67,634 66,624 62,860 63,530
Connecticut 86,001 35% 15% 81,891 82,517 82,702 75,505 74,537
Delaware 72,680 14% 13% 69,469 73,301 69,360 65,584 64,184
DC 56,067 -12% -7% 55,692 61,799 63,406 62,281 60,234
Florida 58,605 -8% 12% 57,473 56,824 55,351 55,578 52,555
Georgia 62,294 -2% 11% 60,676 59,497 59,489 57,795 56,172
Hawaii 71,320 12% 16% 67,564 66,014 65,872 66,402 61,540
Idaho 53,376 -16% 9% 54,279 51,098 53,722 47,703 48,822
Illinois 72,368 14% 17% 69,168 66,507 68,117 66,356 61,733
Indiana 65,009 2% 17% 63,022 63,573 62,079 58,519 55,342
Iowa 64,341 1% 21% 61,238 61,656 57,921 58,075 53,040
Kansas 64,215 1% 17% 61,926 61,686 56,784 57,195 54,843
Kentucky 53,198 -16% 9% 54,030 54,319 51,249 52,186 48,630
Louisiana 50,529 -20% 3% 52,299 51,234 47,363 49,446 49,008
Maine 59,596 -6% 18% 58,802 58,425 56,186 57,536 50,444
Maryland 82,363 30% 16% 77,938 82,879 77,562 74,806 71,244
Massachusetts 82,561 30% 20% 78,312 80,247 78,025 71,689 68,846
Michigan 68,602 8% 16% 67,995 68,337 68,740 65,467 59,053
Minnesota 76,733 21% 13% 72,379 72,635 70,553 66,677 67,704
Mississippi 46,570 -27% 6% 47,847 46,810 46,331 47,915 43,976
Missouri 64,128 1% 19% 59,764 61,036 61,173 56,673 54,031
Montana 49,124 -23% 10% 51,791 48,078 46,142 50,966 44,573
Nebraska 63,625 0% 12% 60,129 60,626 57,040 55,693 56,581
Nevada 63,005 -1% 16% 59,588 59,283 59,614 59,479 54,320
New Hampshire 79,339 25% 31% 72,369 72,606 71,661 65,885 60,665
New Jersey 87,412 38% 24% 82,406 80,577 78,560 75,425 70,697
New Mexico 45,867 -28% 4% 48,422 46,596 47,314 44,947 43,902
New York 69,354 9% 21% 65,461 66,498 64,520 59,755 57,210
North Carolina 56,712 -11% 4% 58,227 56,500 57,203 56,115 54,687
North Dakota 57,092 -10% 12% 57,070 55,138 53,140 51,002 50,925
Ohio 66,066 4% 10% 63,934 64,282 62,251 56,237 60,012
Oklahoma 50,216 -21% 6% 51,377 53,949 48,459 52,261 47,362
Oregon 61,570 -3% 10% 60,262 58,737 58,315 53,909 55,947
Pennsylvania 68,578 8% 18% 64,310 66,130 65,411 59,546 58,164
Rhode Island 71,098 12% 13% 67,646 70,446 68,418 64,614 62,775
South Carolina 56,433 -11% 8% 56,110 59,212 56,294 55,978 52,417
South Dakota 59,272 -7% 18% 55,359 59,718 55,150 52,246 50,052
Tennessee 55,401 -13% 10% 55,605 56,052 54,899 51,999 50,434
Texas 54,554 -14% 7% 56,278 56,606 53,513 53,291 51,148
Utah 62,032 -2% 12% 59,864 59,035 57,043 57,251 55,392
Vermont 65,876 4% 24% 62,331 62,938 59,125 57,713 53,335
Virginia 71,697 13% 18% 66,889 69,616 68,054 64,352 60,586
Washington 69,130 9% 14% 66,531 65,997 63,568 62,618 60,788
West Virginia 46,169 -27% 7% 47,550 49,470 46,270 45,202 43,181
Wisconsin 69,010 9% 19% 66,988 65,441 66,725 63,436 58,000
Wyoming 56,065 -12% 8% 57,148 58,541 55,859 55,624 51,897

You have adjustments for demographics and time.  That fulfills the intent of the law.  I see no reason why this table isn’t good enough to meet the standards of this law.

UPDATE:

Todd pointed me to two EXCELLENT articles (1,2) by Jeff Michael.  Of whom I am becoming a fan.  He’s in my camp on this, basically being that this is much ado about nothing.

Tags: Filed Under Fed Policy | 3 Comments 

24

Apr

by Moonage

Since this is a public document, and brief, I’m going to just copy the whole thing here:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 2005
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

CRM
(202) 514-2008
TDD (202) 514-1888

POLITICAL FUNDRAISER DAVID ROSEN INDICTED FOR CAUSING FALSE FILINGS WITH FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray announced today the unsealing of a four-count indictment charging David Rosen, the former National Finance Director for a candidate for United States Senate in the 2000 campaign, with causing false campaign finance reports to be filed with the Federal Election Commission, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1001 and 2.

The indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Central District of California and unsealed today. The indictment alleges that Rosen, an experienced professional political fundraiser, was responsible for all fundraising, planning and costs for an Aug. 12, 2000 fundraising event in Los Angeles, California for the purpose of raising money for a joint fundraising committee which benefited, in part, the campaign of Rosen’s Senate candidate.

While the event is alleged to have cost over $1.2 million, paid for with over $1.1 million of in-kind contributions, the indictment charges that Rosen reported the in-kind contributions to be only around $400,000, knowing this figure to be false. The indictment charges that Rosen provided some documents to the joint fundraising committee’s FEC compliance officer, but withheld true costs that were known to him and provided false documents to substantiate the lower figure. In one instance, Rosen is charged with obtaining and delivering to the committee a fraudulent invoice stating that the cost of the concert portion of the event was $200,000, when he knew that the figure had no basis in fact. The concert portion of the event itself cost over $600,000.

The Senate campaign committee and the joint fundraising committee have cooperated with the government’s investigation.

Each count of making a false statement carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.

The prosecution is being conducted by the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C. headed by Section Chief Noel L. Hillman. The government is represented by Trial Attorneys Peter Zeidenberg and Daniel Schwager of the Public Integrity Section. The matter was investigated by the Los Angeles Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Criminal indictments are only charges and not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.

I find it odd that the Department of Justice makes it a point to not mention who "a candidate for United States Senate in the 2000 campaign" was.  It was Hillary Clinton.  Looks like she’s going to be embroiled in yet another contentious legal situation brought upon her by that "vast right wing conspiracy" that is the Department of Justice.

I honestly can’t wait to watch her squirm out of this one.  I know she will, I just enjoy watching her do it.  Bill was often called the teflon President for dodging one scandal after another.  It wasn’t his Teflon though.  It was Hillary’s.  She’s one tough cookie.  Rosen will fall, like all of the others did, and Hillary will continue her march back to the White House.

Michelle Malkin has an excellent write-up on her blog that expands the Rosen connection and elaborates on the wreckless disregard the Clintons seem to have in regards to taking money from any hand that’s extended.  I’d like to do something like newsmax has done and build a running spreadsheet of all the nastiness, legal or otherwise, that has surrounded Hillary for the last thirteen years.  But, I honestly am not sure I have the time to pull it off.  I’ll probably try tho.

Kudos to Polipundit for the heads up on this.  There are also a ton of excellent comments as well as the Michelle Malkin link.

Tags: Filed Under National Politics | 2 Comments 

next page »
Performance Optimization WordPress Plugins by W3 EDGE