Another Democratic Pickup!

In another special election, Democrat Mark Herring won a republican seat in a blowout win in the 33rd senate seat.

With all but 2 precinct reporting, Herring has over 61% of the vote. Good win.

When Does a Lie Become Perjury?

I am not a lawyer. I don't even play one on television. What I can say about my topic is that it must be 1) under oath and 2) material to the case. I suppose that is in a court room setting.

What about lying to Congress? Is that a perjury charge?

What we now know is the chief law enforcement officer in the United States, that torture approving Geneva Convention is quaint, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez lied to congress in his confirmation testimony. Heck, the story even made it our of bloggerville and into the MSM at The Washington Post. Here is the story......

Gonzales Is Challenged on Wiretaps

Feingold Says Attorney General Misled Senators in Hearings

By Carol D. LeonnigWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, January 31, 2006; Page A07

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year ago when he appeared to try to avoid answering a question about whether the president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales where the president's authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.Gonzales said that it was impossible to answer such a hypothetical question but that it was "not the policy or the agenda of this president" to authorize actions that conflict with existing law. He added that he would hope to alert Congress if the president ever chose to authorize warrantless surveillance, according to a transcript of the hearing.

In fact, the president did secretly authorize the National Security Agency to begin warrantless monitoring of calls and e-mails between the United States and other nations soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The program, publicly revealed in media reports last month, was unknown to Feingold and his staff at the time Feingold questioned Gonzales, according to a staff member. Feingold's aides developed the 2005 questions based on privacy advocates' concerns about broad interpretations of executive power.

Gonzales was White House counsel at the time the program began and has since acknowledged his role in affirming the president's authority to launch the surveillance effort. Gonzales is scheduled to testify Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the program's legal rationale.

"It now appears that the Attorney General was not being straight with the Judiciary Committee and he has some explaining to do," Feingold said in a statement yesterday.

A Justice Department spokesman said yesterday the department had not yet reviewed the Feingold letter and could not comment.

I wonder how the right wing would be treating this story if it was about Janet Reno and Bill Clinton? I suspect the House and Senate would already be holding hearings!!

The only way oversite will ever occur is if Democrats take control of one, or both, chqambers of Congress!

LTE sent today

Sent this to the Daily Press this morning.

Editors:

I am sick of the lies, venom and bile which spew forth from the contemptible Bush administration. These incompetents, who did not heed the warnings and PDB’s predicting the imminent attack of September 11th, use that legacy of carnage wrought by their neglect like a club to beat political opponents with fear and smear.

In 4 years, the masterminds of those attacks have not been captured. Free to broadcast additional threats against us (at politically convenient times for Bush), the right wing noise machine of Rove turns these messages into political attacks on democrats and opponents of Bush’s failed and deadly policies.

This tactic worked in 2002 and 2004 and Rove confidently announces they will return to that playbook in 2006. Hiding the actual extent of their domestic spying program, Bush proclaims “if al-Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why”. Rove adds “some important Democrats clearly disagree."

Liars! Name that important Democrat. Opponents only ask for adherence to the fourth amendment constitutional protection and get a warrant. Honor separation of powers and execute the laws passed by Congress through FISA or request improvements to it. We who oppose the “unitary powers” of this power grabbing administration are the patriots. It surely is not traitor Rove who acknowledged leaking the identity of a NOC agent of the CIA for political retribution. Truth and honor are the least bloody casualties in the 5 year Bush reign of error.

Charles F. Stanton
Newport News, VA

Shannon Valentine Wins!!!!

In the race to fill the open seat for the House of Delegates, Shannon Valentine has won a convincing victory. Gov. Mark Warner called for the election after Del. Preston Bryant announced he would be joining Gov.-elect Tim Kaine’s cabinet as secretary of natural resources.

Viginia is a bit more blue tonight!!!

Listening to Smart People - Not by Bush

We all know that ideologues run the bush administration. People who do not tow the ideological line are forced out or demoted. This is especially true as it relates to the Neo-Conservatives push for the Iraq War. This is how we ended up unprepared for the death and destruction since the fall of the Sadaam regime. Iraq was a western democratic flower just waiting to be watered. The party line was quoted by Cheney; "We will be greeted as liberators" and Wolfowitz; "We will be greeted with sweets and flowers".

Part of my daily reading is the Blog (www.JuanCole.com) of Professor Juan Cole, a history professor from the University on Michigan (GO BLUE!!). Professor Cole has extensive ties to the middle east and provides a daily insight about Iraq. He is as smart as it comes and voices like his were drowned out by the rush to war. How prescient is this article, publish in January of 2003, 2 months before the start of the war. He recently republished it in response the the quote from Paul Bremmer that "Nobody saw the insurgency coming". Liar! Nobody inside the neo-con cult, that is.

Costs of War

The regional costs of a US war on Iraq are potentially great: The war will inevitably be seen in the Arab world as a neo-colonial war. It will be depicted as a repeat of the French occupation of Algeria or the British in Egypt-or indeed, the British in Iraq. These were highly unpopular and humiliating episodes. The US, even if it has a quick military victory, is unlikely to win the war diplomatically in the Arab world. Pan-Arabism has been more aspiration than reality in the past century, but this US war against Iraq might well promote the formation of a stronger regional political bloc.As a result of resentment against this neocolonialism, the likelihood is that al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations will find it easier to recruit angry young men in the region and in Europe for terrorist operations against the US and its interests. The final defeat of the Baath Party will be seen as a defeat of its ideals, which include secularism, improved rights for women and high modernism. Arabs in despair of these projects are likely to turn to radical Islam as an alternative outlet for their frustrations. The Sunnis of Iraq could well turn to groups like al-Qaida, having lost the ideals of the Baath. Iraqi Shi'ites might become easier to recruit into Khomeinism of the Iranian sort, and become a bulwark for the shaky regime in Shi'ite Iran.A post-war Iraq may well be riven with factionalism that impedes the development of a well-ensconced new government. We have seen this sort of outcome in Afghanistan. Commentators often note the possibility for Sunni-Shi'ite divisions or Arab Kurdish ones. These are very real. If Islamic law is the basis of the new state, that begs the question of whether its Sunni or Shi'ite version will be implemented. It is seldom realized that the Kurds themselves fought a mini-civil war in 1994-1997 between two major political and tribal factions. Likewise the Shi'ites are deeply divided, by tribe, region and political ideology. Many lower-level Baath Party members are Shi'ite, but tens of thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites are in exile in Iran and want to come back under the banner of ayatollahs.Internal factionalism is unlikely to reach the level of Yugoslavia after the fall of the communists, since US air power can be invoked to stop mass slaughter. But there could be a good deal of trouble in the country, and as the case of Afghanistan shows, the US cannot always stop faction fighting.

I bet bush still would not listen to him in 2006.

Bush - "Stickey, You're Doing a Heck of a Job"

I know, I know, This quote was about the now infamous bush Crony and incompetent FEMA head Michael Brown. The quote was "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" as it related to the FEMA response to Katrina.

So, who is this Stickey and is he really doing a heck of a job? You might know the answer to the former and I bet you can correctly guess the answer to the latter. Everything bush touches turns to junk, the bush reverse "Midas Touch". Stickey (I must admit to not knowing if this is the bush nickname for him) is Mr. Richard Stickler, head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), the federal agency responsible for regulating the mining industry in the United States. Since MSHA came into being, industry fatalities have fallen dramatically. Mining is a dangerous occupation and you would think that everyone would bend over backwards to make it the safest it can be. Not in the bush world of corporate control and corruption. As we know, government policy matters in peoples lives. Good governance matters. Treating is as just another insider deal and a way to profit kills.

Since this band of corporate prostitutes stole their way into power in 2000, the number of inspectors in MSHA has declined by 170. Even with fewer inspectors, the mine where 12 died was cited 21 times for buildup of combustible gases. There was an explosion in the mine. May we assume it was from a build up of combustible material? Where was the enforcement for these citations?

This leads us back to "Stickey". Who is he? Last September, Bush rewarded the coal industry by placing coal industry veteran Richard Stickler in charge of MSHA. Stickler spent about 30 years as a coal company manager with Beth Energy. Mines managed by Stickler were marked by worker injury rates that were double the national average, according to government data cited by the United Mine Workers union. How many new safety regulations have been proposed by the bush administration? MSHA has not proposed a single new mine-safety standard or rule during its tenure.

And there's a reason for that. The Washington Post reported that West Virginia coal firms raised $275,000 for Bush.

I have one basic overarching reason as to why I am a Democrat. There are certainly exceptions to this rule. Democrats want to Govern and Republicans want to Rule.

If you can grasp the difference between governing and ruling, you will understand why I am a Democrat. Unfortunately, 12 miners and their families in West Virginia have learned the hard way by paying the maximum price.