Buffalo Can Roam, Why Not My Cell?

Neocons strike again, through Paul Hoffman (Cheney's--ka-ching--one-time state director) at the Endangered Species Act through National Park policy revamps. Hoffman is one of the several Bush appointees with NO scientific background who Rebecca Roose, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) program director said "...are directly overruling and rewriting scientific documents."

From the LAT:

The potential changes would allow cellphone towers and low-flying tour planes and would liberalize rules that prohibited mining, according to Bill Wade, former superintendent at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

Larry Whalon, chief of resource management at Mojave National Preserve, said the changes would take away managers' ability to use laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act to oppose new developments in parks.

-snip-

Despite his brief tenure with the Interior Department, Hoffman is familiar with controversy. He has weighed in on issues at Mojave National Preserve, opposing the park staff and siding with ranchers and others on grazing and water issues.

Last year, he overruled the decision of the superintendent at Grand Canyon National Park to remove religious plaques on display near the South Rim. And he instructed the park to allow a book that espoused a creationist view of the canyon's formation, which runs counter to the park's own scientific-based approach and had been criticized by the park's scientific staff.

While working in Wyoming, Hoffman took the side of ranchers in opposing the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. According to Chuck Neal, a biologist based in Cody, Hoffman gave a speech in 1996 calling the Park Service decision "the equivalent of detonating a nuclear bomb in the West."

-snip-

"It's a disaster," said Denis Galvin, who was deputy director of the Park Service from 1998 to 2002 and is an expert on the management policies.
He noted that seemingly obscure issues such as the requirement for maintaining a dark night sky and preserving quiet would no longer be emphasized.

"We know how important these things are for animals," Galvin said. "Birds use the night sky to navigate and animals need to hear each other. This version, as I understand it, doesn't recognize the biological values of those things and it eliminates them as visitor amenities."

Why is Leo Strauss Running My Country?

I think it's time Americans start talking about Leo Strauss (also here) and the belief his neocon followers have about the NECESSITY of lying (Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war folks are calling Bush on it). It's time to step loudly up to those who won't call Bush a liar, instead deferring to 'respect for the office' and suggesting that he was misled. He wasn't. He hired the liars and as the boss of them, he is responsible for them and to us.

It's time to out the philosopher and the neocon core* contributors to the Project for the New American Century, PNAC (more here, here and here) and others** following him; how their continued influence will destroy this country and it's original 'Contract With America'--the Constitution--which explicitly provides for a free and informed electorate.

Democracy may be an experiment but I do not believe the framers envisioned that Americans should be lab rats in one unelected philosophical experiment, hence their provision for checks and balances to protect minorities. The current administration, under the influence of Straussian followers, is dismantling those checks and balances. All of them, when sworn into office, signed pledges to uphold the Constitution. Now they are willingly dismantling the processes the Constitution describes. They are, in practie and in fact, traitors.

Can we question THEIR patriotism now?


* Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz.

** John Agresto (former Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities, Deputy Coalition Provisional Authority, Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Baghdad Iraq), Mark Blitz (articles by Blitz on Strauss here, served as Associate Director of the United States Information Agency, where he was the United States Government’s senior official responsible for educational and cultural exchange, and as Senior Professional Staff Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations), Seth Cropsey (Caspar Weinberger’s former speechwriter), David Epstein (Office of Secretary of Defense, Net Assessment), Charles Fairbanks (Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr. - Johns Hopkins University; Ph.D. student of Bloom at Chicago, former deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of State and member of the department’s policy planning staff; foreign policy adviser to the Reagan campaign in 1980 and the Bush campaign in 1988; past member of political science faculty at Yale University and University of Toronto; a friend of Wolfowitz), Robert Goldwin (special assistant to President Ford, Resident Scholar of The Constitution Project and former Director, Constitutional Studies, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research ), William Kristol (chief of staff for Vice President Quayle), Alan Keyes (Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs), Carnes Lord (served on the National Security Council under Reagan), Michael Mablin (House Republican Conference director), Gary L. McDowell (served as adviser to Attorney General Edwin Meese III), Ken Masugi (E.E.O.C.), James Nichols (National Endowment for the Humanities under Reagan), Abram Shulsky (director of strategic arms control under Reagan, RAND Corporation, Director of Rumsfeld’s and Wolfowitz’s Office of Special Plans), Gary Schmitt (head of President Ronald Reagan’s National Advisory Board of Foreign Intelligence, now Executive Chairman of PNAC), Peter Schram (Dept. of Education under Reagan), Abram Shulsky (Director of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans), Nathan Tarcov (A leading authority on the educational writings of John Locke, scholarly interests and involvements also include Machiavelli, Rousseau, the American founders, and U.S. foreign policy, currently Professor of Social Thought, Political Science, at the College at the University of Chicago, Director of the John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory & Practice of Democracy and past member of the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State), Jeffery Wallin (director of special programs, National Endowment for the Humanities). This list is edited and updated from the original published in the article The Ivy League Dissects the Neocon Cabal.

Making People Happy

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are flying on Air Force One.

The President looks at the Vice President, chuckles, and says, "You know, I could throw a $1,000 bill out the window right now and make somebody very happy."

The Vice President shrugs and says, "Well, I could throw 10 $100 bills out the window and make 10 people very happy."

Not to be outdone, the Secretary of Defense says, "Of course, then, I could throw 100 $10 bills out the window and make a hundred people very happy."

The pilot rolls his eyes and says to his co-pilot, "Such arrogant asses back there. Hell, I could throw the three of them out the window and make 56 million people really happy."

Cindy Sheehan's War

A must read:

An alternative survior mission took hold of Americans after World War I and Vietnam. It is taking hold among Americans once again because of Iraq. Cindy Sheehan's war is for this alternative meaning. She is bringing many Americans to confront the awful fact that nearly 2,000 soldiers have died and 13,000 been wounded in a war fought for fabricated reasons. She is challenging George Bush never to use those deaths as justification for more killing. She wants the truth, nothing more than the truth, because that will stop George Bush from desecrating the dead all over again through deceit. By embracing an alternative meaning, Cindy's war suggests to young Americans and their families that they are under no obligation to keep the faith with the dead by continuing to die or kill Iraqis.

Turn On the Camera, Turn Off the Blonde

What can I say about the phenomenon of Cindy Sheehan? Well, I did go to one of the country-wide vigils Moveon organized...

In a "red" city where an anti-war protest before the invasion of Iraq couldn't get a hundred people, this very hot and humid Wednesday night drew close to 1,000 and that was just at my location; four others were held county-wide as well, and the vigil (scheduled to last only 45 minutes) ran more than three hours.

As time and the crowd dwindled away the last of four local television crews showed up to catch a lingering hundred or so die-hard protestors. Fidgeting in front of them and their peace-painted American flag a meticulously coiffed blonde in a tight pink suit and 4-inch stilletos nervously adjusted herself. The crew was ready to shoot but the protestors wouldn't stop shouting the chant, "Hell no we won't go, we don't want your fucking war"!

Finally I moved up next to the cameraman jockeying a heavy-looking shoulder unit and said, "Real news is messy isn't it? Maybe you should just turn on the camera and turn off the blonde."

Ditto Cindy.

Roberts, Abortion and Confirmation--Oh My.

I've said all along that Republicans will never overturn Roe because it's bad for their political future. Of course I've never said they wouldn't let 'something happen' to Roe, the way nasty parents let something happen to a kid's irksome pet ("Oh my, how did Felisha the Ferret get out that door?") but by what means they would accomplish that accidental death, I could never predict.

I think Roberts could be the kind of nice guy who just lets the door open, but this editorial makes a strategic point I hadn't thought of--why not use Roberts to expose the opposition's weakest political link, abortion itself:

Republicans have been brilliant strategists in their use of wedge issues in campaigns against Democrats. Now, with most Americans in support of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that essentially legalized abortion in America, Democrats may be in a position to use the wedge strategy themselves.

--snip--

There are a number of different issues on which Democrats will quiz Roberts, but it’s the abortion issue that truly stands behind the matter of his confirmation.

A week ago on the NBC news program Meet the Press, moderator Tim Russert set the stage this way: "President Bill Clinton was very clear as a candidate ... that he would only appoint people to the court who would uphold Roe vs. Wade. Why don’t Republicans step forward and say, ‘We’re going to put people on the bench who are going to overturn Roe vs. Wade?’"

Former New York Times columnist William Safire responded with the essence of simplicity: "Because that would be foolish politically, and I think there’s a lot of practicality going on."

Since he first came on the national scene, President Bush has been cagey about his view of legal abortion. Although he’s expressed his view that he’s opposed to it, he’s stopped short of actually calling for an outright ban.

-snip-

But there’s a reality that Bush understands: most polls show Americans largely in favor of abortion rights.

When you know your parents are plotting against your favorite pet, you ensure you have the only key to a very thick lock on the cage...

Irrational Behavior

That I spend a ridiculous amount of my time commenting on right-wing sites could be attributed to two things. One, I am a masochist. The other, I am trying to figure out just what the hell makes these folks tick. After months of such 'research' I have found out what makes many of them tick and it ain't good; religion. And not just the old-time religion of my Republican parents--the kind that let you live and let live--oh no. Many, too many, use Biblical injunction as evidence for their reasoning on matters as significant as reproduction rights to economics. The result is that when pushed to supply "evidence" backing their opinions, they resort to everything from quoting scripture, to quoting winger ideologues (whose reasoning also includes scripture or other ideologues) to personal attacks. In short, nothing useful to a rational person is backing up most of their opinions.

In fact, these folks live to vote so their irrational prattle will be codified, creating self-justifing evidence for their opinions. Already their favorite evidence of being "right" is having won the White House, Senate and Congress and although not an argument proving their beliefs are sound (and some of us are still out on just whether they 'won' the White House or not) it creates a hard point to dismiss.

Today Alternet has published an article on a similar topic. Although their piece goes more to the matter of White House backing of Intelligent Design in combination with the science community's silence on the same, they reiterate what I am finding myself--those influences are contributing to a "fourteenth century" atmosphere in America and its developing policies. I've snipped the points I find most chilling below:

According to several recent polls, 22 percent of Americans are certain that Jesus will return to earth sometime in the next fifty years. Another 22 percent believe that he will probably do so. This is likely the same 44 percent who go to church once a week or more, who believe that God literally promised the land of Israel to the Jews, and who want to stop teaching our children about the biological fact of evolution.

As the President is well aware, believers of this sort constitute the most cohesive and motivated segment of the American electorate. Consequently, their views and prejudices now influence almost every decision of national importance.

Political liberals seem to have drawn the wrong lesson from these developments and are now thumbing scripture, wondering how best to ingratiate themselves to the legions of men and women in our country who vote mainly on the basis of religious dogma.

More than 50 percent of Americans have a "negative" or "highly negative" view of people who do not believe in God; 70 percent think it important for presidential candidates to be "strongly religious." Because it is taboo to criticize a person's religious beliefs, political debate over questions of public policy (stem-cell research, the ethics of assisted suicide and euthanasia, obscenity and free speech, gay marriage, etc.) generally gets framed in terms appropriate to a theocracy. Unreason is now ascendant in the United States -- in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.

and most importantly this...

The only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts. Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us. Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious faith.

Rich Liberals Vow to Fund Think Tanks

For over a year Democrats have been wringing their hands about strategy--Republicans have it and they don't. Daily, liberal talk radio hosts field listeners' plaintive cries of 'Where are the big money people, why don't they help'? Well, looks like Help is on the way:

"At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute $1 million or more apiece to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up over the past three decades."

Tkisting@aol.com

Hey, here's my latest hate mail from a fan. His or her email address is the title. Why don't you all drop him or her a little hello? Clearly, this one's looking for some liberal L-U-V...

Fucking liberal piece of shit loser, Newsflash: Bush won, get the fuck over it, deal with it.

This country is predominately conservative, you take out 10-15 of the largest liberal loser welfare pits (cities) and Bush wins a 50 state landslide.

I am not a religious nut job, that is only a tiny percentage of the party. I can guarantee in 2006, republicans will add to the majority in both house of Congress, and their isn't a fucking thing YOU or any of you loser liberals can do about it.

John Roberts will OVERWHELMINGLY WILL BE CONFIRMED AND REINQUIST WILL SOON BE REPLACED WITH A YOUNGER EVEN MORE CONSERVATIVE JUDGE that will roll back the damage of the liberal agenda of the last 20-30 years

You cowards need to get a life and put as much energy into actually working and contributing to society as spending as much time as you losers do complaining and looking for government handouts

So fuck off, Keep losing elections and crawl under a rock while our President and brave soldiers keep your cowardly ass safe

[UPDATE 8-4-05]

Angry hardly? LOL loser Make 250 grand a year, own a 600 grand house, money in the bank to do what I want, when I want!! Never ever have to worry about whether I can afford to buy something, I just buy it

In 2006 Republicans will achieve a 60 seat super majority in Senate, and greater control of House.

Fucking coward, get a fucking life, then a job

Just like in 2004 when you were sure that democrats were gonna take back the house and Senate, and presidency. But republicans added to their lead, despite all you loser liberals with the get out the voter fraud efforts. LOL, if you were gonna take back congress it was then loser

Again, I think for myself, I do not need MoveOn.org, Michael Moore or some America hating liberal to tell me how to think. I will say it for the 1 thounsenth time, people die in war, tragic but true, your point with this drivel u send me? so grow up and support the President to help minimize the casualties. Its pretty sad when the United States has to fight this war on two fronts, the terriorists and the liberals. Grow up, realize and accept that BUSH and the Republicans won and accept it as there is nothing you fucking liberal losers can do about it

Frankly, I don't think my hate mail writing friend here realizes how amazingly happy I am when I get mail like this--I'm thinking blood pressure up to say, what 160? Heart attack on the way? One less winger. Ah, I love the smell of cortisol in the morning, it smells like...victory.