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Posts by Bob Geiger
Bush Arrives For Convention in St. Paul ... Nebraska?
Posted by Bob Geiger, BobGeiger.com on September 2, 2008 at 10:41 AM.
The tiny town of St. Paul, Nebraska was shocked to the core on Tuesday when President George W. Bush and his presidential motorcade drove past the Pump & Pantry mini-mart on Highway 281 and pulled into the village of just over 2,000 residents.
"This is so exciting," said Ethel Strahan of rural St. Paul as she was strip-searched on the town's brick-lined main street. "I realize they have to violate my rights to protect the President and me from the terrorists and I'm just pleased as punch that he's come to visit."
St. Paul Mayor Willard Ross disclosed in a press conference attended only by the editor of the town's weekly newspaper that the Republican National Committee (RNC) had contacted him in a panic Monday after Hurricane Gustav spared New Orleans and it became apparent that the unpopular president might try to appear at the GOP's 39th national convention. RNC officials asked Ross for his cooperation after they convinced Bush that the party's nominating convention was being held in rural Nebraska to prevent an embarrassing Bush appearance at the event's actual site in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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Notes From The Senate All-Nighter
Posted by Bob Geiger on July 18, 2007 at 12:15 AM.
Here's some miscellaneous notes as I watch Senate Republicans try to say something other than the rubber-stamp talk they've been spitting out for years -- along with a count of how many times they use the same old cynical phrases.
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
Desperate Buzzphrase Count:
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Leahy: Bush is "Contemptuous of the Congress"
Posted by Bob Geiger on July 10, 2007 at 11:00 AM.
Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, ripped into George W. Bush on Monday after receiving a letter from White House Counsel Fred Fielding stating that Senate subpoenas for documents and staff testimony in the Justice Department political firings would be met with silence and a specious claim of executive privilege.
Directly accusing the Bush administration of having something to hide, Leahy took to the Senate floor and said that his committee's efforts at Congressional oversight have been met with "Nixonian stonewalling that reveals this White House’s disdain for our system of checks and balances."
"This is more stonewalling from a White House that believes it can unilaterally control the other co-equal branches of government," said Leahy. "It raises the question: What is the White House trying to hide by refusing to turn over evidence?"
The Judiciary Committee chairman also pointed out that previous statements made by the White House indicated that the firing of U.S. attorneys was handled solely by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Department and that answers for Congress on the issue had to come from Gonzales and his staff -- only to now claim that the investigation should be stymied because of presidential privilege.
"This President and the Attorney General have also from time to time expressed confidence that the Congress would get to the bottom of this as if they did not know the details of what had transpired," said Leahy yesterday. "Are we now to understand from the White House claims of executive privilege that these were decisions made by the President? Is he taking responsibility for this scandal, for the firing of such well-regarded and well performing U.S. attorneys?"
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The GOP's Bill Clinton Double Standard
Posted by Bob Geiger on July 5, 2007 at 11:00 AM.
Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) was aghast. He was indignant as hell about how having a high public official involved in something like perjury and obstruction of justice can damage the very foundation on which our nation was built -- and he had the harsh words to show for it.
"By his words and deeds he chose to place himself above the law. By his words and deeds he has undermined the rule of law in America to the great harm of this nation," the Kansas Republican said. "By his own words and deeds, he has undermined the truth-finding function of the judiciary, at great harm to that branch of our government. By his words and deeds, he had done great harm to the notions of honesty and integrity that form the underpinnings of this great republic."
And here's the Brownback kicker: "We have lost many things over the past few months: trust in public officials, respect for the rule of law, confidence in the truth of the White House's public statements. But perhaps the most tragic loss has been the steady erosion of our societal standards."
That's Brownback in his closed-door impeachment statement on President Bill Clinton, that was read into the Congressional Record on February 12, 1999.
You didn’t get all excited thinking he was commenting on that Scooter Libby thing, did you?
I can understand if you did. After all, Libby was convicted of those same charges and sentenced within federal guidelines to a 30-month prison sentence, only to have his friend George W. Bush decide on Monday that anything over, well, zero days in jail was "excessive" when it comes to a White House crony.
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No Joy This Fourth of July
Posted by Bob Geiger on July 4, 2007 at 1:00 PM.
"A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." ~ Declaration of Independence
I've always enjoyed the Fourth of July.
It's summer, it's a festive holiday about celebration -- not mourning or remembrance -- and, as a military Veteran, it has been a time to feel good about whatever miniscule role I've played in maintaining our country's strength and freedom.
But I'm going to skip the barbeques and just go to work today. I do this because the state of my country under the reign of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their entire cabal of crooks and non-patriots, leaves me with a feeling so hollow and barren that I simply cannot use drinking a beer, eating a hot dog or watching fireworks as a soothing balm.
With Bush's effective pardon of Scooter Libby on Monday, he has once again acted on behalf of the American people with no regard for what the people actually want. Poll after poll has shown that Americans still cling to a belief in equal justice under the law and that letting Libby off the hook on perjury and obstruction of justice charges in the outing of a covert CIA agent is horribly wrong. But that doesn’t stop Bush from doing whatever he damn well pleases to help his cronies and appease his political benefactors.
The overwhelming majority of the country now also knows the truth of the Iraq occupation and made clear in the last election what is expected of our leaders in ending that disaster. The American people know that the White House cooked the intelligence books to make a bogus case for war against a country that posed no threat whatsoever to the United States and by far most Americans want us out of Iraq as soon as possible.
It is the same thing with the way most of us feel about the promise held in the science of stem cell research and the huge nationwide support for raising the federal minimum wage, which have both been fought tooth and nail by Bush and the Republican party.
No matter how we the people want to be governed or how we decide we want our country to look, Bush sticks stubbornly to what he wants, to what he mandates and what he decides in his delusional world of absolute power and authority over all he surveys.
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The GOP: Grand Obstruction Party
Posted by Bob Geiger on June 28, 2007 at 11:00 AM.
Republicans have been making noise for a couple of weeks about how little the U.S. Senate is allegedly getting done now that Democrats have a scant majority and it's past time to set the record straight. Given their role in intentionally obstructing almost every issue that's come before the 110th Congress, the Senate's GOP leadership criticizing the Upper House's 2007 progress is a bit like Ann Coulter blaming the media for the impression that she's a bile-spewing gargoyle.
And the compelling thing is that this is all a matter of public record and not something that people need to believe simply because it comes from the Democratic leadership or yours truly.
The fact is that Senate Republicans have obstructed almost every bill in the Senate so far this year - and this includes the ones with wide, bipartisan support.
In the first half of the first session of the 110th Congress, there have been 13 cloture votes on motions to proceed. This kind of formal vote to simply proceed with debate isn't often required and only occurs when one party cannot agree to even move forward with debate and a subsequent up-or-down vote on an issue.
Republicans have forced 13 of those in less than six months. To give you an idea of how obstructionist that is, there were only four cloture votes on motions to proceed in the two years comprising the first sessions of the 108th and 109th Congresses.
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GOP Gives Employee Free Choice Act Fear-and-Smear Treatment
Posted by Bob Geiger on June 25, 2007 at 3:14 PM.
For anyone remotely paying attention, the Republican party playbook was remarkably minimalist and straightforward for the three or four years after America was attacked on September 11, 2001. Whenever Congressional Republicans got into a jam on almost any issue or found themselves legislatively backed into a corner, they would grab a microphone and yell "9/11, 9/11, 9/11" over and over again. Screaming "terrorists" or "al-Qaeda" repeatedly also worked pretty well until last November when voters saw the emptiness in all of that and tossed them out on their asses.
But apparently the GOP believes their prevailing mind-game of keeping Americans in a constant state of fear and anxiety can also translate into other venues and they're proving it lately with the Employee Free Choice Act (S.1041), which will be front and center in the Senate today.
S.1041, which is cosponsored by 46 Senators, is really pretty simple. It amends the National Labor Relations Act to allow employees to unionize in a more streamlined way if they choose and establishes stronger penalties for violations of the rights of workers seeking to form unions or negotiate first contracts.
Sounds like a good deal, right? The bill would make it easier for workers to get a living wage and decent benefits and, hey, this is America and everything, so who in the world would have a problem with that?
You guessed it -- the same crew that worked like crazy to keep the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour for the rest of our lives or until a Democratic Congress came to town and got a raise passed.
But what's interesting -- or not, if you're accustomed to watching the Republican party's fear-and-smear approach -- is how much concern GOP Senators suddenly seem to have for workers and how afraid they are that employees will lose their right to unionize via secret ballots. And of course, Republicans love to raise the possibility that these poor workers will also be subject to intimidation by big bad union bosses, hell-bent on forcing them into higher wages and better benefits.
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Feingold-Reid Bill to End War Coming Back to Senate
Posted by Bob Geiger on June 14, 2007 at 9:07 AM.
Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) announced on Wednesday that he will continue his efforts to bring American troops home from Iraq and that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will once again bring the Feingold-Reid bill to the Senate floor as an amendment to the upcoming Defense Department authorization legislation, which is expected to be considered by the end of June.
The Feingold-Reid measure, which received 29 votes when it was first raised last month, would require troops in Iraq to be redeployed by March 31, 2008, after which funding for ongoing military operations, with three narrow exceptions, would end.
“Congress took a step backwards last month when it gave President Bush a blank check to continue his open-ended mission in Iraq,” Feingold said. “We need to keep the pressure on the President and supporters of his disastrous Iraq policy, and the way to do this is by voting on legislation that will end the mistake in Iraq."
"We should not wait until September to change course, as some have suggested, and we should not be satisfied with proposals that sound good but won’t actually end the war. The way to end this disastrous war is to pass the Feingold-Reid legislation to safely redeploy our troops. No more Americans should die unnecessarily for a war that has over-burdened our military and weakened our national security.”
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Is GOP Senator Kit Bond a Liar or Just Plain Stupid?
Posted by Bob Geiger on June 13, 2007 at 11:01 AM.
Lost in the coverage Monday of Senate Republicans blocking the no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, was a silly little speech given by Kit Bond (R-MO) about the Iraq war, the Democratic response to the quagmire and, as the Congressional Record labeled it, "Media Bias" in reporting on the American occupation.
Bond covered all the usual Republican bases, saying that Congress should not oppose the war because "it is critical that we not fall into this trap set by al-Qaida" and that withdrawal resolutions tell "the Sunni terror cells and the Shia militias that America's political will is wavering."
Blah, blah, blah.
But this time, Bond, who recently returned from a trip to Iraq that I'm sure included John McCain-like protection and carefully-selected photo opportunities, said that what he's seen in Iraq compared to recent media coverage at home tells him that the horrible liberal press is once again doing its hate-America thing.
"We had the opportunity to meet with the commanding officers and troops on each location," said Bond of his trip. "On the floor of the Senate I spoke to you about witnessing firsthand some of the progress being made. Since I have seen so little coverage of that progress, I think progress bears repeating."
Bond then gave a glowing report of how well things are going on the ground in Iraq.
"The new plan, the counterinsurgency plan, is showing initial signs of progress. Violence in al-Qaim, Haditha, Hit, Ramadi, and Fallujah has dramatically decreased due to local leaders now siding with coalition forces pursuing al-Qaida in Iraq," declared Bond. "In Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi security forces are clearing and holding some of the most dangerous areas, and sectarian violence has decreased."
So I decided to go to one of the prime sources of liberal media bias, the place where I'm sure we'll see a real slant against how peachy things are going in Iraq -- Stars and Stripes military newspaper.
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Weaselly Theater On Senate Immigration Vote
Posted by Bob Geiger on June 11, 2007 at 11:10 AM.
I want to tell you a story about the shifty way that things sometimes work in the United States Senate and how much slips under the radar of a corporate media far more interested in Paris Hilton's jail-induced crying jag than informing Americans on how their government actually operates.
We saw a tsunami of amendments to the immigration-reform bill that died in the Senate last week -- when Democrats were unable to overcome a Republican blockade of the measure -- and one bill that many casual observers missed was offered by James "Ice-Age" Inhofe (R-OK) who once again wasted Senate time by pushing a bill to make English the "officially language" of the United States.
First things first: Inhofe is a true waste of oxygen in the Senate. When he's not denying the existence of climate change and stopping just short of wearing a sandwich-board decrying global warming as a liberal plot, he's looking for new and improved ways to divide the country over whatever nonsensical issue his short attention span has momentarily hooked into. So the fact that he offered S.Amdt 1151 to "declare English as the national language of the Government of the United States" should not shock anyone -- in fact, he's offered the same measure in the past.
And it probably won’t surprise some of you to find that offsetting legislation -- where one bill can immediately negate another -- is sometimes brought to a vote on the Senate floor. It happens a lot when one party offers a bill and the other proposes one of their own to kill it or neutralize the effect the opposition's legislation would have.
That's what happened last week, when Inhofe brought forward his cracker-barrel bill that would make it difficult for people for whom English is a second language to understand critical government forms like court documents and Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) proposed his own measure that would totally neuter the English-only bill if it should pass.
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Senate Democrats and Iraq Vets Agree on Habeas Corpus
Posted by Bob Geiger on June 8, 2007 at 1:45 PM.
Senator and presidential candidate Chris Dodd (D-CT) had a great column on the Huffington Post Thursday, in which he discussed his Restoring the Constitution Act (RCA) and the need to revive America's moral authority in the world, while beginning the process of repairing a U.S. Constitution torn to shreds by the Bush administration.
"One of the saddest days in my 26-year career in the Senate occurred last fall when the Congress passed the Military Commissions Act (MCA), allowing evidence obtained through torture to be admitted into evidence, denying individuals the right to counsel, the right to invoke the Geneva Conventions," wrote Dodd. "What is at stake is whether America stands for what is right or what is wrong - whether we stand for justice that secures America or vengeance that weakens us. What is at stake is the rule of law, America's moral authority and their vital connection to America's security."
Dodd's legislation would fully repeal the MCA by, among other things, restoring the writ of habeas corpus for individuals held in U.S. custody -- which means that nobody can be held in prison indefinitely without charges based on the discretion of the Bush administration -- and sharpening the definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" to include only individuals who directly participate in active combat against the United States, and those actively involved in the attacks against us on September 11.
It also mandates that the U.S. go back to adhering to Geneva Convention obligations because, as Dodd wrote "…America has always stood for something more and our ability to lead reflected it. Based on our moral leadership, we were able to forge alliances and respect around the world, that in turn helped to secure the nation."
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Latest intelligence report yet another smoking gun on Bush
Posted by Bob Geiger on June 6, 2007 at 8:31 AM.
When Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 25, 2003 to discuss preparations for a possible invasion of Iraq, he was asked by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to estimate the size of a successful occupation force after victory.
"Something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably a figure that would be required," said Shinseki, a highly-decorated officer with almost four decades of service, including extensive combat duty in Vietnam. "We're talking about a post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems."
"It takes a significant ground force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment, to ensure that people are fed, that water is disturbed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this."
Shinseki was immediately jumped by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Rumsfeld said publicly that Shinseki was "far off the mark" in his prediction, while Wolfowitz called his views "wildly off the mark" and said, "I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep requirements down."
The Village Voice even reported that a "senior administration official" said that Shinseki's estimate was "bullshit from a Clintonite enamored of using the army for peacekeeping and not winning wars".
General Shinseki "retired" shortly thereafter, in June 2003, and it is widely speculated that he was forced out for contradicting Bush's take on what would be required by the Army in Iraq. Shinseki has confirmed only that he was indeed forced into retirement, while withholding comment about any specifics.
Which makes the report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee before the Memorial Day holiday even more interesting because Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq (PDF) shows not only that Shinseki was right about troop levels, but also -- as if more evidence is needed -- that the Bush administration ignored critical pre-war intelligence in their rush to invade Iraq.
Please go to BobGeiger.com to read the rest of this story.
Reid: Bush "willfully ignored experts" before Iraq war
Posted by Bob Geiger on June 5, 2007 at 9:01 AM.
In his first speech on the Senate floor after returning from Congress's Memorial Day recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blasted George W. Bush and his administration for ignoring pre-war intelligence that specifically predicted long-term chaos in Iraq, the likelihood of a bloody civil war and the capacity of the invasion to actually strengthen al-Qaeda.
Citing a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee called "Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq," that was released the Friday before the holiday weekend, Reid asserted that "the Bush administration cannot hide behind ignorance. Whether out of hubris or incompetence, the President and his men willfully ignored the experts and sent our troops to battle unprepared for the consequences."
"Some might say, what is past is past. If the President's prewar failure was a one-time event, we could maybe forget about it, even though that would be hard," continued Reid. "But if President Bush's prewar failure was a one-time event, we could leave it to the historians to study and judge the tragedy of his incompetence. But even today, after almost 3,500 American deaths and more than 20,000 wounded, the President continues to cherry-pick facts in order to paint a rosy but very misleading picture of Iraq."
The report was one that Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) vowed to bring to public view before the Memorial Day holiday after years of the do-nothing, Republican Congress refusing to even examine the issues for fear of harming the already-tarnished White House.
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Steve Gilliard, 1966-2007
Posted by Bob Geiger on June 2, 2007 at 6:24 PM.
Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, one of the Progressive media's strongest voices and one of the sharpest writers I have ever read, died today at the age of 41.
I found out hours ago and have been unable to write anything until now… I'm feeling a numbing, knot-in-the-stomach grief -- not enough to burst into tears, but enough to immobilize me with thoughts of Steve and to perform the bizarre ritual of looking at the last e-mails he sent me in February before being hospitalized and pummeling myself with the reality that I'll never see those kinds of words again.
And what kind of words they were… Whether in a personal e-mail to me or a post lancing the right-wing knucklehead du jour, Steve was, well, Steve and his clarity, tone and pugnacity were unmistakable.
Steve was already a very well-known blogger when I began doing political commentary and reporting in 2005 and, as is the lot of all new bloggers, I was resoundingly ignored by most in the Progressive blog world -- hell, I was ignored by most of my family and friends.
But despite his hard-earned and lofty status and my total lack thereof, Steve acknowledged me and showed me respect beyond what I had contributed to our common dialog. It wasn't in e-mails with a lot of words -- Steve wasn't one to write flowery praise dotted with smiley faces -- but just a few sentences from the likes of Steve Gilliard telling me my writing had worth, was enough to get my hands back on the keyboard again.
Steve was a fighter and, as tears welled in my eyes upon hearing of his passing today, I almost started laughing thinking of Steve somehow witnessing the spectacle and telling me to cut the f___ing waterworks and get back to fighting for our country. He was that tough and loved our nation that much. But to those of us who worked with him and sought his advice, as I so often did, he was, more than he may have been willing to admit, a gentle, kind soul with a loving heart.
So, I'm going to get back to work. There's much to be done in America and the work Steve Gilliard did so well goes on -- though we, his teammates and countrymen, are poorer and immeasurably diminished by his passing.
To his wonderful partner, Jen, and his family, I offer my deepest sympathies.
Steve didn’t ask many to love him… Somehow, it just turned out that way.
You must do more than vote 'no' to become president
Posted by Bob Geiger on May 25, 2007 at 3:43 PM.
The so-called "compromise" supplemental bill that continues funding for George W. Bush's Iraq disaster but does nothing to compel him to change course, passed Congress yesterday with a 280-142 vote in the House of Representatives and a 80-14 tally in the Senate. Fourteen Senators voted against the bill rubber-stamping Bush's failed policy, including Democratic presidential candidates Chris Dodd (D-CT), Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL).
But although they cast the same vote yesterday, the stature engendered by these three candidates could not possibly be more different. On the one hand, you have Dodd, who came out strongly against this bogus compromise early in the week -- as he has dependably done on a host of other important issues -- and who said loud enough for the world to hear that he objected to caving in to Bush, failing our troops and breaking faith with the American people.
In other words, Chris Dodd behaved like a leader.
And, while many will probably say that Senators Clinton and Obama opposing the non-compromise was a product of political calculation -- their campaigns would have been dealt a harsh blow had they gone along with it -- I give both of them credit for voting their conscience and beliefs.
Here's my problem: Neither of them showed me, as a voter, what it will take to get my support when the New York primary happens next year.
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