Happy Tuesday. This just fires me up today already as the Republican attack dogs are out slimming a 12 year old kid and his family. I understand that some on the right are against all government spending in every case except to make more endless wars. However, please just argue your fiscal reasons of why that you are against this SCHIP bill and do not try to prove that some kid is poorer than he says. I am used to the typical socialized medicine scare tactics but lay off the 12 year old. Plus once again, it is proved that your cheap tactics are not true.
UPDATE: Here is a great article about the family and the ordeal they have been through.
I might elaborate later on how moronic it was for Bush to veto this bill on the grounds of NOW being a fiscal conservative. He picks a popular children's health care program to draw the line on government spending. Even though under his watch, we have taken our biggest budget surpluses to our highest deficits. Bush has ran our credit card debt up by borrowing from China and cutting off income to pay for it. Cut taxes, spend, and borrow. This is just horrible financial policy and I did not even go to Harvard business school to figure this out.
Bush has been getting bad advice as expanding this program is both good politics and solid policy. The majority of American citizens, large portion of Congress, state governors of both parties and health groups all favor expanding the well run program. 60 billion price tag over 5 years is nothing compared to the 12 billion a week that we will spend on the military over the next year. 450 billion in the defense budget, to go along with 190 billion in additional money for Bush's endless occupations.
Who wants to be on the opposite side of children's health care? I just do not understand it.
A private US intelligence company monitoring the real Islamic terrorist groups uncovered a Osama video before the group was going to release it and informed the Bush Administration. They told them not to tell anyone as it would blow their cover and ruin their work. Of course some Bush staffer, probably motivated by the ability to promote some twisted good news, leaked the video to Fox News.
Within hours it was online and other government agencies were attempting to download the video. The Islamic group with ties to Al Qaeda detected the breach in their system and put up safe guards to prevent the company from accessing their information. The company's intelligence ground work was gone forever in a flash.
These Bush officials are the ones that we are supposed to trust with wire taps and secret programs?
When I read stories like this it cements my beliefs that the administration's national security arguments are not only masquerading their borderline illegal activity but are truly hiding their incompetence when it comes to really protecting America. This type of behavior highlights the lasting remnants of Karl Rove's influence on the White House by creating an environment which constantly promotes politics over policy.
There is an article in the NY Times today describing how the Democratic leadership is ready to cave over the changes to the FISA law. My man Glenn Greenwald argues on his Salon blog today that the proposed House bill actually is not bad as the article portrays and it makes sure not to give the telecom industry retro active immunity from prior law breaking activities.
I have little faith that this version will pass as the Senate Democrats on Intelligence committee are in the back pocket of the telecoms and the whole Legislative branch has shown little moxie in stopping anything that this unpopular overzealous executive branch demands. Greenwald sums up the stakes of this pending legislation quite well in his following post.
There is absolutely no justification whatsoever -- neither substantive nor political -- for expanding the scope of warrantless eavesdropping powers and especially for granting amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms. It is unconscionable even to consider any changes to FISA without full disclosure by the administration of how they used their illegal and secret warrantless eavesdropping powers in the past. In that regard, it is worth emphasizing that the administration from 2001 through 2004 (at least) was engaged in spying on Americans so patently illegal that the entire top level of the DOJ and the FBI Director threatened to quit if it continued -- yet we still do not know what they were doing then. How can that be? There is no justification for permitting that conduct to remain concealed from the American public, let alone from the Congress.
Warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty implicate virtually every critical political value assaulted for the last six years by this administration -- our basic constitutional protections, checks and balances and the rule of law. Capitulation by the Democratic Congress here would eliminate any residual doubt (if there is any) about what this Congress really is. We shouldn't assume the worst unless and until it actually happens, and until it does, everything should be done to prevent that.Right Wing Groups Smear 12 year old
12 year old's family did need help
White House Leaks video to Fox, ruins pipeline info on Al Queda
Wpost Article on Fox Leak
Gleen Greenwald's Blog on Warrantless Wiretapping
NYTimes Article on FISA law
Mac Gs World
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