The Democratic Party Plan - the US Constitution

It's an oldy but a goody. It is tried and tested. Its past success is beyond doubt. It is called the Constitution of the United States.

Yep, that is the plan the Democratic Party should suggest every time a talking head suggests that they have 'no plan' (and Bush does?).

What does this plan entail? For one thing it requires independent branches of government. And those independent branches act as checks and balances on each other. We haven't had that since Clinton was in office, and hence... well, you know the rest.

Why are independent branches of government important? Couldn't the Democratic party acted as a check on the GOP all this time? Well, I for one will agree that individual Democrats could have taken a more agressive stance, but institutionally speaking it makes all the difference in the world if you are in the majority as opposed to the minority. Majority status allows you to set the agenda, allows you to realistically bargain with other branches, and perhaps most important allows you to use subpoena's to conduct real hearings designed to air the truth.

Under the GOP rubberstamp Congress, we have all been treated like mushrooms - kept in the dark and fed manure. The best aspect of the Constitutional plan is securing the ability to pierce the veil of lies and talkshow blathering and finally get some true idea of how bad our situation is. After all, the first rule in emergency management is to assess the situation in order to properly set priorities.

Pundits who ask the Democratic Party to come up with a comprehensive plan should be reminded that most of us - including the members of Congress - simply do not know what the true situation is. How does one plan in such an environment? First, by ferreting out the truth. A good start towards that goal would be by actually honoring the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution.

Vaffanculo!

Photographer: Herald got it right

...Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.

“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.

The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.”...

news from The Times

Times Online: DOZENS of the world’s cities, including London and New York, could be flooded by the end of the century, according to research which suggests that global warming will increase sea levels more rapidly than was previously thought.

The first study to combine computer models of rising temperatures with records of the ancient climate has indicated that sea levels could rise by up to 20ft (6m) by 2100, placing millions of people at risk.

Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk

File this under O for Obvious

Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk: Older women who say talk shows and soap operas are their favorite TV programs tend to score more poorly on tests of memory, attention and other cognitive skills, researchers reported Monday.
That doesn't mean that daytime television is a brain drain, they say, since it's not clear that there's a direct relationship between the two.

But the findings do point to some association between TV choices and intellectual function, and that could prove useful in evaluating older people for cognitive decline...

TheStar.com

TheStar.com - How to spot a baby conservative: Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

At least, he did if he was one of 95 kids from the Berkeley area that social scientists have been tracking for the last 20 years. The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals....

>Cue whining about this study and egg-headed scientists from the Right.<

Independent Online Edition

Climate change 'irreversible' as Arctic sea ice fails to re-form

Nieman Watchdog

Iraq through the prism of Vietnam: The Vietnam War experience can’t tell us anything about the war in Iraq – or so it is said. If you believe that, trying looking through this lens, and you may change your mind....

By Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Tom Engelhardt

Can You Say "Permanent Bases"?...Sometimes, when trying to cut through a veritable fog of misinformation and disinformation, it helps to focus on something concrete. In the case of Iraq, nothing could be more concrete - though less generally discussed in our media - than the set of enormous bases the Pentagon has long been building in that country. Quite literally multi-billions of dollars have gone into them. In a prestigious engineering magazine in late 2003, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was already speaking proudly of several billion dollars being sunk into base construction ("the numbers are staggering"). Since then, the base-building has been massive and ongoing....

And replace 'war' with 'security,' 'privacy' with 'loyalty' and 'borrow and spend' with 'fiscal conservative.' 

And the apology was forthcoming on February 17th. 

Update: Dick Cheney - anatomy of moral cowardice

The Poor Man Institute

Keyboard Kommando Komix

Gitmo tactics coming home

Jail Inmates Were Stripped to Deter Riots - Los Angeles Times

More than 100 inmates at a Los Angeles County jail were ordered to strip naked, had their mattresses taken away and were left with only blankets to cover themselves for a day as Los Angeles Sheriff's Department officials tried to quell racially charged violence that has plagued the jail system for nearly two weeks.

The tactics — defended Friday by jail officials as necessary to stop the fighting — were immediately criticized as dehumanizing and highly inappropriate by civil rights activists and the Sheriff's Department's independent overseer.

"I have no problem taking privileges away…. It comes to a different level of basic human rights if you take away clothing and dignity," said Michael Gennaco, chief of Sheriff Lee Baca's office of independent review. "I don't know if it is consistent with the sheriff's core values."

Swing State Project

Here is a link to a good synopsis of why the Dems need to contest every congressional seat.

Swing State Project: CO-05: Hefley (R) Retiring - Band of Brothers' Fawcett Ready to Go: "Hefley's retirement is the perfect illustration of why you run candidates in every district, no matter how hopeless the territory might seem at first blush."

Two degree rise Fahrenheit

Independent Online Edition > Environment:
A crucial global warming "tipping point" for the Earth, highlighted only last week by the British Government, has already been passed, with devastating consequences.

Research commissioned by The Independent reveals that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold, set down by scientists from around the world at a conference in Britain last year, beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable.

The implication is that some of global warming's worst predicted effects, from destruction of ecosystems to increased hunger and water shortages for billions of people, cannot now be avoided, whatever we do. It gives considerable force to the contention by the green guru Professor James Lovelock, put forward last month in The Independent, that climate change is now past the point of no return.

The danger point we are now firmly on course for is a rise in global mean temperatures to 2 degrees above the level before the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.

At the moment, global mean temperatures have risen to about 0.6 degrees above the pre-industrial era - and worrying signs of climate change, such as the rapid melting of the Arctic ice in summer, are already increasingly evident. But a rise to 2 degrees would be far more serious....

Professor Burke added: "We have very little time to act now. Governments must stop talking and start spending. We already have the technology to allow us to meet our growing need for energy while keeping a stable climate. We must deploy it now. Doing so will cost less than the Iraq war so we know we can afford it."

Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him

Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him: The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Post-Katrina Promises Unfulfilled

Post-Katrina Promises Unfulfilled: Nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans, President Bush's lofty promises to rebuild the Gulf Coast have been frustrated by bureaucratic failures and competing priorities, a review of events since the hurricane shows.

While the administration can claim some clear progress, Bush's ringing call from New Orleans's Jackson Square on Sept. 15 to "do what it takes" to make the city rise from the waters has not been matched by action, critics at multiple levels of government say, resulting in a record that is largely incomplete as Bush heads into next week's State of the Union address.

mail fraud

No that is not a reference to Karl Malone, but to the recent increase in postage rates. Did you know that the rates were not increased in order to cover the costs of delivering the mail?

The USPS has publicly stated that no increase was necessary.

Instead, postal rates were raised on the political orders of the ruling Rethuglican party in legislation passed two years ago demanding an 'escrow fund.'

The increase follows legislation requiring the Postal Service to put $3 billion in an escrow account this year.

Why the hell does the USPS need a $3,000,000,000.00 escrow fund you ask? Well... it doesn't. But the Rethugs have had such an easy time of raiding other lock boxes and monies set aside that they thought they'd help themselves to more via the postal service.

In short, the postal increase is a Rethuglican regressive tax designed to help fund BushCos gutting of the income tax on the super-rich. This from the party that supposedly frowns upon government 'picking winners and losers.'

SSA told to stop stealing from retirees

An issue revisited

Press Release: December 8, 2005 For Immediate Release
Federal Court Strikes Down Social Security Administration Policy Suspending Benefits for Elderly and Disabled
Contact: Gerald A. McIntyre, National Senior Citizens Law Center 3435 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 2860, Los Angeles, CA 90010
Office: (213) 639-0930, ext. 300 Email: gmcintyre@nsclc.org
Jennifer J. Parish, Director of Criminal Justice Advocacy, Urban Justice Center
666 Broadway, 10th floor, New York, NY 10012 Office: (646) 602-5644 Cell: (646) 872-1686 Email: jparish@urbanjustice.org
Bill Lienhard, Project Director, Mental Health Project, Urban Justice Center
Office: (646) 602-5667 Cell: (917) 685-8181 Email: blienhard@urbanjustice.org
Los Angeles Times Article Attached

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled this week that it is illegal for the Social Security Administration (SSA) to suspend the benefits of elderly and disabled Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security beneficiaries whenever there is an outstanding felony warrant. The ruling, if it is not appealed, will affect thousands in New York, Connecticut and Vermont, most of them people with serious mental impairments who have no other source of income, who are often at risk of homelessness and whom law enforcement authorities have no interest in pursuing. “It leaves SSA with the dilemma of having one policy for the states of the Second Circuit and another for the rest of the country,” said Gerald McIntyre of the National Senior Citizens Law Center.

The decision came in the case of Felipe Oteze Fowlkes, at the time a Schenectady, NY resident, whose benefits were suspended in 2000 under a law that allows benefits to be suspended when a person is “fleeing to avoid prosecution” for a felony. SSA applies this provision with a broad brush and suspends benefits whenever there is an outstanding felony warrant regardless of whether or not the individual is aware of the charges. In Mr. Fowlkes’ case, it was two Virginia warrants, one for petty larceny and another for a 1995 voter registration offense, that were the basis for suspending his benefits. He had never been informed of either charge. The Court ruled in Mr. Fowlkes’ case that the plain meaning of the word “fleeing” requires intent and that, therefore, there must be a finding of intent before benefits can be suspended under this provision.

In each case where this suspension provision is applied, law enforcement authorities have already been notified where to find the individual but have decided not to seek the person’s arrest or extradition. Thus, in most cases, the underlying offenses are minor and often quite old.

The court ruling comes one day after SSA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which would enshrine in a formal regulation its policy of suspending benefits whenever there is an outstanding felony warrant. With the Second Circuit decision, it is now clear that this proposed regulation cannot be put into effect in New York, Connecticut and Vermont. It leaves SSA with the dilemma of having to decide whether to revisit its irrational and inhumane policy or to instead try to proceed with one policy for the states of the Second Circuit and another for the rest of the country.

Here is the December LA Times update on the issue

The Raw Story

Time: FBI email says Abramoff case 'far from over'

Abramoff Viewed as ‘The Middle Guy,’ Official Involved in Probe Tells TIME, Suggesting There Are Bigger Targets in Their Sights

CNN.com

Drunken Santas run riot in Auckland - Dec 17, 2005 A group of 40 people dressed in Santa Claus outfits, many of them drunk, went on a rampage through Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, robbing stores, assaulting security guards and urinating from highway overpasses, police said Sunday.

The rampage, dubbed "Santarchy," began early Saturday afternoon when the men, wearing ill-fitting Santa costumes, threw beer bottles and urinated on cars from an overpass...