Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Arianna Huffington: 2005: Things I Want To Forget.   The older I get, the more I'm convinced that the key to happiness is starting every day, if you can, with a clean slate. But it should certainly be done before the start of every new year. This task is particularly easy for me this year since forgetfulness seems to come along with the Bora Bora breeze here. So here is my list of things from 2005 that I'd love to forget -- that, indeed, we'd all be better off never having cross our minds again: Bill Frist, video diagnostician. Bill Frist, stock market genius. Bill Frist. That drivers will soon have to take out a second mortgage before filling up at the gas pump. Bill O'Reilly's enemies list. That HuffPo wasn't on it (we'll try harder next year). That the president thought Harriet Miers was the most qualified candidate for the Supreme Court That Harriet Miers thought George Bush was the most brilliant man she ever met. The passage of the morally bankrupt bankruptcy bill. That the New York Times held off running the NSA spying story for over a year. Being Bobby Brown: "Hell to the no!" The note President Bush passed Condoleezza Rice asking if it was okay to take a bathroom break during a UN Security Council meeting. The missing $9 billion the U.S.-led occupation government in Iraq can't account for. Jeff Gannon, White House correspondent -- aka Jeff Guckert, hotmilitarystud.com. That there is a debate about whether waterboarding is actually torture. Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Viveca Novak: The Three Media Stooges of Plamegate The Fred Durst sex tape. That 493 U.S. soldiers have died since Dick Cheney declared the insurgency was in its "last throes". That Dick "5 deferments" Cheney was willing to go toe-to-toe with John "5 years as a POW" McCain over the issue of torture. Jean Schmidt taking to the House floor and implying that Jack Murtha was a "coward." That voters could have gone to the polls in 2004 knowing that Bush was spying on Americans, that a key White House aide was charged with felonies, and that the initial reasons for invading Iraq were bogus -- but didn't, thanks to the timidity of the mainstream media. Tom Cruise vs. Brooke Shields Tom Cruise vs. Matt Lauer Tom Cruise vs. Oprah's couch That, in a 60s flashback, the Pentagon is once again spying on the activities of anti-war activists. Hillary Clinton's shameless attempts to rebrand herself as a red state friendly Democrat -- including her decision to sign on as a co-sponsor of an anti-flag burning bill. Hillary's visit to Iraq where when she opined that suicide bombers are "an indication" of the "failure" of the insurgency, and that much of Iraq was "functioning quite well" Hillary taking on "Grand Theft Auto." Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. That Phil Cooney, an oil-industry-lobbyist-turned-White House official, did extensive rewrites on government reports to make is sound as if global warming weren't really that big a problem. Duke Cunningham's two defense contractor-provided 19th century French commodes. That Paul Wolfowitz, one of the key architects of the war, has been successfully repackaged as the warm and fuzzy poverty-fighting president of the World Bank. That thanks to Bush budget cuts, one in five military families need food stamps, or Women, Infants and Children program aid to get by. That China has become the second largest holder of U.S. debt. That Democrats chose the insipid "Together, America Can Do Better" as their new slogan. And that they actually paid a messaging team to come up with it. Drilling for oil in ANWR (I've been desperately trying to forget this one since 2001, but the White House just won't let me). Bush strumming his guitar, Condi taking in Spamalot, and Cheney shopping for luxury digs -- all while New Orleans flooded. That Bush waited five days before visiting the Gulf following Katrina. And that once he got there, he joked about his hard-partying days, congratulated Mike Brown on doing a, and promised to rebuild Trent Lott's house. Brownie's resume -- especially his stint as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. That About 40 percent of Mississippi's National Guard and 35 percent of Louisiana's -- a combined total of roughly 6,000 troops -- were unable to help out after the storm because they were in Iraq. That the first round of Katrina cleanup and reconstruction contracts went to that old gang from Baghdad: Halliburton, Bechtel, Fluor, and the Shaw Group. The Post-Katrina Quote Hall of Shame: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of levees" -- G. W. Bush "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" -- Tom DeLay to young evacuees in the Astrodome "This is working very well for them." -- Former First Lady Barbara Bush on Katrina evacuees "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god." -- Mike Brown in an email sent in the immediate aftermath of Katrina 9:00:30 PM    comment []

Stephen Kaus: Conservative Court Questions Administration's Honesty. Accusing the Bush Administration of being disingenuous is no longer a liberal pursuit. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a bastion of Right-Wing fundamentalism, today called out the Administration for duplicity. Led by former (very former now) Supreme Court candidate Michael Luttig, a three judge panel refused to transfer Jose Padilla to civilian custody and refused to vacate its previous opinion. The fourteen-page opinion makes a number of charges against the Administration. Fundamentally, it accuses the government of changing its version of the facts to suit its purposes and improperly seeking to avoid Supreme Court consideration of whether the President has the power to declare a U.S. citizen an "enemy combatant." The Court also castigates the government for at least creating the appearance that there really was not such a great need to hold Padilla as an enemy combatant and that the charges that he had entered the country might not be true. Shortly after the Court had issued an opinion on September 9th, affirming the right of the President to declare Padilla an enemy combatant and remanding the case to a lower court for a determination of the legitimacy of that designation, Padilla was abruptly indicted in Florida. The indictment "made no mention of the acts upon which the government purported to base its military detention of Padilla âo[oe] namely that Padilla had taken up arms against the United States forces in Afghanistan and had thereafter entered into this country for the purpose of blowing up buildings in American cities." The government then asked the appellate court to allow the transfer to civilian court, as may be required by a rule of Supreme Court procedure. When the Court of Appeals questioned the different facts, the government asked the appellate court to withdraw its decision entirely. In a scathing opinion, the court refused to do so. While it is couched in somewhat legalistic language, the opinion basically says that a citizen would conclude that the government is lying by changing the facts. For three and one half years, the opinion states, the government held Padilla militarily, "steadfastly maintaining that it was imperative in the interest of national security." Then, all of a sudden, the need for military custody was gone and it was fine for Padilla to be in civilian court, with lawyer and all. "Absent explanation," Judge Luttig wrote, "our authorization of Padilla's transfer under the circumstances described and while the case is awaiting imminent consideration by the Supreme Court would serve only to compound the appearance to which the government's actions, even if wholly legitimate, have inescapably given rise." But wait, there's more: "As the government must surely understand, although the various facts it has asserted are not necessarily inconsistent or without basis, its actions have left not only the impression that Padilla may have been held for these years even if justifiably, by mistake âo[base "] an impression we would have thought the government could ill afford to leave extant. They have left the impression that the government may even have come to the belief that the principle upon which it had detained Padilla for this time, that the President possesses the authority to detain enemy combatants who enter into this country for the purpose of attacking America and its citizens from within, can, in the end, yield to expediency with little or not cost to its conduct of the war against terror âo[base "] an impression we would have thought the government likewise could ill afford to leave extant. And these impressions have been left, we fear, at what may ultimately prove to be substantial cost to the government's credibility before the courtsâo[oe] .While there could be an objective that could command such a price as all of this, it is difficult to imagine what that objective would be." Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson resigned from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, reportedly because he felt he could not trust the Government's submissions. he was a liberal, so the warbloggers say he does not count. Judge Luttig is anything but a liberal. And he does not appear to believe the President either. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 8:55:53 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.