Current Events

I’ve been on vacation for a week and not blogging about anything political, but this week’s list from Democratic Underground covers all the really big stories, including how a major media outlet refused to honor the war dead for political reasons, and how Iraqi prisoners are being tortured and raped by American soldiers in prison, which is really no better than what we accused Saddam Hussein of doing. And interestingly enough, what the GOP is lambasting Kerry for speaking out about during the Vietnam war.
The thing I wanted to point out, that no one seems to be covering much, is how homophobic the behavior of the American soldiers doing the torturing is… they’re forcing male prisoners to simulate sexual poses with each other as a form of humiliation, and taking photos of it to entertain their friends.

Ron Suskind, white house press reporter and author of The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill discusses the White House’s poor management of the press:

Among many other things, the “Tax Cut” (my taxes went UP, BTW, not down, as did taxes for all single people) benefited Bush and Cheney massively… nice to be able to put a little money in your own pockets, isn’t it? Bastards.

Presidential Press Conference, April 13, 2004
President Bush: John.
Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President … What would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?
Bush: Hmm. I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it. … You know, I just, uh, I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn’t yet. .. I, uh, hope I — I don’t want to sound like I’ve made no mistakes. I’m confident I have. I just haven’t — you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I’m not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.
Now look at that for a moment — aside from the fact that the president is just too stupid to think on his feet, which frankly isn’t that surprising and something we could have guessed — notice that he points out that all questions for press conferences are usually submitted to him in writing, and he’s objecting that this one wasn’t.
No president has ever held a press conference that way before — no one. Only Bush asks for questions to be submitted ahead of time so he can prepare, or rather so Karl Rove can write the answers for him, because the man is too damned dumb to be able to figure out an answer on his own.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — it’s terrifying when I’m smarter than the President of the United States.

From Voice of America News:

“… a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
According to the recently published and very well-reviewed Anatomy of Fascism.
Hmmm. Maybe Canada’s too close. Maybe Europe would be better.

A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency warns the U.S. Government that Iraq Nuclear Facilities are unguarded and that radioactive materials are being removed from the country. According to the report, satellite imagery shows “extensive removal of equipment and in some instances, removal of entire buildings,” in Iraq. In addition, “large quanitities of scrap, some of it contaminated, have been transfered out of Iraq from sites” previously monitored by the IAEA.