Author: rakemag

This was the hand I used to hand over the payments to the “scholars”

A month or so ago, I took the Strib to task for their uncritical printing of a letter which opined that conservative think tanks were staffed by those whose conservative views prevented their hiring by legitimate universities.

More on that topic today from Paul Krugman in the NY Times (subscription required.) As Krugman notes, Republican lobbyist extraordinare Jack Abramoff’s involvement in using the ostensibly scholarly works of these think tanks for conservative political purposes was reported before in The New Republic (subscription required.) Now it seems Abramoff was directly involoved in handling payments to think tank “fellows” at the Cato Institute and the Institute for Policy Innovation. Thank that bastion of liberalism, Business Week, for bringing that to our attention.

Anyway, as Krugman points out, Abramoff paying for “scholarship” on behalf of his clients doesn’t deviate much from the Republican norm of planting softball questions at news conferences or paying directly for op-ed pieces on behalf of Administration programs.

So, when they say, “You can’t believe everything you read,” that’s certainly the truth these days. You can believe that much.

We’ll teach those Japanese not to attack us. Let’s invade Kamchatka.

Bob Herbert in the NY Times weighs in today with a good idea, one that I advocated obliquely just yesterday: that we reinstitute the draft.

After all, if this war is really in the national interest, we should all have to fight it, no? I can hardly wait to see the sons and daughters of Bush, Cheney (oops, she can’t go because she’s a lesbian) and members of Congress in uniform. Bet we’d have the appropriations for body armor and armored Humvees then, don’t you think?

Contributing to my general malaise yesterday was making the mistake of not changing the radio channel immediately when I heard Bush talking about winning in Iraq. What really gassed me was when he declared that more Americans were killed on 9/11 than were killed at Pearl Harbor, and this was somehow justification for the Iraq war.

Here’s some news for you, George. On December 8, 1941 FDR did not start blaming any country other than Japan…(ok, maybe Germany.) And both of them really did have weapons of mass destruction.

One other observation: Japan surrendered 1365 days after Pearl Harbor. Tojo was under arrest (and would later be executed) and Hitler had been dead for four months. It has, as of yesterday, been 1548 days since 9/11/2001, and the guy behind the attack is still running around loose blowing up London, Madrid, Bali, etc.

Technorati Tags: War, Iraq

Would you give up your Starbucks latte to buy body armor?

I was walking in downtown Minneapolis today and noticed some posters from World War I in the window of a bookshop. One was made up of an illustration of a knife cutting a loaf of bread and the caption was “Save a loaf a week–help win the war”.

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of posters with that theme of shared sacrifice that were published during World War I and II.

On this 64th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack it struck me that the first reaction of our country after the attacks of September 11 was not an eloquent call for national resolve, but a reminder that if we didn’t keep spending as usual, the “Terrorists would win.”

The only people making any sacrifice today for our war are the families of the service people who are actually risking their lives in a war neither the administration nor the people of the country want to win enough to actually support in any way more meaningful than a magnetic bumper ribbon.

We do it on the cheap, sending other people’s children to die, while we ask for more tax cuts. We send too few troops with inadequate equipment into the wrong country, while we build bike trails in Minnesota, highways to nowhere in Alaska, and send millions in Homeland Security appropriations to Cheney’s home state of Wyoming just in case Al Queda decides to fly a plane into the Grand Tetons.

As long as we do that, every date since September 11, 2001 will be remembered, by me at least, as a date which will live in infamy.

Technorati Tags: war, Iraq

The secret word is “laundering”

Lots of whoopin’ and hollerin’ in Texas yesterday as a judge dismissed one of the three charges against Tom DeLay. The one dismissed was for conspiracy to violate election rules. Two charges related to money laundering were left standing.

Here’s what happened, in case you haven’t been paying attention. DeLay collected $190,000 in corporate contributions, which are illegal in Texas state campaigns. He had the money donated to Republican political action committees. Then these same Republican PACs coincidentally donated $190,000 to the campaigns of seven Republican Texas state house candidates.

As they say, if it walks like a money laundering duck, and quacks like a money laundering duck, it is a money laundering duck. The conspiracy charge was not dropped because there was no conspiracy. It was dropped because the conspiracy clause in the Texas law wasn’t in effect when DeLay pulled his stunt. Yes, even in Texas they have heard of ex post facto laws.

So, DeLay will be going to trial on this in January…and who knows for what else when investigators get to the bottom of the Jack Abramoff matter. Can we start calling DeLay a lame duck anytime soon?

Legalities aside, you just have to keep in mind what DeLay was up to with the illegal contributions to the Texas Legislature candidates. He wanted to redraw the Texas Congressional districs to ensure more Republicans in the House of Representatives. He succeeded. He was absolutely blatant and unapologetic about it. He even called his own PAC Texans for a Republican Majority, not even Texans for Good Government, or anything remotely indicative of a sense of doing what’s right instead of what’s right wing.

You can see DeLay’s map of Texas here. Take a good look at the shape of districts 15 and 19 if you want a graphic representation of what lengths he’d go to to gerrymander his majority into permanent status.

So, what’s the hierarchy’s take on this? Cheney was in Texas on Monday for a fund raising appearance with DeLay. Bush will be here on Friday to raise money for Mark Kennedy.

I don’t know about you guys, but more Republican money in Minnesota scares me. We could be just a couple of well placed contributions away from a solid Republican congressional delegation here, too. And some pretty funny looking maps.

Technorati Tags: ethics, Tom Delay, Mark Kennedy

I’m here to tell you I’m proud to be valedictorian of the Tom Delay School of Congressional Ethics.

Why put too fine a point on it? The guy who can match up Patty Wetterling with Osama Bin Laden in campaign ads probably deserves much worse than being called a slimeball. In fact, if you meet me in person, I’d be happy to oblige. (“He’s lower than…” is how it usually starts.)

We’re amused that he’s unrepentant about his connection to Bush enough that he’ll certainly tag along to get the money Bush can raise. We find it particularly hilarious that he’s piously donating convicted felon Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham’s contributions to charity.

But what really gets a chuckle is that while he’s cozying up and playing like he’s got morality all of a sudden, he arranged a campaign appearance totally funded by, you guessed it, the government (your and my taxes) in violation of Congressional ethics rules.

Inconsistent, you say? Ok, I’ll finish what I started above. Kennedy’s lower than whale shit…in the Marianas Trench.

One more thing, the guys at mnpublius.com are doing a great job of reporting…something all too rare in the blogging world. Put them on your list to check in with on a regular basis. My only criticism is I wish they’d lose the black background and white type. Too damn hard to read for our “experienced” eyes.

Technorati Tags: ethics, Tom Delay, Mark Kennedy

It says here that everything is fine and dandy

Not content to spread their bullshit just to Americans, the Bushies now are planting stories in the Iraqi press about how well it’s going over there.

Unfortunately for the administration, the LA Times isn’t for sale…at least not for the pittance the military was paying to place articles in the Iraqi newspapers, and so now you can bet Al Jazeera and other legitimate Arab news sources will achieve even more credibility for their stance on American involvement in Iraq while the press that might actually support us there will lose all legitimacy with their intended audience.

Duh.

Unfortunately, though, it’s business as usual for an administration who was caught several times planting stories in American media and still thought they could get away with it over there. Do they honestly think we’re that stupid?

Don’t answer that.