Jack Ryan takes a break from swinging to defend marriage

I have stopped laughing long enough to write this. No...wait..

Ok. Get this.

Jack Ryan, the GOP candidate for Senate out of Chicago, has issued a statement on Defense of Marriage. Now, when a guy embroiled in a messy divorce because he tried to make his wife perform in sex clubs defends marriage, you just have to listen.

I believe that we are all equal before God and should be before the law. Homosexuals deserve the same constitutional protections, safeguards, and human dignity as every American, but they should not be entitled to special rights based on their sexual behavior.

I am not sure, but I think he is saying that gay people have just as much right to a sham marriage as he does.

What a schmuck.

Is it any wonder he is getting stomped by Barack Obama?

A cleaner, brighter history

Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida and a bunch of other democrats have asked the UN to monitor the 2004 Presidential elections. As an idea, it has its merits. It also has as much of a chance of actually happening as say, Bush presiding over a gay wedding.

Though we aren't likely to see blue helmets at our polling stations in November, the lawmakers are dead serious about their central point. The 2000 Florida election process was deeply flawed. The US Commission on Civil Rights' report on Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election puts it this way:

The Commission’s findings make one thing clear: widespread voter disenfranchisement—not the dead-heat contest—was the extraordinary feature in the Florida election.

Unless attention is paid to maintaining data integrity, keeping the roads clear, leashing the Florida State Patrol and all the other dirty dealing designed to keep Blacks and Hispanics from casting their votes, it will happen again.

The GOP doesn't want to hear it. Today the House censured the remarks of Rep. Brown:

I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again," Brown said. "Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world.

Naturally, the vote for censure fell along party lines.

I don't expect the GOP to fess up. But is their skin so thin they have to remove debate from the record? Me thinks they doth protest too much.

This Land is Your Land, animated madness

Check out this funny, funny animated skewering of both sides from Jib Jab. oy. (Thanks to Bushout)
 
 

More of the same

You have to watch it on Friday. That is usually when politicians release bad news. The figure everybody is making weekend plans and won't notice if something crummy slips out of Washington.

Amidst reports that the US may be hiding prisoners around the globe, new cases of prisoner abuse are being uncovered. See:

Allies reel as abuse row grows

Unfair and unbalanced, thy name is FOX

Wonkette has posted about 30 memos from FOX News producer John Moody. It is a veritable text book for skewing news.

I can't think, but I can take a test

Today I read GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie's blog. He leads with an Associated Press story on the progress of the states in complying with No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The Education Commission of the States reports significant progress in state attempts to adhere to NCLB requirements. According to the report, "Most states have met or are at least on the way to meeting 75 percent of the major requirements of the No Child Left Behind law."

While the report is not exactly glowing, it does indicate substantial state progress towards national compliance with NCLB's rigorous accountability and testing standards. Should the states progress in implementing the standards and assessments portions of the legislation be regarded as a success for No Child Left Behind?

Yes and no. The results show that states are struggling valiantly to comply with the legislation. They show nothing about the relative value of the policy itself. In fact, though most states have implemented standardized testing procedures that will give them a snapshot of student achievement levels, they do not have plans for achieving the Adequate Yearly Progress goals, or for installing Highly Qualified Teachers in core curriculum. According to the report, "Not a single state is on pace to fulfill the law's requirement of having a measurable way to ensure a highly qualified teacher will be in every core academic class in 2005-06."

Federal funding for state education hangs in the balance. This has caused many States to cast a calculating eye on the feasibility of continuing to participate in the mandate. Minnesota's Office of the Legislative Auditor reviewed NCLB in February. Among its major findings was:

While most education officials in Minnesota embrace the underlying goals of NCLB, many school district superintendents believe that NCLB is costly, unrealistic, and punitive.

and,

Even if Minnesota students’ math and reading test scores improve significantly in coming years, there will likely be large increases in the number of schools failing to make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP), as defined by NCLB. More than 80 percent of Minnesota elementary schools would not make AYP by 2014, according to a simulation conducted for our office, and many of these schools would face the prospect of restructuring or other serious sanctions prescribed by NCLB

This would result in potentially massive school failure. Minnesota is not alone in this.

USA Today reports that 9 states are pursuing legislation that would allow them to opt out of NCLB. They list two reasons, one is ideological and the other practical. On the ideological level, many republicans view NCLB as an unwelcome intrusion by the federal government into local control of education. However, the largest barrier to success for NCLB may be that it is based on an unworkable business model: States face financial sanctions for failing to meet impossibly high standards. Why would any good businessman or policy maker spend money to lose money?

Aside from the ideological and business issues, there is the open question of whether NCLB will actually result in a more well-rounded, better educated graduate. Fairtest says that although the legislation lays out worthy goals, the value of the education it delivers is reduced:

The gauge of student progress in most states will be reduced to reading and math test scores. Many schools will narrow instruction to what is tested. Education will be damaged, especially in low-income and minority schools, as students are coached to pass a test rather than learning a rich curriculum to prepare them for life in the 21st century.

There is broad concern across the political spectrum over a law that Jim Dillard, the Republican chairman of Virginia's House Education Committee calls,"utopian nonsense.", NEA members are writing and releasing protest songs and educational organizations like Fairtest question the kind of graduate this brave new world might produce.

Even so, the news that the states are complying with NCLB squares with the Republican vision of an electorate in unthinking ideological lockstep with its platform. For Gillespie and the rest of the leadership in the process of foisting this destructive policy on our children, evidence of conformity equals successful policy.

Dance your might away

It is not a good idea to allow nations to be controlled by terrorists and thugs. Kidnapping and executing civilian aid workers can only be considered terrorism. The Phillipines is mulling withdrawing its troops early in capitulation to terrorist demands. The Whitehouse is urging them not to waver. I agree with the Whitehouse in this, however much I detest the fact that we are in Iraq in the first place. Still, the whole hostage opera is moot and only serves to advertise fringe terrorist groups and obfuscate critical issues that should be rightly placed before the nation.

The kidnapping spree in which Iraqi criminals are engaging is only partially related to the insurgency. Chris Albritton, of Back to Iraq fame, has a new piece in Time Magazine entitled, How To Free A Hostage. Albritton writes:

A bewildering variety of groups — some seeking money, some pushing a terrorist agenda — have kidnapped dozens of foreigners since the end of the war last year. The hostages then become commodities in a deadly human trade that links street gangs to local mafias to insurgents like Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda — linked jihadi thought to be behind many of the recent terrorist attacks in Iraq. Victims are sold up the chain, and each handler scores thousands of dollars, money used to finance gun running, drug smuggling and the insurgency.

When related to recent hostage killings, including today's execution of one of two Bulgarian truck drivers captured by one of the active insurgent groups, it becomes clear that capitulating to the the demands of the kidnappers on a national level only causes more kidnappings.

In point of fact, the kidnappers are playing us like a fiddle. As usual, the US media is the only too happy to dance the jig. Every hostage taking, every brutal beheading is served up in technicolor with vivid warnings about graphic content. Beware the terrorist bugaboo! He will kidnap you in your sleep! Witness the evil-doers and freedom-haters! This of course gains the terrorists maximum exposure for the least cost, and denys US news consumers substantive information about the real strategic consequences of our action in Iraq.

The real issues are not that Iraq is chaotic and unsafe. Everybody knows that. The real issues are that the insurgency is roughly 4 times as big as we thought it was, that top military leaders think there is no military victory to be found in Iraq, and that the insurgency is metastasizing into a quasi-nationalist-Jihadist movement that is taking root in several 'Little Falloujas'.

Blitzer in the Bush Leagues

Watching Wolf Blitzer on the Daily Show tonight felt the same as watching an alcoholic deny a drinking problem from a jail cell after being arrested for the 20th DUI.

John Stewart was his usual glib, insightful self. He is, bar none, the best political interviewer working right now. He asked Blitzer "...In light of the Senate Report on the integrity of CIA Intelligence in the run up to the war, did the press corps fail to investigate the intelligence because it was the victim of group think or, in another word, retardation?"

After the laughter died down, Blitzer answered, "It was group think." He then rattled off all of the people and institutions he sourced before he did his shows from Kuwait. Guess what: They were all from the administration-- Condoleezza Rice, Bush, the CIA, Members of Congress, Senators. "I mean everyone was convinced there were stockpiles of WMD in Iraq," Blitzer concluded.

Now a highly paid professional blogger, such as myself, would do things a little differently than Wolf. I might check the veracity of the story I was being told. I might wonder if there was a hidden agenda. I might try to seek out and verify an opposing story. I might wonder if there were people who thought that, maybe, just maybe, the existence of WMD in Iraq couldn't be proven. People like weapons inspectors Hans Blix and David Kay, for example. I might be skeptical.

I wonder if it ever occurred to Blitzer and the rest of the overpaid journalistic dilettantes to actually do their jobs. At least the New York Times had the decency to apologize for it's complicity in funneling lies to the American public. One would think media stars such as Wolf Blitzer would have the self-awareness and the integrity to examine their own role in the same. How do you get a story so utterly and completely wrong and continue to think your sources are any good? How can you stick your naked face on TV every day and give information that is absolutely false and not be really, really pissed off at the people that used you so badly?


How, Wolf, can you not go to great lengths to explain how and why you were played for such a fool?

Are you still in group think mode or are you just retarded?

Vigilance is everything

I have friends that are into conspiracy theories. Some have advanced the idea that our democratic republic is ripe for quick conversion into a totalitarian state. They say it could happen. The terrorists attack during the election season. Bush cancels the election. Martial law is declared. For reasons of national security Bush places himself in charge indefinitely, or at least until he can successfully rig the next election in his favor.

Ridiculous, I say. But then, along comes a meaningless announcement of terrorist activity. An announcement like all the others... We have no information, but Al Qaeda is planning to attack.

The announcement is followed by this:

U.S. Mulling How to Delay Nov. Vote in Case of Attack

According to the article:

U.S. counterterrorism officials are looking at an emergency proposal on the legal steps needed to postpone the November presidential election in case of an attack by al Qaeda, Newsweek reported on Sunday

The media must ask hard questions about this. It must not sit passively by and report on the destruction of the American political system. I demand strong incessant questions: Who is making this proposal and why would they make it? Who reaps the rewards of a canceled election?

We should not settle for euphemistic platitudes as a weak substitute for hard answers. There is essentially no excuse for even considering interrupting our unbroken stream of national elections. If we allow a gradual erosion of our civil liberties to solidify into a totalitarian state-- however temporary -- the terrorists win.

The real warning is hidden in Ridge's announcement. The Bush administration is laying the groundwork for maintaining power. They are telling us what they will do. Do not be surprised if this comes to pass. The incessant, active observation by the US citizenry is the only thing that can stop it.

Tell us why you lied, Bush

The Washington Post is reporting on how the CIA skewed its reports on Iraqi weapons programs during the runup to the war.

The bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's report on the US intelligence comunity's prewar intelligence assessments on Iraq could not be more clear. In conclusion after conclusion, it delineates just how the CIA, led by George Tenet and a series of shadowy analysts, stacked the deck, witheld key evidence, faked test results, and gamed the weapons inspectors, the UN and the American public.

This is very, very disturbing news. But the central question about this travesty remains unanswered. The central question is: Why? Why did the nation's top leaders force feed the world an absolute pack of lies.

Most of the media is focusing on the CIA which "...knowingly skewed its reports to fit its convictions about an Iraqi nuclear threat," according to the post article. Let us hope that the US media does not abdicate its responsibility to ferret out the truth.

Why should anyone simply accept on face value the proposition that it is the CIA's convictions to which pre-war intelligence was custom fitted? Does anyone really believe that Tenent and his underlings cooked up this scheme by themselves? I do not. I challenge all reporters to ask the following question, again, and again, and again:

President Bush, who told the CIA to falsify intelligence in order to build the case for war?