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Australia Exits the Coalition of the Willing
By john
President Bush recently traveled to Australia to thank conservative Prime Minister John Howard for making that country a member of the "coalition of the willing" U.S. allies in the occupation of Iraq.
Bush's trip was supposed to shore Howard up as national elections approached. Instead, the president planted what turned out to be a political kiss of death on his most willing accomplice.
When the votes from Down Under were counted Saturday, it was instantly clear that the vast majority of Australians are no longer willing to participate in the American president's misadventure in the Middle East.
(102) CommentsNovember 24, 2007
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When Thanksgiving Proclamations Mattered
By john
Presidential proclamations are of dubious distinction in these days of permanent campaigning by the president and his hyper-politicized staff. What were once the solemn pronouncements of the executive have become little more than super-charged press releases.
George Bush issued more than 100 proclamations in the first ten months of the year, including one honoring National Safe Boating Week and another for Dutch-American Friendship Day. There was one recognizing National Homeownership Month, which conveniently preceded the mortgage crisis that has raised the prospect of as many as two million America families losing their domiciles. There was, as well, a National Consumer Protection Week proclamation, which probably should have outlined steps Americans should take to protect themselves from the dangerous food products and toys that are the byproducts of the administration's exceptionally ambitious trade agenda and exceptionally lax regulatory policies. There was a Constitution Day proclamation, which did not that we know of include a "signing statement" outlining the sections of the document the president would refuse to uphold during the remainder of the year. And perhaps most amusingly coming from the titular leader of an administration that is angling to expand its perpetual "war on terror" to include an imbroglio in Iran was Bush's "Prayer for Peace" proclamation of May 15.
Today, of course, the White House adds to the year's already long list of presidential pronouncements a Thanksgiving proclamation.
(45) CommentsNovember 21, 2007
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Barney Frank: Clinton "Best Equipped" to Advance Gay Rights
By john
Both openly-gay members of Congress have now endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The New York senator secured the support of Tammy Baldwin, the Wisconsin congresswoman who is the only out lesbian in the House, months ago. And this week Clinton gained the enthusiastic endorsement of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the only out gay man currently serving in the chamber.
Frank specifically hailed Clinton's support for gay and lesbian rights in announcing his decision to back the woman who current leads in national polling on the Democratic race and who is the front-runner in most early caucus and primary states.
(118) CommentsNovember 14, 2007
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11th Hour, 11th Day, 11th Month
By john
On the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th month, the guns of World War I fell silent. And a war that should never have been fought – arguably by anyone, certainly by Americans – was done.
Americans who know their history celebrate Veterans Day not to honor war, but to recognize the soldiers who died and the soldiers who survived the wars of the past – and, hopefully, to ponder the futility of abandoning George Washington's advice to avoid the entangling alliances of distant continents and the mortal combats of the kings and conquerers who intrigues Americans rejected when the United States revolted against monarchy, colonialism and the madness of empire.
It is in that latter pondering that Americans would do well to recognize the courage of those who opposed the madness that was World War I, a courage born of a concern for America's troops that was not evidenced by their commander-in-chief.
(34) CommentsNovember 11, 2007
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House Puts Impeachment On, Then Off, The Table
By john
The move by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich to open a House debate on the question of whether to impeach Vice President Cheney turned into a imbroglio for the Democratic leadership of the chamber Tuesday as mischievous Republicans joined dozens of Democrats in rejecting a move to table the resolution.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had thwarted Kucinich's efforts to convince the Judiciary Committee to take up his proposal to hold the vice president to account for lying to Congress and the U.S. public in order to enter into a war in Iraq, and for trying to mislead again in order to start a war with Iran. So the Ohioan used a privileged resolution to bring the impeachment question up before the full House.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, then moved to table Kucinich's resolution. "Impeachment is not on our agenda. We have some major priorities. We need to focus on those," said Hoyer, echoing Pelosi's position that presidential accountability is "off the table."
(105) CommentsNovember 6, 2007
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Judiciary Panel OK's Waterboarding, Er, Mukasey
By john
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning approved President Bush's nomination of former Federal Judge Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.
Mukasey, a radical advocate for expanded executive power, had refused to condemn the torture tactics -- such as waterboarding -- that Gonzales sought unsuccessfully to legitimize.
The committee voted 11-8 to forward Mukasey's nomination to the full Senate with a recommendation that the former judge be confirmed.
(44) CommentsNovember 6, 2007
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DEM DEBATE: Edwards, Not Obama, Hits Clinton Hardest, Smartest
By john
It was supposed to be the night Barack Obama took Hillary Clinton down.
But, when all was said and done, Obama was a bystander.
The opening question in Tuesday's Democratic presidential debate was a softball pitch from NBC's Brian Williams to the senator from Illinois. Noting Obama's interview in the Sunday New York Times, in which the senator from Illinois promised to get tough with Clinton for acting like a Republican, Williams asked him detail the votes and statements from Clinton to which he objected.
(40) CommentsOctober 30, 2007
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Blackwater's Enablers at the State Department
By john
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Henry Waxman finally got to the heart of the Blackwater contract-killing scandal when he reviewed emails detailing how the U.S. State Department worked with the private security firm to hide bloody trail of its mercenaries.
Noting that after an intoxicated Blackwater thug shot and killed an Iraqi guard last December, the State Department counseled the corporation on how much to pay the family of the Iraqi to keep silent and then arranged for the Blackwater employee to exit Iraq without facing any consequences for his actions, Waxman produced records of internet communications detailing the cover up.
"It's hard to read these e-mails and not come to the conclusion that the State Department is acting as Blackwater's enabler," Waxman told a hearing that saw Blackwater founder Erik Prince claim with a straight face that his company "acted appropriately at all times" during an incident last month that left 11 Iraqis dead and inspired an effort to force the country to withdraw its mercenaries from Baghdad.
(35) CommentsOctober 2, 2007
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Senate Blocks Olson as AG; President Picks Ex-Judge
By john
When the White House floated the name of former Solicitor General Ted Olson as the president's preferred replacement for scandal-plagued Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, it was a poke in the eye to responsible members the Senate Judiciary Committee who were pressing for a nominee capable of rebuilding the Justice Department Gonzales had effectively destroyed.
Olson might have been an abler lawyer than the outgoing Attorney General. But the man who led the scheming to get the Supreme Court to prevent an honest recount of Florida presidential votes in 2000 is, if anything, more fiercely partisan and ideologically driven than Gonzales.
With the Justice Department in crisis as a result of instability caused by the politically-motivated firings of key U.S. attorneys, resignations of top-level managers, an exodus of career lawyers and revelations about crude political meddling with the mission of the civil rights division, the idea of putting a committed ideologue like Olson in charge was not merely offensive but frightening to Democratic and Republican senators who take seriously their oversight role.
(14) CommentsSeptember 16, 2007
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As The Craig Turns
By john
Where to begin with the latest developments in L'Affaire Craig?
How about with the delicious proposal by Larry Craig's fans at the American Land Rights Association? The group's so upset at the prospect of losing the Idaho Republican's anti-environmental influence on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that it is proposing a boycott of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport where the Senator got busted for cruising in a disorderly manner for anonymous sex.
Land Association leaders claim the airport and the local cops are guilty of "ambushing" their favorite senator -- using the old technique of placing attractive young cops in bathroom stalls frequented by senators who are "not gay (and) and never have been gay."
(42) CommentsSeptember 6, 2007
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