Still Fighting

Activism

National Stop Alito Petition Drive. How long has it been since we linked to a petition or campaign to stop Alito? Well, however much time it's been, it's too much. They can pretend all they want, but the fact is that Alito will move the court to the right - much farther than they're willing to admit publicly. Most recently, a paper was unearthed that revealed his true opinions on abortion. Of course, that's not the only issue Alito could affect, but it's a big one. That's why NARAL is running this petition drive, and why you should sign on. Make no mistake: This is the far-right's opportunity to take firm control of the judicial branch.

News

Iraqi Leaders Urge a Timetable for Eventual Troop Withdrawal. Poor Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. One by one, their arguments for the war are crumbling, along with their public opinion. Of course, it's not like most of the arguments made any sense in the first place - witness Cenk Uygur's destruction of the "Insurgents will wait us out if we set a timetable" argument. But now even Iraqi "leaders" are asking for a timetable. (The Arab League, not the actual Iraqi government.) Bush used to maintain that we'd leave as soon as the Iraqi government asked us to. That hasn't happened yet, although we're not so sure Bush would let it happen, or become public if it did, but it's yet one more sign that we shouldn't be there anymore.

Lawyer Pleads Guilty in Abramoff Case. We try to stay away from articles that have too much of an "insider" feel to them, but the Abramoff scandal is important. It might sound intricate, but really the issue is the wholesale buying and selling of our government, piece by piece, to the highest bigger. Abramoff seems to be the guy largely responsible for facilitating the Republican culture of corruption that is turning Washington into a cesspool. We can't even hope to change Congress until we can be sure that the leaders we elect won't just whore themselves out as soon as they arrive in D.C. So it's very important that the Abramoff case is prosecuted, and that all of those on the take go down with him. Therefore, it's quite a good thing that Michael Scanlon, a lawyer with strong ties to Abramoff, pled guilty. "As part of the plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Scanlon admitted plotting to cheat clients and corruptly influence federal officials." The article details a lot more about how he bought off Congressmen. His plea bargain is a good start. Now let's get moving on booting those officials.

Bush Administration Grants Leeway on 'No Child' Rules. Bush has yet to admit that he's been wrong on anything, and this is the closest we'll see him coming to doing so. BushCo has eased some of the rules under No Child Left Behind, because someone in the White House realized that kids just are getting screwed by this bill. The biggest change is allowing 10 states to create "growth model" schools. What this means, essentially, is that states will qualify as "making progress" if they show improvement in test scores at these growth schools, even if those final results fall below the NCLB benchmarks. It is a much fairer way to assess schools, particularly those in lower-income areas. The big problem with NCLB, aside from being wholly unrealistic, was that it was trying to do too much at once; forcing states to have their students meet an arbitrary benchmark AND require teachers to get certified AND financially penalize those schools that didn't conform to either of those. NCLB is still a horrible plan, but at least this administration has seen that it doesn't work, and is trying to do something about it. That's something, for once. the larger problem is that requirements are different in each state, so trying to regulate something like this on a national level strips some of the power of the states.

Editorials

Time to Leave. Krugman's back, and taking up the argument that it's time for us to exit Iraq. Honestly, it seems pretty obvious to us, but Krugman has a knack for making his points so clearly that it's a wonder anyone bothers to think otherwise. The fact is, we're not winning in Iraq. Our presence there makes things worth. What's keeping us there? Stubborn, arrogant leaders who refuse to "admit defeat", but can't even define victory. Maybe you're conflicted about withdrawal, but read Krugman's article and then see how you feel. As a Marine officer quoted in an article Krugman references says, "We can lose in Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose." Given that choice, we think we'll opt for the latter.

Bush's War on the Press. John Nichols and Robert McChesney detail the steps that the Bush administration has taken to remove "the power of the press." Everything that is documented here, from fake news ads to PBS to the Freedom of Information Ace are all individual acts that lead to a greater goal: the gutting of the independent media. Although Bush doesn't want to hear any "bad" news, or news that disagrees with him, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. This isn't the case of a hear-no-evil monkey. So the administration has taken extreme steps to remove that news from the public eye. Whether it's hiding the names of the dead soldiers in Iraq or secretly paying Armstrong Williams to pimp the NCLB Act, this administration is trying everything in it's power to covertly withhold information from the public. Fortunately, there's no such thing as "covertly" anymore.

Blogger Commentary

'Reform Republicans' - The McCain Scam. Over at MyDD, Matt Stoller points out that liberals who love John McCain are being scammed. Heck, he's even pulled the wool over Still Fighting's eyes from time to time! Stoller claims there's no particular reason we should like John McCain: "Liberals shouldn't fall for it. John McCain is a corrupt Republican, just like Bush. He doesn't play to the base, preferring instead a 'good government' bipartisan strategy, but he's corrupt, mean-spirited, and puts his ambition above everything else." He claims to be against torture, but votes against habeus corpus rights. He wants to reform campaign finance publicly, but privately is just as much in the pocket of big business as the rest of the party. McCain's nothing special, and we should stop lionizing him just because he criticizes Bush once in a while.

Genie In A Bottle. One of the most disturbing aspects of our recent debates about the merits of torture is what it reveals about our own culture. Years ago, torture was commonly considered morally reprehensible and beneath us. Now, we're practically having open debates about it, and discussing its effectiveness, as if it would somehow be justifiable if it worked. It's not. But where is this debate taking us? It's debasing us, as Americans. Digby references an article that discussions how torture can affect the mind of those administering torture, and we fear that's exactly what's happening to our collective conscience. "Now that we've let the torture genie out of the bottle, I wonder if we can put that beast back in. He looks and sounds an awful lot like an American." Scary.

Activism

Help Stop the Reverse Robin Hood Budget: Take a Photo. It's a wonder that Congress can look us in the eye and with a stright face actually claim that the budget they propose is what's best for the American people. The fact is, it's not. The most recent budget atrocity may have been defeated last week, but you can be sure there will be something almost as abhorrent coming along soon. Unfortunately, the fact is that most Congresspeople never really do have to look their constituents in the face and justify their votes. But maybe, just maybe, if we look them in the eye and tell them what our priorities are, they'll get the message. Hop on over to the link above and help out with MoveOn's campaign to send Congress a host of pictures that depict concerned citizens looking right at the camera and explaining their priorities. It may seem crazy, but months ago, we never would have thought enough Republicans would turn and vote down the most recent budget proposal. So, be a little creative and add your picture!

News

Corruption Inquiry Threatens to Ensnare Lawmakers. No word defines Jack Abramoff more than "chutzpah". He's been indicted, and while we've only gleaned bits and pieces of the extent of his lobbying activities, what we've seen so far is enough to turn out stomachs. Look, politicians beholden to interest groups and rich lobbyists are really nothing new. But Abramoff took lobbying to a whole new level, essentially outrightly buying politicians. He's essentially being charged with "being part of a broad conspiracy to provide 'things of value, including money, meals, trips and entertainment to federal public officials in return for agreements to perform official acts' - an attempt at bribery, in other words, or something close to it." But it takes two to tango, and what that means is all of the politicians who provided their "services" to Abramoff should be quaking in their boots. We've already seen White House budget official David Safavian arrested "on charges of lying to investigators about his business ties to Mr. Abramoff, a former lobbying partner." We've heard about Tom DeLay's close ties to Abramoff, and rumors of the president of Gabon paying for a meeting with Bush. Who knows how far the corruption goes? One Congressional specialist quoted in the article says "I think this has the potential to be the biggest scandal in Congress in over a century."

A Rebuilding Plan Full of Cracks. Is there anything that this administration has touched that hasn't had the anti-Midas effect? In 2002, Bush launched a $73 million dollar development program for Afghanistan. The goal was to create or restore 1,000 schools and clinics by the end of 2004. How many have been completed? By the end of 2004, 100 (mostly all refurbishments), and an additional 40 since then. Let's see...1,000 buildings, 140 completed...that's 14%. 14%! The conditions in Afghanistan are so horrendous, what with the infrastructure being destroyed, that life expectancy is now only 43 years. So, does the fault lie with the administration, for creating a faulty "plan," or with USAID and the Louis Berger Group, who failed to get the job done? Well, to hear USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios tell it, the goal was really to build 533 buildings by the end of 2004, and that they had really completed far more than the 140 listed above. But even if this is true, the conditions in Afghanistan are still atrocious. USAID can't be proud of the job they've done while locked buildings still sit empty in the cities, and babies are dying at a rate of 1 out of every 4.

Powell Aide: Torture 'Guidance' From VP. Even more proof that Dick Cheney is pure evil. Retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, recently told CNN that he has no doubt that the torture that has happened, and the torture that is continuing to happen, is the result of Dick Cheney's "philosophical guidance." Wilkerson went on to discuss a "cabal" formed by Cheney and Rumsfeld that "made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made." Although Cheney and Rumsfeld have seperately dismissed the idea of a cabal as absurd, it's important to note that Wilkerson is a Republican who voted for the Bush/Cheney ticket twice. Why would he make something like that up? Maybe he's growing a conscience...

Editorials

One War Lost, Another to Go. Frank Rich is back with his latest installment. This time, he focuses on the Iraq War. Rich notes that the American public knows that the war is "over." Even Republican lapdogs like Rick Santorum, faced with re-election next year and down by 16 points, are distancing themselves from Bush and pointing the finger of blame, ever so slightly, at the White House. While Bush refuses to set a timetable, it should be fairly obvious that there already is one: November 7, 2006. That's the date of the mid-term elections in this country, and if Bush and company don't do something about getting us out of Iraq before then, we're going to see a large number of Republican incumbents dropped on the front stoop, in favor of Democrats who have long held the belief that we must leave Iraq.

What's a Senior Administration Official? This editorial by Daniel Engber is pretty neat. Engber, prompted by Bob Woodward's claim that he was told of Valerie Plame weeks before by a "senior administration official," sets out to explain exactly what that means. We see it all the time in news articles. But what does it mean? The answer is...well, nebulous. There's no hard and fast rules about it. Pretty much anyone in the White House (except for interns) can be a "senior administration official." It also depends on the context of the story and the informer's title/position. For example, writes Engber, Dick Cheney wasn't the "senior administration official" who told Woodward about Plame. So, that narrows it down to the, oh, several hundred non-interns that work in the White House.

Blogger Commentary

Kent State Redux? In case you missed it, over the last few weeks Kent State University has been the target of a massive campaign. Supported by liberal bloggers all over the country, Americans were encouraged to send letters to KSU denouncing their attempts to silence the first amendment. In short, as Caroline Arnold writes, David Airhart is an ex-marine and current student at KSU. On October 19 of this year, Airhard climber a 30 foot climbing wall and displayed a banner that said, "KENT OHIO 4 PEACE," an anti-war sentiment, protesting against the military recruiters on campus. Once he arrived at the top, one of the recruiters started to climb up after him, so Airhart started climbing down. As he did so, he was met by another recruiter who tried to pull him down. Airhard received a fine and was ordered to appear at a disciplinary hearing, which was cancelled hours before it was scheduled to start. Airhart is admirable in that he took a stand, made his convictions known, and was prepared to accept whatever consequences came of this. KSU was inundated with letters, phone calls and emails. Only, there didn't seem to be any reason for them. The military recruiters didn't speak for the University, and KSU President Cartwright has long been an outspoken proponent of the first amendment. No, what KSU shows us is that Bush is very good at spreading dissent, and we need to be united against our real enemies, not divided against ourselves.

Ten Commandments for Wal-Mart. What's really amazing about this piece by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) is not so much what he's written, which is quite good, but the scathing comments from readers. The Huffington Post is an unapologetic liberal blog, yet there are more comments from uneducated conservatives to his post that from liberals. Maybe it's because liberals know that he's right. After all, what kind of a corporation pays their CEO hundreds of million of dollars a year, yet leaves 48% of its work force without health insurance? Kennedy makes a very interesting note regarding returns, as well. Costco pays its employees, on average, 76% more than Wal-Mart. Employees at Costco have health and dental insurance, as well as retirement benefits. Oh, and in the last decade, Costco has delivered higher returns to its shareholders. So don't tell us that it can't be done. If Wal-Mart truly cared about their employees, they'd find a way. Clearly, Costco has.

Activism

The Bill O'Reilly Blacklist. Bill O'Reilly really is an idiot. The worst kind of idiot, actually: One with a microphone. But unfortunately, despite his idle threats to "retire", he's not going anywhere any time soon. Since he's a complete hypocrite and unable to respond to any of his critics with facts, he has to resort to ad hominem attacks. Recently, he labelled them "smear merchants", and blamed the whole hubbub about his threat to San Francisco as their fault. Furthermore, he "promised to publish a blacklist to publicly intimidate his 'enemies'." Arianna Huffington is collecting the names of those who will be proud to be on his absurd list. Count Still Fighting in, Arianna! You should take a stroll over to her post and add your name. Maybe if a large percentage of Americans WANT to be on his list, he'll get the message. Probably not, but it's worth a shot.

News

How U.S. Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball'. You gotta give Bush credit for one thing: He's good at repeating the same lies over and over again. But unlike in the run-up to the war, and even the 2004 election, the media and the public are no longer willing to buy what he's selling. What that means is that the harder he pushes, the more of his dirty laundry comes out. From the L.A. Times, we're learning how the Bush Team based their intelligence on a single, unreliable informant (the infamous "Curveball"), and how the Germans who had him in custody (he was a defector) knew "his information was often vague, mostly secondhand and impossible to confirm." What was their reaction when Powell used Curveball's claims to justify the war? "Mein Gott!" We just have one question: Why didn't you speak up then?

Afghanistan Insurgents 'Extremely Resolute and Fought to the Last Man'. You may not have noticed, but there's still conflict in Afghanistan. So much conflict, in fact, that you might call it an insurgency. An insurgency that is just as dedicated to removing the invading forces as those in Iraq. The entire occupation/insurgency can be summed up by this quote: "The issue is not that they're [the insurgents] going to be successful today or tomorrow or even next year, but that in time, the United States and other major powers ... just do not have the political will to stay." And that's what it comes down to. The American public has made it very clear that they want us to leave Iraq and Afghanistan. Once we do, the insurgents win, because they persisted. But we certainly don't have a better idea...do you?

Texas GOP Agrees to Stop Some Campaign Practices. This story goes beyond the absurd. The Texas Republican Party has "agreed" to avoid continuing practicing illegal activity. How nice! Texas's Travis County Attorney David Escamilla has prepared an 18 month study documenting illegal activites by the Texas GOP in 2002. He was preparing to release his finding when the Texas GOP struck a deal to stop breaking the law, in return for delaying the release of the report until 2007, well after the 2006 mid-term elections. The study centers around corporate monies being used for campaign activities; a severe no-no. The article goes on to say that "[t]he GOP also agreed not to violate the state election code and to seek election-law training for its executive director and finance officials." Isn't that considerate? The Texas GOP is agreeing not to break the law! And if you're infuriated with that story, consider this one: last week, business lobbyists raised over $200,000 for Tom DeLay, in recognition of his hardworking efforts for their legislation. Included in those lobbyists were representatives from oil and electricity-utility industries, who must have been overjoyed to reward DeLay, for helping to get that horrendous energy bill passed. "DeLay has been the best thing for the lobbying industry in Washington in recent history," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch, a Washington-based advocacy group that has called for a special counsel to investigate the lawmaker. "They work hand in glove with him to get his legislative agenda passed, and pay him and the Republican Party back with huge campaign contributions. At all costs, they want to get this guy back in power and re-elected." This is exactly why we need him out of office: we need a politicians who will work for the American people as a whole, and not for special interest groups.
Editorials

A Private Obsession. Paul Krugman makes clear the only obvious thing about the new Medicare plan that just took hold: It's a terrible idea. Where did it come from? It came from those idealogues who are obsessed with privatization. To dogmatic conservatives (you know, the ones running everything nowadays), privatization isn't just a means, but rather a goal. So, even though certain things (like health care) shouldn't be privatized, because private companies would not benefit the actual system, our current government doesn't really care about making the system work. Instead, we're left with a confusing and ineffective prescription drug plans, with "doughnut holes" and higher, non-negotiable prices. This is what you get when you have people who care more about ideology than results. "And the result of that ideology is a piece of legislation so bad it's almost surreal."

An Open Letter to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald - From Former White House Counsel John W. Dean. We all know that Patrick Fitzgerald has been unswayed by political pressure in his quest to discover the truth about the Valerie Plame outing. And while his efforts so far have produced the resignation of Dick Cheney's chief of staff, how important is that, really? It's like getting Al Capone for tax evasion. In this letter, John Dean, former White House Counsel lays out exactly what Fitzgerald's powers are, and, using historical references, suggests a course of action that involves more than just zeroing in on the breaking of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. We urge you to read Dean's letter, because it'll help you undertand exactly what Fitzgerald is capable of doing.

Blogger Commentary

The Privilege to Destroy: The Priesthood of Journalism. One of our favorite verbose bloggers is back: Arthur Silber has an incisive, detailed writing style that allows him to examine important issues with a level of focus that most other bloggers (and certainly other newspapers) don't provide. In his latest missive, he likens the communications between anonymous sources and journalists to the communications betweens priests and confessors. In both cases, one party has been granted anonymity. In the priest-confessor case, it's pretty clear that there's an important service being performed that requires anonymity, but even then, in recent years, "even the clergy-communicant privilege has been revisited. Many have argued that such a privilege cannot be applied absolutely..." However, journalists, whose service is supposed to benefit the public, seem to now believe that they should be extended the same privileges, and not even have to make an exception to help punish crimes. There's a lot more in Silber's post, but here's one important point: "Any such legal privilege -- applied absolutely and with no exceptions, and regardless of the truth or falsity of the information provided -- serves only to protect the guilty and punish the innocent."

What Was That About Access to Intel? As we've talked about, one of the current Republican talking points is that, pre-war, Congress had access to all of the intelligence information that Bush did, so there shouldn't have been any reason for (Democratic) Senators of Representatives to lament the war now, or say that they weren't informed. But, as Matt over at 1115.org shows us, back in 2001, Ari Fleischer explained to reporters that Congress wouldn't have access to all of the intelligence information that Bush saw. In fact, Fleischer actually says that "the President has decided that he wants to make certain that the agencies that report to him provide information in a fashion that is a smaller circle to members of Congress." Republicans, once again, caught in a talking points lie. When will the American people learn? Even though the president's approval rating is down to 36%, we can't let up.