Op-Ed
Christmas came 11 days early for Donald Rumsfeld two years ago when
the news broke that American forces had pulled Saddam Hussein from a
spidery hole. During interviews about the capture, on CBS and ABC,
the Pentagon’s top man was upbeat. And he didn’t have to deal with a
question that Lesley Stahl or Peter Jennings could have logically
chosen to ask: “Secretary Rumsfeld, you met with Saddam almost
exactly 20 years ago and shook his hand. What kind of guy was he?”
Now, Saddam Hussein has gone on trial, but such questions remain unasked by mainstream U.S. journalists. Rumsfeld met with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf of the Reagan administration, opening up strong diplomatic and military ties that lasted through six more years of Saddam’s murderous brutality.
Now, Saddam Hussein has gone on trial, but such questions remain unasked by mainstream U.S. journalists. Rumsfeld met with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf of the Reagan administration, opening up strong diplomatic and military ties that lasted through six more years of Saddam’s murderous brutality.
On Tuesday in New York, Jonathan Tasini will announce the launch of his campaign for United States Senate, challenging Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
A Democrat, at least one who convincingly opposes Bush, is very likely to win the general election in this race. This means that the primary is the real election, and the question is what kind of Democrat we want to have in the Senate.
Behind curtain number one is Hilary Clinton, a pro-war, pro-CAFTA, pro-corporate health care Republicrat who's so very much more aggravating than most of them because of the widespread pretense that she's some sort of leftist or democrat with a small d.
Behind curtain number two is Jonathan Tasini, a veteran labor organizer and strategist who opposes the war, opposes corporate trade deals, proposes to expand Medicare to universal coverage, and can be counted on to fight for working people.
Which kind of senator do the people of New York want?
And which kind of party do Democrats around the country want?
A Democrat, at least one who convincingly opposes Bush, is very likely to win the general election in this race. This means that the primary is the real election, and the question is what kind of Democrat we want to have in the Senate.
Behind curtain number one is Hilary Clinton, a pro-war, pro-CAFTA, pro-corporate health care Republicrat who's so very much more aggravating than most of them because of the widespread pretense that she's some sort of leftist or democrat with a small d.
Behind curtain number two is Jonathan Tasini, a veteran labor organizer and strategist who opposes the war, opposes corporate trade deals, proposes to expand Medicare to universal coverage, and can be counted on to fight for working people.
Which kind of senator do the people of New York want?
And which kind of party do Democrats around the country want?
AUSTIN, Texas -- Fellow procrastinators of the world, unite! Now is the time to begin thinking about Christmas shopping. We still have a few days left, so there's no rush for those who have been known to do it all on Christmas morning at the Jiffy Mart (everyone appreciates a nice can of WD-40).
For those who consider it wussy to begin shopping before the 24th, here's the annual Christmas book list -- the best one-stop shopping in town, items to suit all ages and personalities.
We prefer, of course, to shop at independent bookstores, but if a chain store is all that's available, it will do. Though there are no guarantees on the quality of the Christmas help: I once heard a woman ask for "The Odyssey" by Homer, to which the high-school honey hired for the holidays replied, "Uh, Homer Who?"
A fun book for almost anyone on you list is "Seabiscuit, An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House, $24.95). Unless you're a horse person, you probably think you don't want to read the biography of a racehorse, but you do want to read this one. It's a love of a book about a love of a horse.
For those who consider it wussy to begin shopping before the 24th, here's the annual Christmas book list -- the best one-stop shopping in town, items to suit all ages and personalities.
We prefer, of course, to shop at independent bookstores, but if a chain store is all that's available, it will do. Though there are no guarantees on the quality of the Christmas help: I once heard a woman ask for "The Odyssey" by Homer, to which the high-school honey hired for the holidays replied, "Uh, Homer Who?"
A fun book for almost anyone on you list is "Seabiscuit, An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House, $24.95). Unless you're a horse person, you probably think you don't want to read the biography of a racehorse, but you do want to read this one. It's a love of a book about a love of a horse.
On Saturday, December 10, in London, England, leaders of the peace movement against the Iraq war from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Iraq will meet to strategize. There is hope that the tide has already turned against the occupation, and that a coordinated international effort will be able to mobilize sufficient public pressure to bring the war to a complete end.
If you can make it to London, sign up here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk
If you can't make it, I think I have an easy second-best course of action for you. One of the speakers at the opening session in London will be Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., and at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Phyllis has just published a book called "Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the U.N. Defy U.S. Power."
You can buy it here: http://www.interlinkbooks.com/BooksC/challeng_empire.html
If you can make it to London, sign up here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk
If you can't make it, I think I have an easy second-best course of action for you. One of the speakers at the opening session in London will be Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., and at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Phyllis has just published a book called "Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the U.N. Defy U.S. Power."
You can buy it here: http://www.interlinkbooks.com/BooksC/challeng_empire.html
"Advice to Retirees: Embrace the future," syndicated columnist Tad Bartimus
recently wrote in my local Seattle paper. Sounds good, but for Bartimus the
future was a layoff, in a corporate cutback, from a 25-year career at the
Associated Press news service. Faced with the Hobson's choice of agreeing to
it or losing all health care access and pension benefits, she suddenly had
to find ways to reinvent herself and survive, with less than half of her
previously promised pension. She explores how her situation echoes the
predicament of more and more Americans, like those who took middle-class
futures for granted at companies such as General Motors, Delta Airlines, and
Ford, but who now scramble to get by at jobs paying a fraction of the wages
they were used to. America's social contract is being ripped apart, she
writes-then she backs off to counsel individual adaptation and seeing life
as "a banquet," where we need to savor even the unexpected courses.
AUSTIN, Texas -- The Lord Impersonator is back again. This fella reappears every couple of years and causes no end of trouble. The jokester goes around persuading feeble-minded persons he is the Lord Almighty and that they are to do or say some perfectly idiotic thing under his instructions.
One of the worst cases we've had in Texas was the time the Lord Impersonator convinced 20 people in Floydada to git nekked, get into a GTO and drive to Vinton, La., where they ran into a tree. Seein' 20 nekkid people, including five children, come out of a GTO startled the Vinton cops. The nekkid citizens all said God told them to do it.
Quite a few people have been mishearing the Lord lately. The Rev. Pat Robertson thinks the Lord told the people of Dover, Pa., they shouldn't ask for His help anymore because they elected a school board Robertson doesn't like. And Rep. Richard Baker of Louisiana said right after Hurricane Katrina that "we finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did it."
One of the worst cases we've had in Texas was the time the Lord Impersonator convinced 20 people in Floydada to git nekked, get into a GTO and drive to Vinton, La., where they ran into a tree. Seein' 20 nekkid people, including five children, come out of a GTO startled the Vinton cops. The nekkid citizens all said God told them to do it.
Quite a few people have been mishearing the Lord lately. The Rev. Pat Robertson thinks the Lord told the people of Dover, Pa., they shouldn't ask for His help anymore because they elected a school board Robertson doesn't like. And Rep. Richard Baker of Louisiana said right after Hurricane Katrina that "we finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did it."
"What's more moderate than exploring the truth? Is there really partisanship in truth?...We don't need to be afraid to use the word impeachment. It is the process that was set up. It's not a bad word. It stands for accountability. It is the system of justice in our political system…There's nothing radical in that." -- TONY TRUPIANO
While no congressional incumbent has yet introduced articles of impeachment or a resolution of inquiry into grounds for impeachment of Bush and Cheney, numerous 2006 candidates are committed to doing so. I know because they're contacting ImpeachPAC, a political action committee I work for which was recently created to support pro-impeachment candidates.
While no congressional incumbent has yet introduced articles of impeachment or a resolution of inquiry into grounds for impeachment of Bush and Cheney, numerous 2006 candidates are committed to doing so. I know because they're contacting ImpeachPAC, a political action committee I work for which was recently created to support pro-impeachment candidates.
Newspapers across the United States and beyond told readers Wednesday
about sensational new statements by a former top assistant to Colin
Powell when he was secretary of state. After interviewing Lawrence
Wilkerson, the Associated Press reported he “said that wrongheaded
ideas for the handling of foreign detainees after Sept. 11 arose from
a coterie of White House and Pentagon aides who argued that ‘the
president of the United States is all-powerful,’ and that the Geneva
Conventions were irrelevant.”
AP added: “Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. Wilkerson said that Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because ‘otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard.’”
AP added: “Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. Wilkerson said that Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because ‘otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard.’”
The stench of panic in Washington hangs like a winter fog over Capitol Hill and drifts down Pennsylvania Avenue. The panic stems from the core concern of every politician in the nation's capital: survival. The people sweating are Republicans, and the source of their terror is the deadly message spelled out in every current poll: Bush's war on Iraq spells disaster for the Republican Party in next year's midterm elections.
Take a mid-November poll by SurveyUSA: In only seven states did Bush's current approval rating exceed 50 percent. These consisted of the thinly populated states of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama and Mississippi. In 12 states, including California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Michigan, his rating was under 35.
You have to go back to the early 1970s, when a scandal-stained Nixon was on the verge of resignation, to find numbers lower than Bush's. Like Bush, Nixon had swept to triumphant reelection in 1972. Less than two years later, he turned the White House over to Vice President Ford and flew off into exile.
Take a mid-November poll by SurveyUSA: In only seven states did Bush's current approval rating exceed 50 percent. These consisted of the thinly populated states of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama and Mississippi. In 12 states, including California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Michigan, his rating was under 35.
You have to go back to the early 1970s, when a scandal-stained Nixon was on the verge of resignation, to find numbers lower than Bush's. Like Bush, Nixon had swept to triumphant reelection in 1972. Less than two years later, he turned the White House over to Vice President Ford and flew off into exile.
Since Bill Moyers retired, I watch PBS pretty rarely. I remembered why when
I saw the NOVA special on New Orleans, "The Storm that Drowned a City." It
gave some useful chronology, but in an hour-long program on the genesis and
history of the storm, they avoided raising even the possibility that the
Bush administration may have contributed to the disaster.
I waited and waited for discussion of global warming's potential role in fueling Katrina's ferocity. Finally, near the end, this science-focused show spent maybe a minute quoting a scientist suggesting a possible link, and then quickly undermined his words by having the prime expert they kept coming back to dismiss the connection. They didn't even try to link Katrina to the broader pattern of global climate change-related disasters, like increases in tornadoes, floods, droughts, and forest fires. (A year before Katrina, Swiss the world's second largest reinsurance company, warned of a potential $150 billion annual toll from these kinds of disasters). The NOVA show just kept repeating the same loop of scientists saying, we dodged the bullet before, but it's headed for us now.
I waited and waited for discussion of global warming's potential role in fueling Katrina's ferocity. Finally, near the end, this science-focused show spent maybe a minute quoting a scientist suggesting a possible link, and then quickly undermined his words by having the prime expert they kept coming back to dismiss the connection. They didn't even try to link Katrina to the broader pattern of global climate change-related disasters, like increases in tornadoes, floods, droughts, and forest fires. (A year before Katrina, Swiss the world's second largest reinsurance company, warned of a potential $150 billion annual toll from these kinds of disasters). The NOVA show just kept repeating the same loop of scientists saying, we dodged the bullet before, but it's headed for us now.