Glibbertysmidgeon

Dear Mr. President:

Please pledge that you will not pardon anyone who has worked or is currently working in your Administration who is convicted of a crime in connection with the disclosure of Valarie Wilson’s identity as a CIA operative, or in any related matter.

Your handling of the Valerie Wilson matter already demonstrates lowered standards of ethical and legal behavior, and the American people are depending on you to take a leadership role in restoring this country to it’s true ideals.

You initially promised that any member of your staff who leaked the identity of Mrs. Wilson would be terminated. On July 18, 2005, you changed that threshold, requiring that staff members will only be terminated if an actual crime has been committed. Moreover, you have refused to respond to a request by Congressman John Conyers and 90 other Members of Congress that you ask Karl Rove, one of your top advisors, to either disclose his role in the outing of Mrs. Wilson or resign and, indeed, have allowed him to remain on your staff without doing so.

On repeated occasions, you have permitted your staff to mislead and/or lie to the American people in connection with this matter without disciplinary consequences. For several years, your press secretary, Scott McClellan, assured the American people that neither Mr. Rove, I. Lewis Libby, nor Elliot Abrams were involved in the leak.

Just this past month, however, we learned that both Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby were sources for Mrs. Wilson’s identity. Mr. McClellan remains undisciplined for his statements. I am therefore concerned that these low ethical standards foreshadow future actions on your part that will allow individuals responsible for this breach of national security to evade accountability.

Outing an intelligence operative is one of the most serious offenses under our laws, as it endangers not only the operative, her family, and her employer, but jeopardizes other operatives and intelligence assets, as well as our nation’s security. To reveal an operative’s identity during a time of war for purposes of a political vendetta is not only dangerous and illegal, but it reveals a basic disregard for the security of our nation.

In connection with the drafting of our Constitution, Alexander Hamilton wrote, the “power of pardoning in the President has . . . been only contested in relations to the crime of treason.”

I hope you agree with Mr. Hamilton that there is no justification for using pardon powers in any way to insulate those who would commit such acts of disloyalty against our nation.

Please help restore our faith in our government. Make a “No Pardons” pledge today.

Sincerely,
Patricia Aro

Send your own letter here.

Everybody knows reason number one. Torture is wrong.

But there is another reason- a practical reason, why the U.S. should be doing everything in our power to ensure that our prisoners of war (and enemy combatants, and anyone else we’re holding) are treated humanely.

This essay is a really good explanation of how, by treating our prisoners well, the U.S. was once able to ensure that our own soldiers, and soldiers in other countries around the world, are also treated humanely.

When the C.I.A. Played by the Rules

It’s a good read.

SEC. 9011. Congress, consistent with international and United States law, reaffirms that torture of prisoners of war and detainees is illegal and does not reflect the policies of the United States Government or the values of the people of the United States.

Department of Defense website

This is the text of the McCain ammendment that may cause President Bush to execute the first veto of his entire Presidency.

Senator John McCain, a combat veteran and former prisoner of war, has ammended a Pentagon spending bill. His ammendment has created a measure that would make it explicitly illegal to abuse prisoners of war.

“We demanded intelligence without ever clearly telling our troops what was permitted and what was forbidden. And when things went wrong, we blamed them and we punished them,” said McCain.

The measure… would require American troops to follow interrogation standards set in the Army Field Manual and bar “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” of prisoners in U.S. custody

CNN

The measure passed the Senate, 90 votes to 9. There is broad support for the measure outside the Senate as well.

Former Secretary of State and retired general Colin Powell backed the motion, saying that it would “help deal with the terrible public diplomacy crisis created by Abu Ghraib”.

Supporters of the measure also hope a commitment to treat prisoners in U.S. custody fairly will help secure humane treatment of U.S. citizens or servicemen kidnapped abroad.

Al Jazeera

However, the White House is threatening to veto the measure:

Bush administration officials say the legislation would limit the president’s authority and flexibility in war, and advisers say they would recommend a veto

ABC News

They’re afraid to limit the President’s authority to torture people? To me, the idea of giving a President the authority to torture people is chilling. No matter what Alberto Gonzales wrote, nothing good can come of pretending it’s okay to treat people like this.

Let’s not make the cure worse than the disease.
I am more afraid of living in a country that condones torture than I am of any terrorist.

Come on, Mr. President.
Stand up for the true values of America.
Sign the bill.

I have tried to write about New Orleans every day for a week.
This disaster has stripped me of all perspective, and I can’t find any sensible place from which to address it.

The magnitude of our loss is heartbreaking.
The human suffering is unbearable.
The lack of preparedness is an outrage.

But the thing I can’t seem to process is this:

When did America become a place that would stand by and watch our poor, our sick, and our elderly die?

I realize I’m not the only American who is feeling betrayed and abandoned because of our government’s slow and apathetic response to the flood. (They had two days’ warning to get them out, for goodness sake! )

As much as it comforts me to know that the citizens of the U.S. are still kind and empathetic people- I just don’t know how to live with the realization that our elected officials do not share this basic respect for human life and dignity.

The Supreme Court has just issued a decision that local governments can use Eminent Domain to take away your land so that corporations can build businesses there.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

“Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random,” O’Connor wrote. “The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.”

She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

CNN

Our government is now so deeply embedded in the pockets of big business that they are happily handing them our homes.

My entire retirement nest egg is my little house.
What’s one woman’s retirement worth, compared to some corporation’s lust for profit?

I guess I just have to hope that no rich, well-connected developer decides to build a mall on my property.
Small comfort, that.

In a single event, Texas Governor Rick Perry managed to attack the separation of church and state, women, gays, and the entire judicial branch of our government.

A few choice quotes:

FORT WORTH, June 5 – Making good on a Republican campaign call to celebrate with “Christian friends,” Gov. Rick Perry traveled to an evangelical school here on Sunday to put his signature on measures to restrict abortion and prohibit same-sex marriage.

New York Times

he signed a bill passed during this session of the Texas Legislature requiring girls under 18 to obtain their parents’ consent before having an abortion. Previously, they needed only to notify their parents.

“We may be on the grounds of a Christian church, but we all believe in standing up for the unborn,” Mr. Perry said.

He also said he was putting his signature – although it was not required – on a measure that places a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages before Texas voters on Nov. 8. “Activist judges have used the bench to advance a narrow agenda,” the governor said, adding that the measure defining marriage as a sacred bond between a man and a woman “places it beyond the reach of activist judges.”

Ibid

The Rev. Robin Lovin, a Methodist minister and an S.M.U. professor holding the Maguire Chair in Ethics, said, “There are lots of reasons to go to church on Sunday, but making laws isn’t one of them.”

Signing a bill into law in a church, he added, “is a pretty clear symbol that the church is at the service of the state or the state is at the service of the church and either way we’ve crossed an important line that has a long history in both politics and theology.”

Ibid

Instead of defending our longstanding tradition of separating church and state, this new Republican party is actively encouraging this one religious group to feel they are entitled to decide not just what’s moral and right for themselves, but what is moral and right for all of us.

I’m certain that if some other group were trying to force their religious norms on the rest of us by making them into laws, these Evangelicals would cry foul.

I can’t help but feel that we should all be crying foul right now.

Today, those “activist judges” on the Supreme Court handed the Bush Administration a gift in the form of a judgement that gives Federal Government power to override State laws on patients’ use of marijuana for medical purposes.

According to the Constitution, this ruling isn’t entirely legal:

The closely watched case was an appeal by the Bush administration in a case that it lost in late 2003. At issue was whether the prosecution of medical marijuana users under the federal Controlled Substances Act was constitutional.

Under the Constitution, Congress may pass laws regulating a state’s economic activity so long as it involves “interstate commerce” that crosses state borders. The California marijuana in question was homegrown, distributed to patients without charge and without crossing state lines.

ABC News

The Bush Administration argued that even though there there is no interstate commerce, these sick people are harming the war on drugs:

A federal appeals court concluded use of medical marijuana was non-commercial, and therefore not subject to congressional oversight of “economic enterprise.”

But lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department argued to the Supreme Court that homegrown marijuana represented interstate commerce, because the garden patch weed would affect “overall production” of the weed, much of it imported across American borders by well-financed, often violent drug gangs.

Lawyers for the patient countered with the claim that the marijuana was neither bought nor sold. After California’s referendum passed in 1996, “cannabis clubs” sprung up across the state to provide marijuana to patients. They were eventually shut down by the state’s attorney general.

CNN

These women aren’t drug lords, they’re sick:

The case concerned two seriously ill California women, Angel Raich and Diane Monson. The two had sued then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, asking for a court order letting them smoke, grow or obtain marijuana without fear of arrest, home raids or other intrusion by federal authorities.

Raich, an Oakland woman suffering from ailments including scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain, smokes marijuana every few hours. She said she was partly paralyzed until she started smoking pot. Monson, an accountant who lives near Oroville, Calif., has degenerative spine disease and grows her own marijuana plants in her backyard.

ABC News

But they are being treated like criminals.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) began raids in 2001 against patients using the drug and their caregivers in California, one of 11 states that legalized the use of marijuana for patients under a doctor’s care. Among those arrested was Angel Raich, who has brain cancer, and Diane Monson, who grew cannabis in her garden to help alleviate chronic back pain.

CNN

It seems to me that sending people who are this ill to prison constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Taking away a drug that can ease their suffering is just plain cruel.

“You look sad.” A security guard broke into my thoughts, “Here, have a candy”

I was sad.
I was walking to work thinking about nuclear proliferation.

I’d been listening to a discussion on the radio about last night’s Meet the Press episode, in which several experts on the subject warned that there is a 50% chance that the U.S. will be attacked with a nuclear weapon in the next 6-10 years. They stressed that we are not doing nearly enough to prevent this from happening.

The greatest danger of another catastrophic attack in the United States will materialize if the world’s most dangerous terrorists acquire the world’s most dangerous weapons. …al Qaeda has tried to acquire or make nuclear weapons for at least ten years. …officials worriedly [discussed] in 1998 reports that bin Laden’s associates thought their leader was intent on carrying out a `Hiroshima.’ These ambitions continue.

September 11th Commission Report

The gist of the discussion was that we should forget about Iraq, and spend all our energy taking inventory of the nuclear material in the world, and locating the stuff that has gone missing if we don’t want it to come and find us.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER, (D-WV): And I’d ask you, sir: Is the material missing from Russian nuclear facilities sufficient to construct a nuclear weapon?

MR. GOSS: Senator, the way I would prefer to answer that question is: There is sufficient material unaccounted for so that it would be possible for those with know-how to construct a nuclear weapon.

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: Can you assure the American people that the material missing from Russian nuclear sites has not found its way into terrorist hands?

MR. GOSS: No, I can’t make that assurance. I can’t account for some of the material so I can’t make the assurance about its whereabouts.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Nunn, that’s chilling.

From a clip played on Meet The Press

New Yorkers live our lives accepting that we are all targets. Until now, I’ve been at peace with this fact.

But life has been changing for me. Dreams are coming true. I’ve got more to lose than I’ve ever had.

During this hopeful moment, where I am painting my new apartment, settling into my marriage, building my career, and looking forward to a future filled with writing, travel, and family, I found the prospect of a nuclear attack horrifying in a more deeply personal way than ever before.

Forget about building equity.
Forget about eating organic and exercising.
Forget about saving for the educations of my future children.
My home, my body, my future could all be obliterated in the blink of an eye.

Is it a rational decision to stay here, or should I be looking for a job in Norway like my friend Ben?

All of these thoughts were rolling like dark marbles in my mind as I approached the office.

The securtiy guard shook two Mentos into my hand, and I popped one into my mouth.

Minty candy won’t bring about world peace.
But the friendly gesture did help me get this day off the ground.

May 27, 2005

Dear Friend:

As many of you are aware, a classified memo was recently disclosed in Great Britain that I believe has serious ramifications for the integrity of the United States Government. Dubbed the “Downing Street Memo,” but actually comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and other top British government officials, the memo casts serious doubt on many of the contentions of the Bush Administration in the lead up to the Iraq war. With over 1,600 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen killed in Iraq, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and over $200 billion in taxpayer funds going to this war effort, we cannot afford to stand by any longer.

Along with 88 of my colleagues, I wrote to the President requesting answers about this grave matter. Thus far, our search for the truth has been stonewalled and I need your help. I believe the American people deserve answers about this matter and should demand directly that the President tell the truth about the memo. To that end, I am asking you to sign on to a letter to the President requesting he answer the questions posed to him by 89 Members of Congress.

I will personally insure that this letter is delivered to the White House.

You can read the letter here and sign on to it below. You and I know the White House is just hoping that this matter will fade away, but in a few short weeks, with our steadfastness, the memo has found its way into leading newspapers and White House press briefings. With your help, we can hold this Administration accountable.

Please pass on this important letter to your friends and colleagues, and ask them to sign as well.

Thank you for your help and support.

John Conyers, Jr.

United States Representative John Conyers, Jr.

You can read the Downing Street Memo here.
Please sign the Letter to President Bush Concerning the Downing Street Memo.

Now that Americans are finally beginning to accept that there are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, it’s time to accept the rest of the truth. The Administration made up the whole story because they wanted to go to war. Don’t believe me?

In Brittain, scandal is sweeping the nation over a leaked memo that revealed Tony Blair and George Bush were planning to attack Iraq, and were determined to manufacture a reason to go to war because there was no legal reason to attack.

A highly classified British memo, leaked in the midst of Britain’s just-concluded election campaign, indicates that President Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy.

The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain’s MI-6 intelligence service.

Kansas City Star

In fact, George Bush’s cabinet members were planning the Iraq war before Bush even became president. Long before they became cabinet members.

During the Clinton administration:

(a)… right-wing policy group called Project for the New American Century, or PNAC – affiliated with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld’s top deputy Paul Wolfowitz and Bush’s brother Jeb – even urged then-President Clinton to invade Iraq back in January 1998.

“We urge you to… enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world,” stated the letter to Clinton, signed by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and others. “That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.” (Full Text of the letter)

Philedelphia Daily News

Most of the fellas who drafted that letter were just regular working class rich business tycoons back then.
Now that their man has been elected president, most of them occupy the most powerful jobs in our government.

Here’s a fun game:
Read the Statement of Principles for the New American Century. Now Google the names of the authors at the bottom of the page.
Where are they now?

Other good reads:

Why my Brother Died by Dante Zappala

Final Word on Iraq WMD Sounds Very Familiar by Georgie Ann Geyer

Financial firms and other keepers of our private information are arguing before Congress that they don’t need stricter laws because they will do a better job of not selling, losing, or exposing our personal information to hackers and identity thieves.

They promise.

In recent months, it has come to light that a number of financial firms and data brokers have sold, lost, or exposed the personal information of hundreds of thousands of people. The laws that govern what they can and cannot sell are currently very vague, and there is no requirement that they notify us if they do somehow release our information into the wild. Just a couple of recent news items:

ChoicePoint, based in Alpharetta, Ga., “sold personal information on at least 145,000 Americans to criminals posing as legitimate companies.”

ChoicePoint president Douglas Curling testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he extended “sincere apology to those customers whose information may have been accessed by the criminals who perpetrated this fraud.”

He said that ChoicePoint was cutting back on its sale of information.

Scripps Howard News Service

Kurt P. Sanford, chief executive officer for corporate and federal markets at the data brokerage LexisNexis, revealed to the committee that personal information of 310,000 customers may have been revealed over the last 27 months, about 10 times the number first disclosed.

ibid

Personal information for 600,000 current and former Time Warner employees has been lost, the company has said.
…Time Warner waited for more than a month before notifying current and past employees that their personal information may have been compromised.

Personnel Today

Most industry representatives agreed that individual companies should set their own standards for “significant harm,” and offered long explanations of the recourses offered to patrons who have become victims of identity theft.

MarketWatch

Of course, our loving congress is looking out for us, right? Well, uh…

The Republican leadership of the House Financial Services Committee will soon begin drafting identity theft legislation. Its members largely concurred Wednesday with the industries’ recommendation to leave them out of any new rules.

MarketWatch

Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it?

Today, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice ordered the State Department to stop publishing the annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report.

Last year, President Bush used the 2003 report as evidence that his War on Terror was working. In it’s original edition, the report showed that terrorist attacks around the world had diminished since 2002. He quoted the report repeatedly on the campaign trail, up until the report was found to be incorrect. The corrected report showed that the number of terrorist attacks had risen to a 20 year high in 2003, one year after the beginning of the President’s war on terror.
This year’s report has worse news for the President:

…the State Department reported 625 “significant” terrorist attacks in 2004. That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.

The statistics didn’t include attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called “a central front in the war on terror.”

Seattle Times

For two years in a row, this report has shown that Bush’s beloved War on Terror is not only failing, but may be making us much less safe than we were before the war.

I guess it’s not surprising that Condoleeza doesn’t want to be responsible for it anymore.

Dear Inauguration Ceremony Donors:

Thank you for your generosity in providing over 40 million dollars to fund today’s gala event.
Can you please send some money to Iraq, so the troops can have some gala armor?

Thank you.

Dear Senator Schumer

I am writing to urge you to please vote against the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales for the post of Attorney General of the United States.

I am very concerned about the kind of message the US is sending to the world by nominating this man to such a high office. If we allow the notorious father of the Torture Memo to take office after the atrocities that were committed by US citizens and troops at Abu Gharib, how can the US seem anything less than barbaric?

In the eyes of the World, this confirmation would be a sign that the US not only perpetrates torture, but embraces and rewards it. Men like Alberto Gonzales should be stopped, not promoted to the highest posts in the land.

Please, sir, vote your conscience. Vote against confirming Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General.

Thank you,

Contact the Judiciary Committe

“If I get sick, I don’t want to go to the doctor, I just want to die.” This is my father on health care. He has called me “…just to chat, while I still can.”

Dad hasn’t paid his phone or electric bills in a while, and expects them to come turn it all off any day now. I told my father that I worry, knowing that he lives like this. He assures me that he’ll go out and get a job soon. “The only time I think about money”, he explained with a chuckle, “is when I don’t have any.”

I didn’t find that answer very comforting. Since I didn’t know how to answer, I returned to the topic of health care.

“If only our country provided health care to everyone”, I complained, “Not just the people with good jobs, like Kris.”

“All those countries”, he responded, “like England and Canada and Germany, who have state health care-“

“All the first world nations except the U.S.”, I interrupted sourly

“The rich in those countries”, he continued with an air of pride, “come to the U.S. to get their health care.”

“I’ve heard that too,” I conceded, “maybe we do have the best doctors and hospitals in the world, but what good are they doing for Donna?” I told him about my sister’s mammogram, on which she made payments for most of 2004. What would she have done if it had found something?

Last week over lunch, some friends told me similar health care stories from their friends in France who are fond of complaining about how long they have to wait to get a doctor appointment, and how far they travel to visit specialists.

“But,” I answered, “can’t the wealthy just pay extra to get the best care, like they do here?”

My two friends admitted that, in fact, for people with money, the health care system in France is about the same as it is here in the U.S. “It’s just for the poor that it’s different,” they agreed. “In France, the poor can go to the doctor.”

I tried to explain to my father how frightening it is for me to know that my father, my brother, and my sister are all without health insurance. After working full time while going to college for 8 years, then paying on the student loans for another 10, I finally have a safety net of my own. I have a good job, and my husband has a better one. Kris’ job gives us both health care coverage. He gets paid vacation, paternity leave, dental and vision coverage. But these won’t help me if something should happen to a member of my family.

I picture my father alone in his small trailer house in the bitter Missouri winter. He is sitting in his easy chair with his little dog on his lap, smoking a cigarette in a room lit only by the fire in the woodstove.

How fragile my safety net feels to me with the weight of my whole family, heavy with possibilities, hanging dark over my head.

“They said if George W. gets elected, our seniors aren’t going to get their checks. That’s what they said four years ago. Please tell your friends and neighbors, George W. did get elected, and our seniors did get their checks. Our seniors will continue to get their checks.”
-George W. Bush
Saginaw, Michigan, 10/28/04

Contrary to his stated position, the Bush administration is proposing to cut Social Security benefits.

These cuts are hidden in his plan for changing the way those benefits are calculated. Today, the size of your Social Security check adapts to inflation. The Social Security Administration uses a wage index to measure how fast worker wages are growing, and then applies a proportional increase to Social Security benefits. This wage index ensures that though the price milk and bread goes up, your Social Security check will still buy you about the same amount of groceries that it did five years ago. Bush wants to change the wage index to one that grows at a slower rate, which means all Social Security beneficiaries- now and into the future- will slowly fall farther and farther behind.

In addition to this sly reduction in benefits, the president also proposes to privatize the Social Security system.

This notion of “privatizing” Social Security really means that we’ll all have to (it will be mandatory) place a portion of our wages into the stock market, rather than paying them toward Social Security tax as we do now. Sure, it’s great for businesses to have all these guaranteed investors, pouring money into their stock each month, but what about the investors? What happens when companies like Enron go out of business, and their stock is suddenly worth zero dollars? Sorry Mr. John Q. Public, but your retirement fund just disappeared.

Conservatives are working hard to scare us all into accepting this plan to privatize and minimize Social Security by swearing that the program is about to run out of money. However, the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds annual report states that Social Security will be safe until 2042.

We have had several such scares over the past 70 years, and have always been able to save Social Security without reducing benefits, or forcing private citizens to risk their savings in the stock market by “privatizing” it, so why republicans declaring a state of emergency right now?

Karl Rove’s deputy, Peter H. Wehner, provides some clues to the real motive behind the rhetoric:

For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win — and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country.

Memo to Karl Rove

What battle have republicans been fighting for six decades? Josh Marshall answers that much better than I can:

Clearly, this isn’t about ‘saving’ Social Security. It is a battle to end Social Security and replace with something that Wehner clearly understands is very different, indeed the antithesis of Social Security.

This entire debate is about ideology — between people who believe in the benefits Social Security has brought America in the last three-quarters of a century and those who think it was a bad idea from the start. There is an honest debate to have on this point, a values debate. Only, the White House understands that the belief that Social Security was always a bad program isn’t widely shared by Americans. So they have to wrap their effort in a package of lies, harnessing Americans’ desire to save Social Security in their own effort to destroy it.

Talking Points Memo

We’ve got 37 good years left in the existing system. Let’s not allow these bullies and scare us and rush us into accepting this trojan horse of a plan.

Dear Senator Clinton,

I am very concerned about voting irregularities in Ohio and across the nation. I treasure my right to vote, and believe every person’s vote should count. This is why I am asking you to please support Congressman Conyers in his objection to the Ohio vote count tomorrow afternoon. Without support from senators like you, Congressman Conyers will not be allowed to voice his objections, and we will all be robbed of this opportunity to start a national discussion of the flaws in our voting system.

This is not a partisan issue, nor is it an issue that is limited to this one election. Irregularities, inconsistencies, and errors in state, local, and federal elections across the country are eroding our confidence in our entire electoral system. We need to rise to the challenge now, so we can start making repairs to this essential feature of our democracy.

Please help America start the dialogue that can lead to a stronger, more effective voting system, and ensure the voting rights of all of us.

Thank you,

Patti Aro

What went wrong in Ohio? .
Jesse Jackson on tomorrow’s vote
Find contact information for your senator
Senate Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Last weekend, Kris and I drove out to Long Island for a birthday party. I noticed that there were a lot of those yellow stickers that say “Support our Troops” on the backs of the SUVs and BMWs that we encountered along the way.

These stickers offend me. The message I read is “You don’t support the troops because you don’t have a sticker like mine.”

Putting up stickers and ribbons strikes me as a preachy way to make our safe selves feel better about all those men and women that are dying in Iraq, but I don’t see how they do anything for the troops themselves.

A pet peeve, I confess. Still, my reaction makes me wonder.
What does it really mean to support our troops?

During the second world war, the government gave very specific instructions. People were told to ration food, learn first aid, restrict travel, collect scrap items, conserve rubber, and conserve fuel. I am sad that we have not been given any such instructions for this war.

In lieu of any official instructions, I’ve compiled my own small set of “Support our Troops” ideas.

• Donate money to the USO to help buy calling cards so they can phone home for the holidays.
• Donate unused air miles so soldiers home on leave can fly home from the military bases.
• Contribute to Homes for our Troops: They help injured vets adapt their homes for accessibility.
• Contribute to the Wounded Warrior Project, which works to help wounded veterans adjust to life as disabled civilians.

As American citizens who owe our freedom and lifestyle to the sacrifices of soldiers past and present, it is our duty to watch their backs in any way we can. To me that means more than sending money to good causes or slapping on a yellow sticker. We all also need to:

• Follow the war closely.
• Be aware of the number of casualties- both deaths and injuries.
• Pay attention to any complaints, concerns, or fears the soldiers voice, and honor their requests
• Ask ourselves daily, “Have we sent them to fight in service to a cause that is necessary, and worth their precious lives?”

August 10, 2004: President Bush, speaking about his appointee for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director, Porter Goss:

“He knows the CIA inside and out” and “He’s the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation’s history.”

Whitehouse Website

March 3, 2004: Porter Goss on Porter Goss:

It is true I was in CIA from approximately the late 50′s to approximately the early 70′s. And it’s true I was a case officer, clandestine services office and yes I do understand the core mission of the business. I couldn’t get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified. I don’t have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We’re looking for Arabists today. I don’t have the cultural background probably. And I certainly don’t have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day, “Dad you got to get better on your computer.” Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don’t have.

Watch for Yourself

It appears that the President doesn’t accept Goss’ opinion on his own qualifications, though many current and former CIA staffers do.

“This whole appointment is a cheap political trick. One of the recommendations of the commission is that no political appointee be made director. But this is so clearly political. If Goss isn’t a political appointee, than I don’t know what is.”

~Former top CIA Iraq analyst Judith Yaphe

Former CIA agent Larry Johnson also questioned Goss’s qualifications. “There is one thing Goss didn’t really do for the last several years — he didn’t chair the House Intelligence Committee, in spite of what his resume claims,” said Johnson. “Instead, he did the dead man’s float.”

Johnson said Goss did not have the experience claimed. Goss did not “push through real reforms, for example, getting more funding for badly clandestine assets. He didn’t do any of it.”

Former CIA Counter-terrorism Chief Vince Cannistraro agreed: “Goss has never been very distinguished, but he’s protected. He’s a Bush loyalist and has been in the forefront of those who have tried to place the major blame for the 9/11 attacks on the agency.”

Insight Magazine

Since Porter Goss took over, experienced agents are handing in their resignations daily. These are not friendly partings. News sources use words such as war and crisis to describe the exodus. A roster of agents on the outs include:

• John McLaughlin, deputy director
• Stephen Kappes, head of the clandestine service
• Mike Scheuer, the CIA’s Osama bin Laden expert
• James Pavitt, the deputy director of operations

And the President won’t accept any intelligence that he doesn’t already agree with, either:

WASHINGTON — The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

“The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House,” said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. “Goss was given instructions … to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president’s agenda.”

Newsday

On Monday, Goss issued a memo to his staff which apparently urged them to fall in line with the Bush agenda:

“As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies,” Mr. Goss said in the memorandum, which was circulated late on Monday. He said in the document that he was seeking “to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road.”

Memo from Porter Goss to CIA Staff
November 15, 2004
Washington Times

So Porter Goss may be pressuring his staff to be “team players”, and has been ordered to fire anyone who may disagree with a Bush policy, who may present information that directly challenges the wisdom of a Bush policy, or anyone who might make public any information that might make a Bush decision look bad.

CIA’s mission is to support the President, the National Security Council, and all officials who make and execute the U.S. national security policy by:

• Providing accurate, comprehensive, and timely foreign intelligence on national security topics.
• Conducting counterintelligence activities, special activities, and other functions related to foreign intelligence and national security, as directed by the President.

…CIA serves as an independent source of analysis on topics of concern and also works …to ensure that the intelligence consumer…receives the best intelligence possible.

CIA Website

I guess the phrase “best intelligence possible” now means: telling President Bush whatever he wants to hear.

So many experienced agents lost.
A man who admits he’s unqualified is in charge.
Anybody who has his own opinion is afraid for his job.
Anyone with information the President might not like is afraid for her job.

Maybe they should drop the “I” and just start calling it “Central Agency” now.