Bush Lies About Allowing CIA To Torture Prisoners

Our president is once again lying to the American people. On Friday, Bush told us again the United States "does not torture people". The man must be a pathological liar. Why else would he still be lying when the evidence proving the lie has already been made public?

Does he really think "waterboarding" is not torture? Does he really think striking prisoners on the head is not torture? Does he really think exposing prisoners to extreme temperatures is not torture? I have to assume that he thinks it would be OK for a foreign power to do these things to captive Americans, since it is "not torture".

I think Bush probably knows (and just doesn't care) that the rest of the civilized world considers these things to be torture. He has been lying to them just like he lied to Americans. At the same time in February 2005 that Bush was telling everyone that the U.S. would no longer torture prisoners, he instructed Attorney General Gonzales to write a couple of secret memos to the CIA giving them explicit authority to torture prisoners.

Last week, the New York Times discovered these memos and made them public. To write these memos at the same time he was telling the world just the opposite thing, shows his basic dishonesty. But this shouldn't surprise anyone. He has lied repeatedly -- starting with the reasons for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

He either thought Americans were too stupid to find out, or he has a "King complex" and thinks he can do whatever the hell he wants to do without consequences. Why haven't Democrats started impeachment proceedings against him (and Cheney)?

Even if the proceedings could not be finished before he left office, it should still be done. It should be done so future president's know they cannot flaunt the Constitution, U.S. laws and international treaties. It should be done so we can start to regain our respect in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Craig Breaks His Word Again

There is one thing we know for sure now. Senator Larry Craig's word is worth nothing. After it was discovered that he had been arrested and pled guilty to propositioning a male police officer for sex in a Minnesota airport restroom, he held a news conference and told America that he would resign his office on September 30.

But that was not to be. He decided to appeal his guilty plea, and then promised to resign if the conviction was upheld. The judge's decision is now known.

Hennepin County Judge Charles Porter wrote in his decision, "Because the defendant's plea was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and because the conviction is supported by the evidence...the defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea is denied."

So that must mean Craig is going to resign -- right? WRONG! Craig again broke his word and said he is now going to finish out his term. This guy wouldn't be able to tell the truth if he was standing on a Bible (and he wonders why people don't believe him when he says he's not gay).

Personally, I'm glad he's not going to resign. That means we'll now probably have a nationally televised ethics hearing involving his homosexual restroom adventures, and if Democrats are lucky, it could drag on for weeks or even months, and keep the Republican's public immorality fresh in the minds of the voters.

There's nothing wrong with being gay, but it is fun to watch this hypocrite twist in the wind and blow the election for the next Idaho Republican. Get your popcorn ready and clean the TV screen -- this should be good.

A Note From Noriega

I received the following letter from State Representative and Lt. Colonel Rick Noriega on 10/3/07. I'm sure many of you received one just like it -- especially if you're a contributor to his campaign fund.

But I was impressed with the letter and wanted to print it so those of you who have not yet jumped on board the Noriega Express can see how a candidate with class runs a campaign.

Texas needs Rick Noriega in the U.S. Senate. That fact was driven home in the last few days when Cornyn again voted to deprive young children of healthcare.

Cornyn has consistently voted against the best interests of the people of Texas. The excellent blog Dig Deeper Texas listed many of these votes in an October 3rd post. Check it out -- it's a pretty shocking list of bad votes. We have got to get this fool out of the senate.

If you haven't joined the Noriega campaign yet, I urge you to do so now. Rick needs you, and so does Texas.

Here is Rick's letter:

I'm in Washington, D.C. today, working to gain national support for our campaign to defeat John Cornyn next November.

People are listening.

That's because this week your financial support helped us answer the question everyone had for our campaign: Can we raise enough money to compete against John Cornyn and his powerful special interests money machine?

With over $570,000 raised last quarter from friends like you, we answered with an emphatic "Yes!"

Just online, our campaign raised $158,860 from over 1,100 donations via ActBlue. That made our campaign the most successful non-incumbent Senate candidate on ActBlue during the 3rd quarter. This is an incredible demonstration of our grassroots support that our competitors simply can't match. That doesn't happen without you.

You stepped up when I was away for two weeks of army training to help our campaign continue to raise funds in my absence. You stepped up in these last few weeks by helping us shatter our $25,000 online fundraising goal by over 50%. You stepped up in the face of those critics who told us we couldn't compete with the big-moneyed interests with a campaign built by real Texans.

For all these reasons and so many more, I thank you.

There's no question; your work has projected us to the next level and onto this national stage. Together, we will work to get our state and our nation back on the right track by finding ways to bring people together.

We can't stop now. We have to continue to expand our base of support to defeat John Cornyn next year. So please take a moment, and click here to tell your friends and family to join our campaign.

Finally, hundreds of you are collecting petitions to get us on the ballot. We've set a goal of obtaining 25,000 signatures to get my name on the ballot. This is 5 times the legal requirement of 5,000, but I know we can do it because of our unparalleled grassroots support. If you haven't printed a petition, and want to help, click here.

Thank you again for all you do.

For Texas and For America,
Rick NoriegaDemocrat for U.S. Senate

Union Troubles Start For American Airlines

The short-sightedness of American Airlines leadership is beginning to cause it some trouble. The airline has been in preliminary negotiations with the Transport Workers Union, which covers American's ground workers. Management had hoped to extend the current contract for two years, with some "incentive-based" merit increases in pay.

I can't believe they thought that even had a chance of succeeding, and evidently the union saw it that way also. The contract talks have ended without an agreement being reached.

In 2003, the union agreed to a cut in pay to help the ailing airline survive. This year, with the airline being on a sound and profitable financial footing, the employees expected to be rewarded for their sacrifice by getting at least some of their pay-cuts back. That did not happen.

Instead, they left the pay-cuts in place for workers, and rewarded management with millions of dollars in bonuses. Now they want to extend the pay-cuts for another two years, and give a few merit raises. The workers said no. They want their pay restored.

The pay-cuts should have been rescinded before a single penny in management bonuses was paid. Did the airline really expect workers to continue their sacrifices for another two years while management gets rich with huge bonuses?

Now the airline will have to begin serious negotiations with the TWU in November, followed closely by contract talks with the pilot's and flight attendent's unions. It won't be easy. These unions all still remember the slap in the face of the ill-timed management bonuses.

The airline should have known this would happen, but its leadership was too greedy to care. Now they must pay the price for their short-sighted greed.

Big-Spender President Poses As Conservative

The spendthrift currently occupying the White House spent the first six years of his term without vetoing a single spending bill. Domestic spending has grown faster under Bush than it did under Democrat Bill Clinton (who left office with a huge surplus). Bush has not only outspent any previous Democratic president, but he has created the largest debt of any president of any party.

Now he wants to pose as a conservative. He calls the Democratic plan to cover more children with health insurance just more "tax and spend" politics, and says it's a move toward socialized medicine. Unbelievably, he used his first veto of a spending bill to deny healthcare to children (the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP).

The SCHIP plan he vetoed would have cost $35 billion over the next five years. Then he turns around and asks for another $190 billion to finance his failure in Iraq (which probably won't even finance a year of the futile war). He is willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to finance the killing of thousands of Iraqis and Americans, but he cannot spend $7 billion a year to provide healthcare for children.

He may call himself a conservative, but the American people are not buying it anymore. Most Americans think he has his priorities backward. They want to spend more on healthcare for children and less on Bush's war in Iraq.

A new ABC/Washington Post poll shows that 67% of Americans want to spend less in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only 27% approve of Bush's $190 billion request. Also, 72% of Americans approved of the program to increase children's healthcare coverage, while only 25% opposed it. Even Republicans can't understand the president's skewed priorities.

When Bush took office in 2000, it looked as though the Republican majority might last many years. But the Bush policies, coupled with the immoral and unethical behavior of many Republicans, has destroyed that in a scant 7 years.

Republican elected officials can read the polls. They already knew that as a party they were in trouble. They also know that Bush's latest moves may have sounded the deathknell for their party in the upcoming election. It's possible that in an effort to save themselves, many may desert Bush and help Democrats override his veto on children's healthcare.

Bush seems hellbent on a path to destroy the Republican party.

Holy Land Charities Case Is Not A Simple One

Back in 2001, the federal government shut down an organization called the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. They arrested five people who were running the foundation in Dallas, accusing them of funding a terrorist organization. The government said the funds being raised were winding up in the hands of Hamas -- a government designated terrorist group.

The five individuals were put on trial, and that case is now in the hands of the jury. But the jury seems to be having trouble. They have deliberated for 9 days, and have now come back to the judge for guidance. It seems that one of the jurors is refusing to cast a vote at all -- either for guilty or innocence.

Our president is a simple person who sees the world in black and white terms. The problem is that there is no black and white in the Palestinian areas of the Middle East -- only many shades of gray.

The only thing for certain is that the money raised in Dallas was sent to the Middle East, and much of it, if not all of it, wound up in the hands of Hamas. Does that make the Dallas men who raised the money terrorists?

There is no evidence that the men knew the money was going to Hamas. Even if they did, there is no evidence that the money was used for anything other than charitable purposes. After all, in many Palestinian areas, the only competent social service organizations and charitable organizations are run by Hamas. While one arm of Hamas is a military force, it has another arm that does much good charitable work among Palestinians.

I can understand the jury's quandry. This is not a cut-and-dried case. I'm afraid if I was on the jury, I might well be like the juror who refuses to cast a vote.

Is the Holy Land Foundation a charity or a funder of terrorism? Is it a mixture of the two? Did the men know Hamas was the recepient of the money? Did Hamas use the money for charitable purposes?

These are all valid questions, and the government has not really answered any of them. Until they do, I don't think I could find these people guilty.

173 Miles or 70 Miles or 50 Miles or 40 Miles ?

Does the federal government not know what it is doing, or are they finally beginning to respond to all the criticism they have been getting from Texans over the proposed border fence?

When the Republicans passed their stupid proposal to build a new fence on America's southern border, we were told that at least 173 miles of the fence would be built in Texas. When the Border Patrol and the Army Corps of Engineers released plans last week, it showed plans for only 70 miles of fence along the Texas/Mexico border.

On Monday, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff said there may be as little as 50, or even 40 miles of the fence built in Texas. What is going on? Are they responding to the criticism of border residents and landowners and environmentalists? Have they finally come to their senses? Chertoff now says most of the fence will be built in California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Texas is not like the other border states. The other three states share a land border with Mexico. But although Texas has the longest border with Mexico, it is composed of the Rio Grande river. A fence in Texas could cut farmers, ranchers and wildlife off from the needed river water.

The fence could also harm relations with Mexico and hurt Texas economically. The fact is that the fence would do nothing to protect Texas, but could easily harm us. Even 40 miles is too much.

We must keep pressing on this issue until we get the number of miles down to 0. It is the only acceptable number.

El Paso Electric Ships IT Jobs To Houston

Evidently El Paso Electric thinks the only thing they owe the people of El Paso is to sell them electricity for as much as the market will bear. They obviously don't feel any obligation to help the economy of El Paso by keeping decent paying company jobs there.

On Monday, El Paso Electric CEO Ershel Redd Jr. (pictured above) announced that the company was outsourcing its Information Technology department. They have signed a contract with Dyonyx, a Houston company, to handle all their IT work.

This move costs the El Paso area 51 decent jobs. That may not sound like a whole lot of jobs, but this is money that will no longer be being spent in the El Paso economy (and each dollar from a job normally turns over several times in the local economy).

Sadly, those may not be the last jobs outsourced by the company. Felipe Salazar of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local #960 said "employees are pretty nervous" about whether more outsourcing will occur.

Redd said, "This is something that benefits our customers. This gives us access to cutting-edge technologies and skills sets that would be cost prohibitive to build ourselves." He went on to say, "A lot of electric companies are doing this."

The fact that other electric companies are doing it doesn't make it right. The fact that someone else is doing something wrong doesn't excuse you for doing the same thing. I believe their customers would have benefited more by the company's continued investment in the local economy by keeping their jobs in El Paso.

Just like many other corporations, they don't seem to realize that they owe a social and economic debt to the city where they do business. Sending jobs to Houston does nothing to repay that debt.

Panhandle Quartet To Seek Re-Election

The Amarillo Globe News had some very depressing, but not unexpected news yesterday. The quartet of Republican state legislators representing the Panhandle announced Monday that they will all seek re-election. They said they want to continue working as a team for the Texas Panhandle.

For those of you unfamiliar with this area of Texas, they are Senator Kel Seliger (Amarillo) who is pictured above, Rep. Warren Chisum (Pampa), Rep. David Swinford (Dumas) and Rep. John Smithee (Amarillo). They are all Republicans and all right-wing nuts.

The sad part is that the Panhandle is one of the reddest areas of Texas, and all four of them stand an excellent chance of being re-elected. Although I will not vote for any of them and will work as hard as I can to see them defeated, I almost feel like I need to apologize to the rest of Texas for my current home's voting patterns.

The caliber of representation from the Panhandle is downright embarrassing. I just moved up here 9 months ago, having lived the last twenty years in the DFW metroplex. In the metroplex, you might be represented by a Republican, but at least there was a good Democrat within shouting distance. Up here, there's not even a Democratic representative within driving distance -- even a very long drive.

Don't get me wrong. There are some good progressive Democrats living here, and I have met many of them (such as the good folks at Panhandle Truth Squad). There just aren't nearly enough of us.

Oh well -- enough complaining. Time to get busy and see if we can do the impossible and elect some Democrats.

64 Americans Die Needlessly In Iraq In September

Last month in Iraq, 64 more Americans died. This brings the total of American troops killed in the Iraq war to 3,807 as of Monday. Of course, the Bush administration is trying to frame it as a good thing. They want you to believe that the surge is working since this is the lowest number of Americans killed in four months.

Frederick Kagan, one of the architects of the "troop surge", says that U.S. troops have now secured most of the troubled areas in Baghdad, and that is why American deaths are lower. That's pure crap.

First of all, American deaths are not that much lower than the last two months. The website icasualties.org puts the number killed at 66 instead of 64. There were 84 killed in August and 78 killed in July.

That doesn't sound like that much of a drop to me, and 64-66 deaths is still far too many Americans to die when nothing is being accomplished. Nothing, that is, except to help our enemies to win the civil war in that country.

The tiny drop in American deaths had nothing to do with the surge. The real reason is because Shiite leader Muqtada al Sadr (pictured above) has ordered his troops to stop fighting. Sadr, who is an ally of Iran, has decided to sit on the sidelines and let us fight the Sunnis for him. He knows that when we leave he can overthrow the puppet government and establish a Shiite state allied with Iran, because Shiites are the majority population and are well-armed.

So while we fight the Sunnis and Americans die, Sadr just waits in the wings to establish his Shiite theocracy. Does it make any sense that Americans are dying to give Iran a powerful new ally in the region? Thanks to Bush, that's exactly what we're doing and there's little we can do to prevent it.

If the Shiites are going to take over (and it looks like they will), they should have to do it on their own. We should not do it for them. Neither the Shiites nor the Sunnis are our friends, and neither is worth more American deaths.

It is time to withdraw our troops -- the sooner the better. It is time our government realized that the puppet government will not survive no matter which side wins the civil war, and neither side will let us have the oil that Bush covets so much.

None of the possible outcomes is worth the life of a single American soldier.

Supreme Court Refuses Two Religious Cases

This came as a bit of a surprise to me. Recently, religious organizations have been pretty successful at getting the courts to help them further their agenda. But this term, it's not going to happen.

The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear two cases brought by religious organizations. One involved birth control, and the other involved church services in a public library.

In the first case, several religious organizations were trying to overturn a New York law that forced their faith-based charities to pay for birth control for their employees. The law said that health benefits provided for employees must include birth control. The faith-based social-help organizations, such as Catholic Charities, claimed they were a religious organization and this violated their religious freedom to oppose birth control.

Lower courts ruled that they hired people of various beliefs and their primary purpose was not religious but charitable, and this made the law applicable to them. The Supreme Court's refusal to hear their case means they will now have to include birth control in their employee health benefits.

The second case was brought by Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries. The church wanted the court to force a public library to allow them to hold religious services at the facility. They claimed they had a right to meet there since they were a "community" organization.

The library said allowing the religious services was tantamount to public-financing of religious services. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in SanFrancisco ruled in favor of the library saying, "Although religious worship is an important institution in any community, we disagree that anything remotely community-related must therefore be granted access to the Antioch Library meeting room."

The court's refusal to take this case means the church cannot hold services at the library. I applaud the Supreme Court's decision to refuse both of these cases. Maybe this court term will be a better one than last year's -- well, I can always hope.

Audit Exposes Railroad Commission Incompetence

I'm beginning to wonder if there's any state agency in Texas that displays even a minimal level of competence. There doesn't seem to be one. The latest agency exposed is the Railroad Commission.

The Railroad Commission is the agency responsible for inspecting the state's thousands of oil and gas wells. A recent audit shows serious problems. At least 46% of the oil and gas leases in Texas have not been inspected for at least 5 years. That's nearly half of the 169,000 wells in the state that could have been polluting our environment for years and no one would know, because they haven't been inspected to see if they are complying with the law.

Another problem is that of the wells that have supposedly been inspected, managers are just taking the inspectors word on it. None of them have been spot-checked by managers to see that the inspectors are doing an adequate job. We just have to take it on faith that the job is really being done.

The audit report also says, "In the three districts visited, employees reported that they accept meals, caps, gift baskets and other small gifts from oil and gas operators that they regulate. While this may not violate the Commission's policies, any acceptance of gifts by district employees from industry may create a public perception that the employee is not objective."

Of course it creates that perception. How can you be totally objective after accepting even small gifts. In response to the audit, the Commission says it will mandate that the gifts cannot exceed $50. That is not good enough. Why should they be accepting any gifts at all? There is no reason why a state employee should accept even a small gift from someone they are being paid to regulate.

We can now see that the Railroad Commission is the same as other Republican-dominated state agencies. They are either incompetent or they've sold out to the corporations.

The Commission is supposed to be protecting Texans. But how can that be when they are not inspecting half of the wells, not checking any of the inspections done on the other half, and allowing their employees to accept gifts from those they are paid to inspect.

Is there any end to Republican incompetence and corruption?

GM Gets More Than UAW In New Contract

Last week the UAW went out on strike against General Motors, ostensibly to protect American union jobs. The strike only lasted two days before an agreement was announced and workers returned to work. Since then, both the union and GM management have lauded the new contract.

Now some details of the new contract have been made public. It's easy to see why management likes the newly proposed contract, but I'm a bit mystified as to why union leaders think it's good for their workers.

Even though workers were willing to use the most powerful tool in their arsenal -- a nation-wide strike, it looks like GM's management was able to bully UAW leaders into giving them everything they wanted.

Management was able to dump their obligation for retiree healthcare onto the union, lower wages for thousands of workers and gain approval to close two plants (and maybe several more). It sounds to me like the union needs some better negotiators. If this was the best they could do, why bother to miss two days of work?

Union leaders hailed this as a victory for the union movement in America. I disagree. I think it is indicative of the sad state of unions in this country.

Would A Giuliani Candidacy Help Democrats ?

It has become obvious in recent months that the religious right has lost much of its momentum. In the last few years, a candidate could not get the nomination of the Republican Party to run for president unless he had the approval of the evangelical movement. That is no longer true.

None of the major candidates running for the Republican nomination have the credentials expected of a candidate of the religious right. Although he is now parroting the beliefs of evangelicals, Romney has a history of liberal beliefs and actions. It is doubtful that he could gain the trust of most fundamentalists. McCain has never been trusted by the right-wing fundamentalists.

Thompson has been touted as the darling of the religious right, but with his trophy wife, his admission that he doesn't go to church regularly, and his refusal to support a constitutional ban on gay marriage, he has already raised opposition from some leaders of the religious right, such as James Dobson.

In fact, the candidate most likely to receive the nomination is also the most liberal of the Republican candidates -- Giuliani. Until recently, I thought his candidacy might pose the most problems for Democrats. That may not be true.

The fundamentalists are still united in their opposition to abortion, but beyond that issue many are starting to pay attention to many other issues -- issues such as racism, peace, fighting HIV, helping the poor and the environment. Some believe that if the abortion issue were nullified, it would open the campaign to these other issues that are championed mainly by the Democrats. Giuliani is pro-choice, and his nomination would nullify the abortion issue.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, says, "Most evangelicals have been voting Republican because they were given a bright-line choice between a pro-life candidate and a pro-choice candidate. If that issue were taken off the table, then other issues get oxygen, issues where evangelicals are not nearly as certain that Republicans offer the best answer. Issues like economic justice, racial reconciliation, the environment. If the Republicans are foolish enough to nominate a pro-choice candidate, they give the Democrats a license to go hunting evangelical votes".

I still expect most evangelical votes to go to the Republicans, but it is an exciting prospect to think that Democrats could make inroads with this demographic group. After all, this is the "base" that Republicans have counted on for the last few years. Given the moral problems experienced by the Republican Party recently, and it's even easier to believe some evangelical votes could go to Democrats.

So while Giuliani might appeal to a few independents (although not many, considering his support of the war), he might actually free many evangelicals to vote for the Democratic candidate.