Wolves in Sheep's Clothing:Telecom Industry Front Groups

I rarely post things verbatim here, but I think this is worth noting. Long story short, the telecom industry is trying to leverage congress into making the Internet a for-profit enterprise, meaning it would become regulated largely by those same telecom companies. Below is an article of note from Common Cause.

As consumer demand for high-tech services grows, billions of dollars are at stake for telecommunications companies. Much of the battle is being waged in the halls of Congress right now, where our representatives are considering an overhaul of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

Cable, telephone and Internet industry giants are fiercely lobbying, using every tool at their disposal to gain a competitive advantage in telecom reform legislation. Some of those tools are easy to spot - campaign contributions, television ads that run only inside the Beltway, and meetings with influential members of Congress. Other tactics are more insidious.

One of the underhanded tactics increasingly being used by telecom companies is "Astroturf lobbying" -- creating front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power. Astroturf lobbying is hardly a new approach. Senator Lloyd Bentsen is credited with coining the term in the 1980s to describe corporations' big-money efforts to put fake grassroots pressure on Congress.[1] Astroturf campaigns generally claim to represent huge numbers of citizens, but in reality their public support is minimal or nonexistent.[2]

Another industry approach is to fund "think tanks" and nonprofit groups with innocuous sounding names to write reports and policy papers. These groups accept subsidies or grants from corporate interests to lobby or produce research when they normally might not, but too often fail to disclose the connection between their policy positions and their bank accounts. (This is not true of all industry-friendly think tanks; some, like the Progress and Freedom Foundation, disclose supporters on their websites.)

These sorts of campaigns are dangerous for our democracy. They deliberately mislead citizens, and they deliberately mislead our lawmakers, who are already charged with the difficult task of making sense of complex telecommunications policies. Corporations that already have significant economic clout and influence are trying to co-opt the voices of everyday citizens and think tanks, and use them to their own advantage. In the end, that practice dilutes the power of true grassroots and nonprofit advocacy.

This report attempts to shine a light on some of the telecom industry's devious Astroturf campaigns, as well as their funding of think tanks for "research" that supports the industry's agenda. Because there is so little disclosure in this area, it is difficult to get all the information necessary to issue a comprehensive report. But we have uncovered nine groups that represent a range of Astroturf and front group strategies employed by the telecom giants.

These corporate-backed groups are shamelessly working to convince Congress that there is widespread public and scholarly support for their policy proposals. Unfortunately, almost all of the debate over telecom reform is happening between telephone, cable and Internet industry interests. But it's not just dollars and cents that are at stake: It's also the ability of citizens to speak, to be heard, to have access to the information they need to govern themselves.

That's why it is so critical that citizens - the real grassroots, not industry Astroturf - have their voices heard on telecom issues. When Congress wrote the 1996 Telecommunications Act, only corporate stakeholders had a seat at the table. The result was a law that gave us less competition, higher prices and more concentrated media. This time around we must make sure that our lawmakers understand that the public interest is more important than telecom companies' bottom lines.

Telecom Front Groups & Astroturf

- Consumers for Cable Choice
- FreedomWorks
- Progress and Freedom Foundation
- American Legislative Exchange Council
- New Millennium Research Council
- Frontiers of Freedom
- Keep It Local NJ
- Internet Innovation Alliance
- MyWireless.org

Footnotes:

[1] Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Astroturf: Interest Group Lobbying and Corporate Strategy," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Winter 2004: 563. Back to report.

[2] Ibid, 573.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Feds Weigh Allowing Wiccan Symbols on Grave Markers

I decided to archive this article by Lisa Hoffman, from the Scripps Howard News Service, mostly without comment. I think the story speaks for itself, and says volumes about the equality or in-equality of the treatment of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. You would think those in question could have their beliefs honored, having given all for their country.

I will quote freely from the article below for the benefit of those who don't wish to visit the actual article or the Watch Alert archived post.

While President Bush laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, a self-declared witch embarked on a clandestine mission to mark a grave most dear to her.

It was 2003, and neo-pagan high priestess Rosemary Kooiman, 75, was determined that the gravesite of her recently departed husband, Abraham, bear a Pentacle as the symbol of the Wiccan faith the two shared.

Unlike thousands of headstones bearing a Christian cross, Jewish Star of David, Islamic Crescent and Star, or other religious emblems, Abraham Kooiman's had none because the Department of Veterans Affairs does not permit symbols of Wicca and related pagan sects to be depicted on government-issued stones or markers.

Taking advantage of the attention turned elsewhere that day, Rosemary Kooiman affixed a vinyl Pentacle - a five-pointed star within a circle - to the gravesite of her husband, a decorated World War II combat veteran.

That guerrilla action by Kooiman came as part of a decade-long battle by those of her faith to bring recognition to troops and veterans who are Wiccans and believers in other “nature” religions.

Long wrongfully tagged by the misinformed as being Satan worshippers or the casters of evil spells, they say their ancient religion is a peaceful, benign one centered on celebrating nature through rituals, meditations and other spiritual practices.

Why then, they ask, has their religion been snubbed when more than 30 others _ including such relatively obscure ones as Seicho-No-Ie, Eckankar, Sufism and Humanism _ are permitted? Even atheists have their own approved symbol, which features an atom and the letter “A” in the center.

That crusade may be nearing an end. The Veterans department said this week that it is nearing a decision on several requests for memorial markers adorned with Pentacles, including one from the widow of a National Guardsman killed in a helicopter attack in Afghanistan.

I think that about sums it up. It really would be nice if all religions were honored equally in the United States. But, of course, America has a long history of inequality.

Read full article.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Why Do Conservatives Fear 'V for Vendetta'?

I was unaware of just how detached from reality Conservatives had become until the recent hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth that arose over the release of the new movie V for Vendetta. Apparently Conservatives see this movie as a real threat to their stranglehold on the minds of average Americans. Egads! The sky is falling! Americans might see this movie and throw off their brainwashing!

Okay, so the movie probably isn't that profound. But you wouldn't know it by reading Conservative blogs. They seem to think that in the mythical war of “Hollywood vs. America” (and yes, that's an actual quote), those “latte drinking, tofu eating” Hollywood Liberals have stopped just short of working with Al-Qaeda to produce movies that undermine the moral fabric of America.

Hey. Just for a laugh, put in the prhase “latte drinking, tofu eating” into a Google search and see what comes up. It's amazing how many supposedly intelligent Conservatives quote Larry the Cable Guy in their tirades.

Well, V for Vendetta has scared the hell out of them for some reason. I actually hadn't paid much attention to the movie. It looked like it might be pretty good, and my wife and I had talked in passing about maybe going to see it, but I hadn't thought of it as a broad-side against American culture and morality. But then, I have a habit of spending my days in the real world, and typically don't have time to get all worked up about things like this.

Listen to this ranting ...

Ted Baehr, a columnist for WorldNetDaily and the president of the Christian magazine Movieguide called V for Vendetta “a vile, pro-terrorist piece of neo-Marxist, left-wing propaganda filled with radical sexual politics and nasty attacks on religion and Christianity.”

“The ending of ‘V for Vendetta’ celebrates terrorism when the movie's three most sympathetic characters carry out an evil plan to blow up England's Parliament building, one of Western Civilization's most enduring symbols of democracy and republican government with a small ‘r,’” he wrote.

Baehr also says the whole movie is “a thinly veiled attack on the War on Terror now being waged by Prime Minister Tony Blair in Great Britain and President George W. Bush in the United States” and “The rest of ‘V for Vendetta’ not only depicts Christians as evil people who oppress and torture ‘innocent’ people, it also depicts homosexuals as a persecuted, harmless minority of ‘nice’ people.”

I loved the emphasis on so-called “innocent” people and so-called “nice” homosexuals. But Baehr isn't the only one. The Internet is full of panicked blatherings by angry Conservatives. Here are a few of the nicer quotes;

“Alan Moore is a liberal and he thinks that Conservatives will turn the world to hell and that Nazi's were Conservatives.”

“Don’t go see it unless you’re ready for America, England, and Christians to come out looking bad.”

“What are the Warner Brothers studio and parent company Time Warner thinking? They've released a movie, ‘V for Vendetta,’ that is simply a pro-terrorism movie.”

You'll see the phrase “pro-terrorist” used a lot in anything that seeks to disparage the movie. And I consciously used the word “disparage.” We're not talking about people who saw the movie and didn't like it. We're not talking about bad reviews. We're talking about people who are absolutely incensed that this movie was made in the first place.

Well, whether or not I was originally planning to go see this movie, I think I have to now. Anything that can get under the skins of the Conservatives so completely warrants a look.

- Watch Alert archived post
- V for Vendetta Official Movie Site
- Original Graphic Novel at Amazon.Com

‘Impeach Bush’ Chorus Grows

It's rare that I find a a single article that sums up most of what I'm thinking on a subject. Recently I've been watching President Bush's panicked flailing as his approval ratings plummet and even his staunchest supporters in the Republican party are beginning to distance themselves from him in preparation for upcoming elections. I stumbled across an article that discusses a growing chorus calling for Bush's impeachment. I have recently told anyone who will listen that if it were not for the protection of his own political party, President Bush has already done quite enough to be impeached. This article proves that I'm probably not alone in believing this.

The Iraq War, more than anything, is what's hurting Bush. The Administration has been largely successful in glossing over its encyclopedia of other mistakes and failures, but the Iraq War simply cannot be spun. As the bodies of killed American soldiers continue to return home (2,317 killed and 17,004 wounded as of this writing, according to official numbers) and Iraq teeters ever closer to outright Civil War (Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said today that Iraq is already in a civil war), it's hard to put a positive spin on this.

According to this article, by 50% to 28% voters said that they believed that the Iraq War had weakened America’s standing in the world, and by 44% to 18% they believed that it had increased the threat from Iran. By 50% to 35% they said they would vote for a congressional candidate who favoured withdrawing troops from Iraq in a year. Doesn't look good for Baby Bush.

A compilation of state-wide polls has even more bad news for Bush. In mid-America’s Republican heartlands the president is almost as unpopular as he is nationally. In Texas, his own back yard, only 41% approve of his performance.

Wayne Slater, chief political correspondent of the Dallas Morning News, said; “People in Texas like George Bush and he was a popular governor. But even his biggest supporters are losing confidence in him. They say they don’t understand what Bush is doing.”

The only person more unpopular than Bush right now is Vice-President Dick Cheney, whose approval rating was at 18% in a recent poll. Bush joked at a Washington dinner last week: “When Dick first heard that my approval rating was 38% he said, ‘What’s your secret?’” Bush and Cheney are the only ones laughing.

President Bush's problems have emboldended some Democrats to step up and talk openly about things that have hither-to been mentioned only in whispered musings. Last week Senator Russ Feingold proposed a motion of censure against Bush for authorising the National Security Agency to wiretap Americans suspected of links to terrorism without a court warrant.

Feingold said that the party should stop “cowering” before Bush on national security issues. “If there’s any Democrat out there who can’t say the president has no right to make up his own laws, I don’t know if that Democrat really is the right (presidential) candidate,” he said.

This has led Conservatives to their typical knee-jerk reactions; damage control and redirection. And fear, of course. Nothing works better on Conservatives than their fear of losing power.

“Impeachment ... coming your way if there are changes in who controls the House right now,” Paul Weyrich, who is often referred to as the father of the Religious Right and heads the Free Congress Foundation, warned in an e-mail newsletter to supporters. “With impeachment on the horizon maybe, just maybe, conservatives would not stay at home after all.”

Others Republicans, such as blowhard Rush Limbaugh, are practically begging Democrats to “bring it on” in the hope that the conflict will make their opponents look like loony leftists who care nothing for national security. “This is such a gift,” said Limbaugh on his radio show. Well, the Conservatives hope that they can spin it as such, anyway.

A lot of people are thinking about this, though, and nothing could better illustrate how dangerous things have gotten for Bush and his cabal of Neo-Conservatives. At the moment no one dares seriously considers attempting to impeach President Bush. There are just too many risks. But it say a lot that John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, was overheard in an Irish bar on Capitol Hill talking about how satisfying it would be to impeach Bush if Congress went Democrat. He was just having a laugh, a spokeswoman rushed to explain: “Impeachment jokes in Washington are as old as Donald Rumsfeld.”

But then she said: “How are the same Republicans, who tried to impeach a president over whether he misled a nation about an affair, going to pretend it does not matter if the administration intentionally misled the country into war?”

Good question.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Personal Stories Emerge from Guantanamo

Like most moral Americans, I've long had concerns about the “detainees” that our military are holding in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Any Conservative who is reading this most certainly suffered some pain just now from their eyes rolling back into their head. This is a natural reaction for someone who knows nothing about the real world, but lives his or her life steeped in black and white ideology with no possibility of shades of grey. These are the people who can't tell you which ocean is off of the East Coast, but will presume to tell you all about terrorists and what they're trying to do to the United States.

Before I go any farther, let's make one thing clear. I hate terrorists. I despise them. Any mongrel dog who will kill innocent people to make a political point is an inhuman animal that should be dealt a swift death. The problem comes in when you try to determine who is and who is not a terrorist.

Most Americans assume that every detainee being held in Guantanamo is a terrorist. After all, they wouldn't be there if they hadn't done something, right? This view is popular among Conservative Republicans, whose worldview is absolute authoritatian and precludes any possibility of wrong-doing by the party in power. Suggesting such a thing in a authoritarian culture in itself raises questions about one's patriotism. Oddly enough, the effect is that by exercising your freedom of speech you are undermining democracy and, by extension, freedom of speech.

But I'm getting far from my original point. The main issue here are these detainees. Who are they? Where are they from? Are we to believe that the United States military is so efficient that they can round up people from small villages, in large sweeps intended to catch possible al-Qaida or Taliban operatives, and somehow determine who among these detainees are collateral damage and who are really persons of interest?

Well, the Conservatives would like us to believe that. The Bush Administration believes it with all their heart.

“They're bomb-makers,” Vice President Dick Cheney said recently in regard to the detainees in Guantanamo. “They're facilitators of terror. They're members of al-Qaida and the Taliban. If you let them out, they'll go back to trying to kill Americans.”

I'm sorry. I absolutely believe that this statement is true in regard to some of the people who were rounded up in these huge sweeps of certain areas. But to say that this is the case of each and every person being held there is ludicrous. Then again, the Republicans are not known for their reverence for fact, truth or even morality. There is no right or wrong. There is simply “us vs. them.”

My primary problem with Chaney's statement, and the general attitude supporting it (which is shared by most Conservatives), is that it's simply the demonization of a group of people. In the absence of any sort of proof of wrong-doing on the part of many of the people in Guantanamo, the Conservatives simply dub them “evil-doers” and detain them indefinitely without charging them with any crimes or affording them any access to legal counsel or the eventual finality of a trial.

This sounds like something Manuel Noriega would have done in Panama. It sounds like something Saddam Hussein would have done in Iraq. Why do the Conservatives have such a hard time understanding why some Americans would have a problem with that? We're supposed to be the good guys. We're supposed to be the shining beacon of freedom and all that's good in the world. If we will not extend the ideals of that freedom and respect for basic human dignity and, by God, right and wrong, why could we possibly expect to suddenly reserve those same rights for our own citizens in foreign lands?

In summation, I do not believe that every person being held in Guantanamo is an innocent victim who never raised a hand against the United States. However, it is very clear that Dick Cheney's assertion that “they're (all) bomb-makers,” is laughable. To the Conservatives simply being sympathetic to al-Qaida is the same as blowing up a bus full of children. Does this mean that, if someone has a photograph of Osama bin Laden in their home, they can be held accountable for the crimes of Osama bin Laden?

Using this same logic, an Iraqi cook who prepares a meal for American soldiers in Iraq is a supporter of the American invasion of Iraq, and could therefore logically be detained as an American sympathizer by Muslim extremists. They would just be using the same logic we are using.

In the real world (where Conservatives fear to venture) this hypothetical cook is simply a man who is trying to get by as best as he can, dealing with the situation he has found himself in. It doesn't much matter who is in charge or whether the man standing on the street corner with the automatic weapon is a Taliban or American soldier. His family still has to eat. They still have to have a roof over their heads.

Most of the Conservatives I know would shout bloody murder if al-Qaida operatives detained this cook from an American held sector and held him prisoner for an indefinite amount of time, with no possiblity of release, without ever telling him what crimes he is accused of committing. It would anger Conservatives that this man's basic human rights were thrown out the window simply because al-Qaida deemed him an American sympathizer, a facilitator of their enemy, and therefore an enemy himself.

But the very same thing is perfectly okay if it's done by the American military in regard to Muslims. I'm sorry folks. You can't have it both ways. This brings us right back to the main point of contention for Muslims in the Middle East where the United States is concerned. America talks out of both sides of its mouth. That's not what I was taught to believe that America was all about.

Most uninformed Americans assume that the detainees in Guantanamo were enemy combatants who were captured on the field of battle. They believe this because most Americans don't understand the nature of this conflict. They think in terms of standing armies fighting on a battlefield in World War II. Or of house to house combat in villages in Vietnam. They simply don't understand that al-Qaida has no standing army, and that the Taliban in Afghanistan conscripted men into service against their will.

For the American military, and the Conservatives especially, it's enough to live in an area where al-Qaida operates, and it doesn't matter if you served the Taliban at gunpoint. It's enough that you served the Taliban. You raghead! Now get in that cell, take off your clothes, and climb up on top of that pile of naked men. We're gonna take some pictures.

Here are some background stories of some of the detainees in Guantanamo. These Details are from transcripts of “enemy combatant” hearings involving Guantanamo detainees:

- Abdulaziz Sayer, a Kuwaiti who studied at the Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, has a degree in Islamic law. He met a man while worshipping in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, who said Sayer should go to Afghanistan to teach the Quran. He entered Afghanistan through Iran in October 2001 and did charity work. His name was found on a computer after coalition forces raided a house, but he denied belonging to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

- Jamal Alawi was accused of working for Al-Wafa, a charity with links to al-Qaida, but he said he only bought medicine for it. The United States also said he was the director of a charity considered to have al-Qaida connections. He denied being a director but said he was a representative who knew nothing about any al-Qaida links.

- Arkin Mahmud, a Chinese Muslim Uighur who traveled to Afghanistan in August 2001, was captured by the Northern Alliance as a suspected Taliban fighter. He was at the Mazar-e-Shariff prison in November 2001 when CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann was killed. He said he went to Afghanistan to look for his brothers. “If I am guilty they should come up with my punishment,” he told the tribunal. “Otherwise, do something faster to finish my case.”

- Boudella al Hajj, an Algerian clergyman, worked with orphans in Bosnia-Herzegovina for a humanitarian organization and the Bosnian army. He is accused of being in contact with known al-Qaida member Abu Zubaydah and belonging to an Algerian militant group, all of which he denied.

- Habib Noor, a resident of Lalmai, Afghanistan, with family in Saudi Arabia, is accused of owning a compound that attackers fled to after ambushing U.S. special forces and Afghan military forces. He insisted he was unaware of the incident that day, which he spent as a vendor in the Lalmai village bazaar in Khost province.

Believe it or not, I take all of these statements with a grain of salt. I don't believe that everyone is totally innocent anymore than I believe that anyone can be totally evil. But that's not the issue here. Simply put, if we cannot prove that these people have done anything, and have not been able to dig up any wrong-doing on their part after having them in custody for years, we should either release them or charge them with a crime.

Americans would be outraged if American citizens were being detained indefinitely by a foreign government. My age-old paradigm holds here. Just change around the names of the players, and you'll know all you need to know. Want to know if a black man is a racist and hates white people? Put his exact words in the mouth of a white person in regard to black people and then ask if it sounds like racism. That holds here. If it would be wrong for a foreign government to detain American citizens indefinitely without access to counsel, trial or even being charged with a crime, how can it be right for us to do the same?

Some of the less informed might read this and call me an enemy sympathizer. It's fine with me if some people are that stupid. If I identify at all with any of these people, it might be because I still remember the 2000 Presidential election, when Republican operatives rallied in Florida and pretended to be local residents, and chanted slogans about the Democrats trying to steal the election.

I still remember the 2004 Presidential election when Conservatives would shout insults at my wife in the parking lot at the Lowe's store because we had a bumper sticker for a Democratic candidate on our car.

I remember Conservatives trying to shout me down and intimidate me simply because I tried to hold a simple, personal conversation with another Democratic sympathizer in a public place.

I remember Republican goon squads being dispatched to polling places to challenge people's right to vote and intimidate others into staying away altogether. I remember Republicans preventing voting machines from being dispatched to areas where the vote might not favor them.

I suppose I'm particularly sensitive to any abuses of human rights committed by the United States because it's not so far fetched that I might find myself in that same situation some day. The Conservatives already love to smear non-Republicans with the label of being “un-American,” “terrorist sympathizer” and so on. We already have our very own American Taliban in the form of Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Falwell, working through the Republican Party to establish an authoritatian, de-facto theocracy.

You tell me. It is so far fetched to imagine that when these people's infiltration of the United States Government is completed, people such as I, American citizens, could see ourselves arrested on American soil without ever being charged of a crime, deported to some foreign country where I would be subject to torture, stripped of my human and civil rights, and denied access to counsel or even the right to a trial?

If this seems far fetched to you, consider this. It's already happened to American citizens. All they have to do is label you a terrorist sympathizer. Ask José Padilla.

- Watch Alert archived post

Bush, Katrina & The Video

Conservatives are working over-time of late trying to spin reality to something more suited to their tastes. The recent release by the Associated Press of transcripts from a videotape of meetings with FEMA officials, the President and others just before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, is being peddled as a vindication of President Bush by Conservatives and of his damnation by his political opponents and other critics.

At issue is whether President Bush lied about the content of those meetings when he told Good Morning America on September 1, 2005; “I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

Well, clearly, from not just the video but from many other sources, the possible breach of the levees in New Orleans was mentioned as a possibility on several occasions. Conservatives say that since no one said “Oh, my God! Mr. President! The levees are breaching at this very moment” that it's a matter of semantics. But however they might want to spin it, it's very clear in the video that the possibility of the levees breaking was brought up, and that this directly contradicts what President Bush said on September 1, 2005 on Good Morning America.

The one thing that Conservatives are beating into the ground is the fact that Kathleen Blanco, the Governor of Louisiana (and an outspoken critic of the federal response to the disaster) did not actually tell President Bush that the levees were breaking, and in fact told him just the opposite. However, if you read what she said, it's impossible to spin.

Governor Blanco told President Bush; “We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees. We heard a report, unconfirmed I think, we've heard that we have not breached the levee. We have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this point in time.”

That's the part that the Conservatives point out. What they don't mention is what followed.

“That could change,” she went on to warn. “In some places we have floodwater coming in ... we have water 8 to 10ft (2.5 to 3m) deep, and we have people swimming in there ... That’s got a considerable amount of water itself. That’s about all I know right now on the specifics that you haven’t heard.”

Governor Blanco's update formed part of a day of contradictory briefings, culminating in a final, firm report that the levees of New Orleans had been breached in three places which arrived in the White House shortly after midnight on August 30. A Congressional report issued last month said the White House did not seek to confirm the news until the next morning.

How could this be read in a way which would say to anyone that no one anticipated this? Blanco clearly raised the possibility of levee breaches. The transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm - and Bush was worried too.

Not enough? Try this.

White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.

“I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One,” Brown said. “He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches.”

If no one anticipated the possiblity of levee breaches, why was President Bush asking questions about that very possibility? If nothing else, wouldn't that mean that he had anticipated it?

The National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane, but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.

“I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern,” Mayfield told the briefing.

Wouldn't this little tidbit qualify as someone anticipating that the levees could be breached?

As with everything else, from education to religion to patriotism, the Conservatives have politicized this issue and are simply kicking in with the spin. It's not about what's real, what happened, what was said, or what was done. It's all about downplaying and re-directing the truth so that it doesn't leave any stinky residue upon Republicans or the President.

I think this sums up what the outrage and discomfort is all about. Following her tour of New Orleans following the breach of the levees with President Bush, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., issued the following statement concerning her call for President Bush to appoint a cabinet-level official to oversee Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts within 24 hours.

Sen. Landrieu said:

“Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.

“I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims – far more efficiently than buses – FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

“But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government.”

Not much has changed. For President Bush, the GOP and Conservatives, it's still more important that you believe what you're supposed to believe. Facts be damned.

- Watch Alert archived post

GOP rift on ports, poll dip hit Bush

I read an interesting story by Susan Page in USA Today this morning concerning President Bush's sagging approval rating and the growing rift between the Administration and usually suportive members of the GOP. Bush can blame only himself on this one. When doubts arose about the Dubai port deal and objections were raised even among staunch Conservatives and the nutjob talking heads media machine, his most ardent admirers, President Bush and the Administration decided to approach the issue in the same way they've approach everything else that people don't like. They ignored the issue, belittled the naysayers, and tried to steamroll everyone by essentially stating “well, the President thinks it's a great idea” and then trying to go ahead with it, assuming the Conservatives and the GOP would just fall in line. Surprise, surprise. They didn't.

Well, they can't claim the issue is just liberals playing politics this time. Bush has tried his bully tactics on his own party and supporters, and he's suffering because of it.

I quote liberally from the story below.

According to the article, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., vowed to “kill” that proposed sale of some cargo operations at six major U.S. seaports (and 22 ports total) to a Dubai firm. A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found overwhelming opposition to the deal.

The controversy has set up the most dramatic split to date between President Bush and Republicans on Capitol Hill. It also seems to have dented Bush's standing on handling terrorism and narrowed the Republicans' long-standing advantage over Democrats on the issue.

Armed Services Chairman Hunter, R-Calif. said he would introduce legislation to block the ports deal and to require foreign companies to divest any holdings of U.S. infrastructure critical to national security.

“I think the Republican leadership in both houses will come to the conclusion that these aren't the folks you want to operate your ports,” he said.

In January, the Bush administration approved the United Arab Emirates' government-owned DP World's purchase of a British company that controls some port operations in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami. After a congressional outcry, the administration agreed to review it.

The furor is commanding intense public interest. Three of four Americans surveyed say they are following the story closely. Overall, they oppose the deal by a nearly 4-to-1 ratio, 66%-17%. Four in 10 call the proposed sale “a major threat” to U.S. security. They also express broader concerns about seaports. While two-thirds say security at airports has gotten better since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, just 29% say that about ports. Seven in 10 say it would be “easy” for terrorists to smuggle in weapons through ports.

The furor has cost Bush dearly, says political scientist Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin. “The issue of security and terrorism was supposed to be the strength that drives Republican victories and generally has been the strongest suit of the president,” he says. “Now they don't have a strong suit to play.”

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt counters with typical Bush Adminstration propaganda, stating that President Bush's “number one priority continues to be the security of the American people.”

By 3 to 1, Americans say the port deal has sparked controversy because it's not in the best interest of the country, not because of discrimination against Arabs. Even so, 51% say the United States should trust friendly Arab and Muslim countries less than other allies.

Among other findings:

• Bush's job-approval rating is 38%, 1 percentage point above the lowest rating of his tenure. The proportion who strongly approve of him has fallen to 20%, the lowest ever. The proportion that strongly disapproves has risen to 44%, the highest ever. (Related: Complete poll results)

• The president's approval rating on terrorism is 47%, down 7 points in a month and a record low.

• The Republican Party's advantage over Democrats on terrorism has narrowed to 45%-40%.

And Vice President Cheney, the center of controversy last month when he shot a hunting companion? Cheney's approval rating — 40% — beats his boss's.

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