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POPSUnemployed, and Skewing the Picture ...you can be sure of one thing: Politicians will be quick to point out that joblessness remains low by historical standards. “Five percent is still a low unemployment rate,” Ed Lazear, the chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, said recently. “It’s below the average for the last three decades.” The president and Senator John McCain also recently noted that unemployment remained low. Senators Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, both Republicans, have said the economy continues to be at “full employment.” Two Democratic governors, Christine Gregoire of Washington and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, have bragged that their states recently recorded their lowest unemployment rates in history. Statistically, all this is true enough. But it’s also deeply misleading.
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POPSName that party Slideshow version ABC makes it easy. Instead of having to go search for media bias, ABC does all the work in a nice pretty slideshow format. The official numbers go like this. Of the 13 sex scandals, 12 involve elected officials. Of those, 7 are republican and 5 are democrat. And if you counted you know that they mention party only once for the democrats (20%), but they mention it in six of the clips involving republicans (86%).
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POPSShame on Clinton, McCain, & Obama The Senate narrowly passed the intelligence authorization bill which required the CIA to follow the Army Field Manual in interrogations (which forbids waterboarding). McCain, a supposed torture opponent, voted against the bill. Clinton & Obama, also alleged torture opponents, abstained. See righthand's clip for a discussion of the bill itself.
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POPSSenators tried to suppress CIA testimony in Plame affair Jim Marcinkowski is a former CIA official who trained with Valerie Plame. He wanted to testify before Senate committees about the exposure of Plame. After he testified before the Republican-led Senate Select Intelligence committee, Pat Roberts declared his testimony secret, so he couldn't testify before the Democratic Policy Committee. Marcinkowski, the lawyer and deputy city attorney, was stunned. "I sat on the park bench, in a daze. I didn't know what the hell to do. Now it hits me, that is why the Senate Select Intelligence Committee had scheduled their testimony for the day before the Senate Democratic public hearing. Until that happened we didn't hear shit from the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. They slapped the secrecy thing on it, that was their intention," to try to prevent Valerie's CIA colleagues from testifying publicly about what had happened to her, and why it was a betrayal of everyone in the CIA.
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POPSThe Surge Succeeds They'd rather rely on their own ideas rather than listen to the military, just one of the reasons democrats should never be trusted in issues of national defense.
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POPSWhere Were Vocal Conservatives When It Mattered? Rod Dreher is a conservative writer for Beliefnet. Few of us stood up to Bush when he took us to this disastrous war in Iraq. Few, if any, stood up to him over his foolish support for Rumsfeld, long after it became obvious what a disaster Rumsfeld was. Few, if any, stood up to him over his amassing of power in the executive branch. Few, if any, stood up to him on the spending....
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POPSHow Republican Senators broke their promise to investigate Iraq intelligence First Roberts said publicly that he'd "try" to have Phase II available to the public before the 2004 election. He didn't. Roberts then gave his word, in writing, that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would have a draft report on controversial "public statements" from administration officials. That didn't happen either.Then Roberts indicated that he might just give up on the second part of the investigation altogether, because, he argued, there was nothing left to learn. Under pressure to release Phase II before the 2006 elections, Roberts agreed to release subparts of the report, which documented...nothing about the White House's mistakes. One reason why we should be skeptical of Republican reports from the Senate Intelligence Committee. In this instance, they were shamefully negligent in overseeing the executive branch.
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POPSSenate Report: Intelligence Predicted Iraq Problems in 2003 It's amazing what we're finding out now. The investigation reviewed assessments from a number of agencies but focused on two January 2003 papers from the National Intelligence Council: "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq" and "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq." Those papers drew from expertise within a number spy agencies and were distributed to scores of White House, national security, diplomatic and congressional officials - most of whom were listed in 81 pages of the Senate report. The full report (PDF) .
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POPSBETRAYED I am sickened by those elected officials who ignore their constituents. Especially Clinton & Obama who cast their "nay" votes by the time it made no difference.
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POPSPentagon Puts Handcuffs on Congressional Testimony Once again the Bush Administration attempts to make an end-run around checks and balances and keep congress in the the dark. I, as a citizen, cannot understand how they believe they can get away with this. Congress, as the voice of the people can also legitimately be considered the ears of the people. WE control and empower the Pentagon. THEY DO NOT CONTROL US. Those they seek to muzzle are, effectively, US, as every soldier is a citizen first. When Congress yanks the chain, the Pentagon choke-collar gets tighter. It is that simple.
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POPSRepublicans have themselves to blame for tax cut expirations
In 2001...Bush & Republican congressional leaders--with the help of some Democrats--played...games to make the cuts appear smaller when calculating the impact over the next 10 years. ...Perhaps the most egregious...was...the estate tax. Its bite was to be reduced gradually through 2009, then repealed altogether in 2010 & then re- imposed fully in 2011. When candidate Bush first proposed a large tax cut in the spring of 2000, there was no sign of recession. A year later the mild 2001 recession had begun by the time the cuts were being debated on Capitol Hill... The recession ended before 2001 was out, though the tax cuts didn't seem to help the anemic recovery that followed. Another package of cuts was passed in 2003, & when the economic expansion accelerated...administration officials crowed about the power of tax cuts to improve the economy. None of them ever explained why the more modest 2003 cuts did all that when the 2001 cuts didn't.
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POPSFormer aid to GOP rep to plead guilty Mark Zachares, a former aid to Republican Representative Don Young (AK) is set to plead guilty to corruption charges. Zachares is accused of essentially agreeing to be a plant for Jack Abramoff in Congress, steering business Abramoff's way. After Zachares left Congress, he was to be rewarded by Abramoff by being paid as a lobbying with a high salary.
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POPSInfant deaths rise in South - are Medicaid cuts the culprit? In 2004, Gov. Haley Barbour came to office promising not to raise taxes and to cut Medicaid. Face-to-face meetings were required for annual re-enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP, the children’s health insurance program; locations and hours for enrollment changed, and documentation requirements became more stringent. As a result, the number of non-elderly people, mainly children, covered by the Medicaid and CHIP programs declined by 54,000 in the 2005 and 2006 fiscal years. According to the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program in Jackson, some eligible pregnant women were deterred by the new procedures from enrolling. One former Medicaid official, Maria Morris, who resigned last year as head of an office that informed the public about eligibility, said that under the Barbour administration, her program was severely curtailed.
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POPSJournalist: Republican Senators believe surge won't work Journalist Andrea Mitchell says that Republican senators are telling her they don't believe the surge will work, and have told Petraeus that if they don't see real progress by August 2007, they will "pull the plug" on the war in Iraq. Personally, I wish both the Republicans and Democrats would stop fooling around and pull the plug NOW. Via hilzoy at Obsidian Wings
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POPSWaste, Fraud, and Abuse Mississippi Democrat Representative Gene Taylor is censured by Congress for his uncivil criticism of Georgia Republican Representative Tom Price. Georgia Republican Representative Tom Price wanted to weaken aid to Katrina victims on grounds that it would be wasted due to fraud; Mississppi Democrat Gene Taylor, who represents parts of Mississippi devastated by Katrina, asks him why he didn't protest the fraud and abuse that occurred when the Bush administration gave out contracts to Bush political supporters. Taylor gets censured by Congress for his allegedly uncivil (but IMHO entirely deserved) criticism of Price. See David Lublin's brief summary at the source.
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POPSTrent Lott gets bashful According to this article, Republicans are going to wait for 2-3 months to see if there are any improvements in Iraq, before demanding a withdrawal. Via Josh Marshall
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