Gov. Mike Easley actually showed up in public yesterday at Lowe's Motor Speedway, pandering to "NASCAR dads" by signing two bills that will give away $2 million of tax-payers' money for a new test track and create a special $30 license plate honoring the billion-dollar stock-car racing industry, which might be expected to pay its own way in building that new test track. Wouldn't you think? Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
No report on any adverse effects the guv might have suffered from being in such close proximity to actual living human beings.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Bush's EPA Pressuring N.C. to Relax Air Pollution Rules
If the Bush administration has its way, North Carolina's tougher air pollution rules will be scaled back to satisfy the wishes of some of El Presidente's biggest campaign contributors. "The Bush administration in December 2002 issued changes to EPA rules, creating broader exemptions for industries to expand without installing new pollution equipment. States operating their own air programs, such as North Carolina, have until 2006 to decide how to change them in response." (N&O coverage here.)
One option supposedly being considered by the Environmental Management Commission is ... doing nothing. That is, ignoring the Bush administration's laxer rules and keeping North Carolina's more stringent. But Keith Overcash, head of the N.C. Division of Air Quality, is quoted in this morning's N&O saying, "We have been talking to EPA about the option of doing nothing," Overcash said. "Verbally, we have been told that is not an option. We're trying to come up with a rule that EPA will accept so we don't jeopardize putting our program in bad straits with EPA."
Does anybody remember the gospel of state's rights, preached by the Republicans when it's to their advantage, and actively ignored by the Republicans when it might impinge on their high-dollar donors, as in this case?
These are not only hypocrites. They are hypocrites with a death wish.
One option supposedly being considered by the Environmental Management Commission is ... doing nothing. That is, ignoring the Bush administration's laxer rules and keeping North Carolina's more stringent. But Keith Overcash, head of the N.C. Division of Air Quality, is quoted in this morning's N&O saying, "We have been talking to EPA about the option of doing nothing," Overcash said. "Verbally, we have been told that is not an option. We're trying to come up with a rule that EPA will accept so we don't jeopardize putting our program in bad straits with EPA."
Does anybody remember the gospel of state's rights, preached by the Republicans when it's to their advantage, and actively ignored by the Republicans when it might impinge on their high-dollar donors, as in this case?
These are not only hypocrites. They are hypocrites with a death wish.
Bless the Youth, For They Shall Lead Us
The Washington Post has an analysis of Bush's sinking esteem among the 18-29 year old cohort: "...if the election were held today, Bush would do about as badly among younger voters as Republican Robert Dole did in 1996 when he lost to incumbent Bill Clinton by 53 percent to 34 percent in this age group."
And nowhere in its article does the WashPost credit Jon Stewart as the real reason young people see through the strutting El Presidente. But Mondays through Thursdays, every week at 11 p.m., Stewart and the gang at "The Daily Show" offer more real news about the hypocrisies, lies, and outrages of this current regime than any of our so-called "legitimate" news organizations.
Somebody at the Kerry campaign ought to be taping those shows.
And nowhere in its article does the WashPost credit Jon Stewart as the real reason young people see through the strutting El Presidente. But Mondays through Thursdays, every week at 11 p.m., Stewart and the gang at "The Daily Show" offer more real news about the hypocrisies, lies, and outrages of this current regime than any of our so-called "legitimate" news organizations.
Somebody at the Kerry campaign ought to be taping those shows.
Is ANYONE in Charge?
Who's running the Kerry campaign? When the most mockable president in recent memory takes the gambit of mocking Kerry on his Iraq war "problem," and Kerry lets him get away with it, don't we have a slight problem? An article in today's New York Times contains sentences like this: "So far, [Kerry's] aides and advisers concede, he has failed to get his message across."
And this: "It [Kerry's vote to authorize the Iraq war] is a problem that has dogged Mr. Kerry since he walked through the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, and suffered the barbs of Vermont's former governor, Howard Dean, who made Mr. Kerry's vote to authorize action an issue. Now Mr. Bush has taken up where Dr. Dean left off."
Howard Dean ... trainer extraordinaire for El Presidente? That's salt in the recent wound of watching the Democratic National Committee and the media do in Gov. Dean, who even now is a far more effective counter-puncher than Kerry.
And why is it that the New York Times can point out Bush's glaring weakness and Kerry can't? "...but Mr. Bush has his own problems, since the argument re-ignites the question of whether he rushed to war without a plan about what to do next. It is an issue on which Mr. Bush can still sound defensive. On Wednesday in Albuquerque, he responded to Mr. Kerry's suggestion that the United States could begin pulling troops out of Iraq next year by saying, 'I know what I'm doing when it comes to winning this war, and I'm not going to be sending mixed signals' by discussing pullouts."
"I know what I'm doing when it comes to winning this war." That statement is one of the more mockable lines that this eminently mockable president has uttered over the last three and a half years.
Come on, Kerry!
And this: "It [Kerry's vote to authorize the Iraq war] is a problem that has dogged Mr. Kerry since he walked through the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, and suffered the barbs of Vermont's former governor, Howard Dean, who made Mr. Kerry's vote to authorize action an issue. Now Mr. Bush has taken up where Dr. Dean left off."
Howard Dean ... trainer extraordinaire for El Presidente? That's salt in the recent wound of watching the Democratic National Committee and the media do in Gov. Dean, who even now is a far more effective counter-puncher than Kerry.
And why is it that the New York Times can point out Bush's glaring weakness and Kerry can't? "...but Mr. Bush has his own problems, since the argument re-ignites the question of whether he rushed to war without a plan about what to do next. It is an issue on which Mr. Bush can still sound defensive. On Wednesday in Albuquerque, he responded to Mr. Kerry's suggestion that the United States could begin pulling troops out of Iraq next year by saying, 'I know what I'm doing when it comes to winning this war, and I'm not going to be sending mixed signals' by discussing pullouts."
"I know what I'm doing when it comes to winning this war." That statement is one of the more mockable lines that this eminently mockable president has uttered over the last three and a half years.
Come on, Kerry!
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
A Hack Politician to Head the CIA
Billmon has the goods on what's wrong with the Porter Goss appointment to the top CIA post ... and what's wrong (again!) with Senate Democrats, who seem intent (again!) to roll over and play puppy dogs to El Presidente's clear intention of turning the CIA into a political arm of the Bush/Cheney Reelection Committee. Once in a while it would be such a relief to take some pride in our Democratic senators!
Jim Harrell Makes Daily Kos
When an international blog that has raised zillions for Democratic congressional candidates singles out our local candidate, Dr. Jim Harrell of Mount Airy, for notice, and suggests that the 5th District race in North Carolina might be winnable for the Dems ... well now! This deserves some attention.
Daily Kos today posts an assessment of the 5th district situation which is mostly correct (even though Kos seems to be under the impression that Vernon Robinson has won the Republican nomination). Kos is getting his info from the Rothenberg Political Report, which is saying that Robinson has become an embarrassment to moderate Republicans in the district and that Virginia Foxx has been tainted also by the viciousness of the contest.
And certainly Harrell is the strongest candidate to step forward in the 5th District since Steve Neal retired. He's raised respectable money but will need much more. The fact that he'll be running against Foxx and not Robinson doesn't help, but Virginia is also vulnerable as a two-faced opportunist who will lie to your face. More on her, after she wins the primary run-off next Tuesday.
Daily Kos today posts an assessment of the 5th district situation which is mostly correct (even though Kos seems to be under the impression that Vernon Robinson has won the Republican nomination). Kos is getting his info from the Rothenberg Political Report, which is saying that Robinson has become an embarrassment to moderate Republicans in the district and that Virginia Foxx has been tainted also by the viciousness of the contest.
And certainly Harrell is the strongest candidate to step forward in the 5th District since Steve Neal retired. He's raised respectable money but will need much more. The fact that he'll be running against Foxx and not Robinson doesn't help, but Virginia is also vulnerable as a two-faced opportunist who will lie to your face. More on her, after she wins the primary run-off next Tuesday.
Run-Off for Sec. of Education Next Tuesday
In a quandary about who to vote for in the primary run-off between Atkinson and Stewart next Tuesday for Secretary of Education? Didn't know there was a run-off? Maybe this article in today's News & Observer can help you sort it out. It helped me.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
The Politics of Terrorism
The story about the outing, for immediate political advantage, of another intelligence "asset" in Pakistan has begun to emerge in fairly coherent fashion. As we understand the sequence of events, this is what happened:
1. July 29th the Democratic Convention gives a big boost to the international and national security "cred" of John Kerry.
2. August 1st, the Bush administration breaks up the Kerry boomlet by raising the terror alert to orange in New York and Washington, earning the suspicion that they're playing politics with terror.
3. Taking a drubbing in the press for getting everyone all upset with four-year-old intel, someone in the Bush administration, in a panic to recover the political upper hand on terror, leaks the information that the new orange alert is really based on brand-new inside information gathered from a newly captured Al Qaeda computer expert, and the Bush administration leaker even names the guy: Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan. Khan, after his secret capture in Pakistan in July, had been cooperating with Pakistani and CIA officials in tracking Al Qaeda operatives, especially in Great Britain and Nigeria. Pakistani intelligence told Reuters that Khan was still working undercover when the U.S. security status was raised to orange and his name appeared in a U.S. newspaper.
4. The leaking of Khan's name sets off falling dominoes around the world, as Al Qaeda leaders suddenly realize they've been "made" and start disappearing. British military officials are forced to scramble and hurriedly stage a daylight raid on Qaeda operatives in Great Britain, to avoid losing them because of the leaking of Khan's name. "Security analysts said the outing of the source was a major blunder that forced Britain to arrest 12 terrorism suspects in a hurry."
5. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York writes a letter to the White House demanding to know why Khan's name was leaked to the press, suggesting that the outing of Khan may have hurt the war on terror. Duh.
This sorry sequence of events led to this Reuters lead paragraph today: "The unmasking of an al Qaeda mole after a U.S. security alert points to disarray within U.S. intelligence and could mean President George W. Bush is accused of playing politics with security, the top U.S. election issue."
And to this assessment by David Wright-Neville, of the Monash Global Terrorism Research Unit in Australia: "If it's true, at the very least it would suggest a breakdown in communication between the Pakistanis and the Americans. At worst, it smacks of political opportunism and, if that is indeed the case, it suggests that political survival ranks more highly than generating potentially valuable information on the extent of the [Qaeda] network."
1. July 29th the Democratic Convention gives a big boost to the international and national security "cred" of John Kerry.
2. August 1st, the Bush administration breaks up the Kerry boomlet by raising the terror alert to orange in New York and Washington, earning the suspicion that they're playing politics with terror.
3. Taking a drubbing in the press for getting everyone all upset with four-year-old intel, someone in the Bush administration, in a panic to recover the political upper hand on terror, leaks the information that the new orange alert is really based on brand-new inside information gathered from a newly captured Al Qaeda computer expert, and the Bush administration leaker even names the guy: Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan. Khan, after his secret capture in Pakistan in July, had been cooperating with Pakistani and CIA officials in tracking Al Qaeda operatives, especially in Great Britain and Nigeria. Pakistani intelligence told Reuters that Khan was still working undercover when the U.S. security status was raised to orange and his name appeared in a U.S. newspaper.
4. The leaking of Khan's name sets off falling dominoes around the world, as Al Qaeda leaders suddenly realize they've been "made" and start disappearing. British military officials are forced to scramble and hurriedly stage a daylight raid on Qaeda operatives in Great Britain, to avoid losing them because of the leaking of Khan's name. "Security analysts said the outing of the source was a major blunder that forced Britain to arrest 12 terrorism suspects in a hurry."
5. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York writes a letter to the White House demanding to know why Khan's name was leaked to the press, suggesting that the outing of Khan may have hurt the war on terror. Duh.
This sorry sequence of events led to this Reuters lead paragraph today: "The unmasking of an al Qaeda mole after a U.S. security alert points to disarray within U.S. intelligence and could mean President George W. Bush is accused of playing politics with security, the top U.S. election issue."
And to this assessment by David Wright-Neville, of the Monash Global Terrorism Research Unit in Australia: "If it's true, at the very least it would suggest a breakdown in communication between the Pakistanis and the Americans. At worst, it smacks of political opportunism and, if that is indeed the case, it suggests that political survival ranks more highly than generating potentially valuable information on the extent of the [Qaeda] network."
Friday, August 06, 2004
Bishop of Raleigh Will Not Deny Communion
For the record, the Catholic Bishop F. Joseph Gossman of Raleigh has opted out of the moral bullying being practiced by his fellow prelates in Charlotte, Atlanta, and Charleston. Bishop Gossman said the sacrament of the Eucharist -- the receiving of bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of Christ, according to the Catholic faith -- should not be denied. "It is also been the long-standing practice in the Church not to make a public judgment about the state of the soul of those who present themselves for Holy Communion," said Gossman in a letter July 8. "For the present, this will continue to be my position."
Apparently, Bishop Gossman actually thinks "morality" takes in more ground than just the politics of abortion, since the decision to go to war might also qualify as a "moral" decision. Along with the decision to tilt every tax cut toward the richest while leaving the poorest to fend for themselves.
Apparently, Bishop Gossman actually thinks "morality" takes in more ground than just the politics of abortion, since the decision to go to war might also qualify as a "moral" decision. Along with the decision to tilt every tax cut toward the richest while leaving the poorest to fend for themselves.
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